by Ian | Nov 7, 2016 |
The former Keene Activist Center logo
This Summer, the board of the Shire Free Church Monadnock, which owns the property at River and Leverett opted to end the activist experiment and we parted ways with Rich Paul, converting the property back into a home for rent. It quickly filled up with liberty-friendly New Hampshire natives. Plus liberty-minded folks now occupy another house on the street as the Free Streets Project has officially begun in Keene and Manchester.
While some have mourned the loss of the historic center for Keene activism, ultimately the movement in Keene is now more diverse, with even more regular real-life activist meetups than has ever happened in Keene:
For a handy calendar listing many of the public meetups we have each month, check out the Keene Activist Calendar here.
In addition to the regular meetups, Keene activists are pushing forward in the area of online organization. While many libertarians are stuck on Facebook and are suffering from it, Keene activists have been successfully using Telegram and two-way radios for years for instant communications, plus we’re now experimenting with Trello for project organization. (more…)
by Ian | Nov 5, 2016 |
As thousands are gathering in the streets in London around the world for the “Million Mask March“, donning Guy Fawkes masks (popularized by the excellent movie, “V for Vendetta”), it’s important to remember that Guy Fawkes was not a hero. Fawkes was willing to commit violence against people to forward his cause. While many libertarians may feel the government deserves violence in response to their violent, depraved acts, here at the Free Keene blog, we’re committed to peaceful evolution.
Violence may appear to work in the short-term, but ultimately all it does is justify the ever-increasing police state in the minds of the state actors and their supporters. Violence also brings you down to the level of the state – that’s the tool they use. We should not want to be like them. There are a myriad of peaceful solutions to moving liberty ahead in our lifetime – the most powerful of which is to concentrate liberty-minded activists in one geographic area – New Hampshire. Another major solution is to end New Hampshire’s involvement in the federal government.
To that end, for the fourth time in about a month, V-mask wearing activists gathered in Keene’s Central Square to demonstrate in favor of New Hampshire declaring peaceful independence from the United States. Normally our response from drivers and passers-by is very positive, but today people were even more excited and interested. We had at least a dozen people take photos of us from their cars or while walking around, plus one guy from Massachusetts even parked and came up to shoot video of us. People in New Hampshire love the idea of independence and setting NH free from the evil United States federal government!
Let’s keep the conversation going. If you’re new to secession, check out some of the info from the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence to learn more about why it’s the best idea for a bright, prosperous, and free future.
If you enjoy my posts, please sign up for a free account at Steemit, follow my posts there, and vote them up. If you do that, I’ll actually get paid in cryptocurrency for your vote-ups, thank you!
Keene Activists in Central Square November 5th for Secession
by Ian | Oct 29, 2016 |
Cell 411, Now With Ride Sharing!
Originally launched in August of 2015, Cell 411 has since been installed 85,000 times, worldwide. Its primary purpose is to connect people with their friends, family, and neighbors in any emergency situation, from being pulled over, to a fire, to medical emergency. At that it’s been an incredible success, and it’s free to use. Now, by adding ride sharing, Cell 411 has gone to the next level. They’ve decentralized ride sharing even moreso than UBER and Lyft and Cell 411 did it without a single dollar from investors or publicity in advance. For those who have been watching Arcade City – Cell 411 has accomplished AC’s original vision while Arcade City’s app doesn’t even have ride sharing yet.
I’ve been a longtime supporter of Arcade City. Arcade City’s founder, Christopher David gave a great keynote speech at the 2015 Keenevention and is a blogger here at Free Keene. In its early days and through the summer I promoted AC on my radio show and became one of the top recruiters. However with the early September release of the current software, I was pretty bummed that ride-sharing was not included, and instead it was just a “game” involving earning and giving “karma points” to other people in the network. It didn’t make sense, especially since Arcade City already had ride-scheduling in their early 2016 app. Obviously the code from the first app could have been included in the September 2016 release and allowed drivers to get started giving people rides immediately.
Good-bye UBER, Cell 411 is here.
