Friday morning’s Legislative Panel at Keenevention 2013 focused on the tools of activism at the NH State House. Starting with learning how a idea can become a law, discussion included the mechanics of working with political parties, understanding NH demographics, how to win and lose elections, the technique of measuring legislators in a variety of ways, as well as how to successfully lobby (and how not to!) to stop new proposed bad laws and help remove existing bad laws (and [rarely] passing good ones.) Led by former State Representative and Free Keene blogger Seth Cohn, panelists included current State Rep. Tim O’Flaherty (D), former State Rep. Spec Bowers (R), and NH Liberty Alliance Chair Eileen Landies.
I must say, the first-ever Keenevention worked out splendidly, thanks to over 100 great attendees, speakers, volunteers, and VIPs! As promised, the conference focused on activism and our speakers consisted of Free State Project early movers and of course liberty-loving NH natives. As FSP early mover and superactivist Carla Mora expressed on the Keenevention 2013 facebook event,
“This was one hell of an inspirational liberty event. It was very different from ones I have attended in the past…we are doing something right if we are surrounded by these people.”
One attendee told me that he’d never seen such in-depth panels. Our activist speakers and panelists were outstanding, interesting, and informative. Jay Freeville said Keenevention was the,
“First liberty convention I’ve ever been to where I’ve actually wanted to go to more speakers/panels because they were consistently interesting enough to hold my attention!”
In addition, Keenevention was intimate, but yet still large enough to be diverse with people attending from as far away as Wisconsin, Canada, Ohio, and Virgina. The over 100 Keeneventioneers not only watched great speeches and panels, but also conversed, dined together on-the-town, and participated in various activism and social activities. You can the rest of this post via the full article at Keenevention.info!
According to the Sentinel’s election rundown, turnout among the city’s 16,598 registered voters was 12 percent. Put another way, that’s 88% of people who are registered to vote that decided that the election wasn’t important enough to bother. Despite the claims of those who advocate for controlling their neighbors, the Keene election is hardly a mandate against liberty. It’s the same as always: a superminority of people are the ones who decide the winners and those people are usually those who support “the state”. Everyone else is too busy with important things like their lives.
Clearly, despite the excellent slate of liberty-oriented candidates, the average people of Keene did not fear freedom so much that they decided to come vote against us. Turnout this year was nothing unusual. Alternately, they did not desire freedom so much that they decided to come out and vote for us. Most people are in-the-dark as to what is happening here. Only the politically aware are likely to vote in municipal elections, and politically aware people tend to be those who wish to control others, hence, the easy wins for aggression-supporting candidates.
Surely the political class is resting easy with their victories, however, they should keep in mind that should the “sleeping giant” of average folks awaken, it would only take 2-3% of the population of Keene to come out and vote for liberty to completely flip the tables. For instance, I got 10th place out of 10 in the at-large race. However, I’d have needed only 700 votes to have made 5th place and won a seat on the council. 700 is about 3% of Keene’s 23,000 population. What could motivate those people to actually vote? Your guess is as good as mine.
P.S. Thanks to all those who voted for liberty-oriented candidates!
Thanks to John Bush and Cat Bleish for their well-produced, entertaining series about living independently and sustainably. Episode one of Sovereign Living has premiered online and features plenty of footage from Bardo Farm, a project in Croydon, NH started by Free State Project participants. As an aside, John and Cat are both FSP participants currently living in Austin, TX.
The city of Keene has been introduced to a new verb called “robin-hooding.”
According to local activists and members of Free Keene, “Robin-Hooding” is their reference for “One who saves another from getting a parking ticket,” Ian Freeman said. Ian Freeman is a member of this activist group. He said that Free Keene isn’t really an organization or company, just some individuals coming together to help out their fellow motorists. (more…)
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