Drivers of UBER and Lyft were understandably interested in Arcade City, which promised an app that would truly decentralize ride sharing. The original vision Chris David had was to cut the corporations out of the picture. No longer would UBER and Lyft (and their imitators) be able to control the drivers. Drivers would be able to set their own rates as well as accepted payment methods – cash, bitcoin, credit card, silver, or whatever. This vision would bring a new level of competition to the transportation business, while making it even harder for governments to target those involved with regulation. (more…)
by Ian | Oct 22, 2016 |
Rain and cold didn’t keep these hardcore activists from coming out to support NH Exit!
Despite temperatures in the mid-forties and constant rain, over half-a-dozen supporters of New Hampshire independence showed up in Keene’s Central Square this afternoon to demonstrate in favor of secession!
The NH Exiters have been in the news multiple times since this summer’s historic “Brexit” vote, where voters in Great Britain voted to exit the European Union. Today’s event in Keene featured all-masked participants holding various secession-related signage.
One masked man took the event to a new level with a double flag display featuring the NH state flag on top of an upside-down United States flag. While one woman shouted at us something about “people died for you” out her window, the supermajority of responses to today’s demonstration were positive. We received plenty of honks, cheers, and waves and of course people in cars and on foot had to take pictures, including an amateur photographer from Chicago who was very excited to see people out supporting secession. (more…)
by Ian | Oct 21, 2016 |
Bill Weld Censured by LP of NH
To others, like Free Keene blogger Rich Paul, the watering down of the message is seen as a way to promote libertarianism in the hopes that people will see Johnson and Weld’s campaign and learn more about the principle of non-aggression on their own.
It’s a disagreement that has split the libertarian party for much longer than just this campaign season. Sadly, the pandering pragmatists have been winning for a decade-or-so, and have nominated unprincipled people like Bob Barr, Bill Weld, and Gary Johnson, when the party used to put forward principled, true libertarians like Harry Browne and Ron Paul. Browne and Paul explained the principles and ideas of liberty, whereas Johnson and Weld won’t even broach the subject. Their campaign is about them, not libertarianism.
Thankfully, the tide is turning in the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. First, the party’s delegates to the national convention this year were some of the only delegates to NOT vote in favor of Johnson/Weld. Then, more recently the party overwhelmingly voted in principled doers Darryl W Perry and Rodger Paxton into the chairman/vice chairman roles.
Now the LP of NH’s executive committee has made an unprecedented move and voted to censure Weld for donating money to Chris Sununu, the republican candidate for governor here in New Hampshire:
Since the gubernatorial race is pivotal to ballot access retention in New Hampshire for the Libertarian Party, it is a betrayal for Bill Weld to give money to our direct competitor, money that will be used in direct contravention to the money spent by the national Libertarian Party and the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire to achieve and retain our ballot access.
It’s refreshing to see the long-languishing Libertarian Party of New Hampshire finally getting active again and making a stand for the principles that have been long lost on the national LP. Kudos.
If you enjoy my posts, please sign up for a free account at Steemit, follow my posts there, and vote them up. If you do that, I’ll actually get paid in cryptocurrency for your vote-ups, thank you!
by Ian | Oct 18, 2016 |
Apparently conspiracy talk show host Alex Jones has offered $5,000 to people who can get on television for shouting “Bill Clinton is a Rapist”. Yesterday, it happened in Keene during the Bill Clinton speech:
https://youtu.be/rKW2WJ-swuI
Jones’ challenge appears to be working, as the Keene Sentinel, after mentioning the two men who interrupted Clinton’s speech by repeatedly shouting the phrase, went on to discuss some of the sexual assault allegations against him. Kudos to the brave, unknown activists who smartly shouted out near the media riser, so it was easy for the cameramen covering the speech to focus on their interruption.
That said, Jones is no libertarian. Long a fan of border control, he has fallen heads-over-heels for Donald Trump. Here’s a hilariously edited video of him absolutely in the throes of Trumpism. Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vldC6_AmCV0
If you enjoy my posts, please sign up for a free account at Steemit, follow my posts there, and vote them up. If you do that, I’ll actually get paid in cryptocurrency for your vote-ups, thank you!
