While Robin Hooders prepare to spend a full day in court, this evening Concord city bureaucrats will hold the public hearing on the now infamous BEARCAT grant sought by the police. At 7pm, the public meeting is slated to begin at the council chambers on Green Street. Check out the informative response from Occupy New Hampshire, reformed following the decision to label them a terrorist group by the local police, who gathered to express their opposition to militarism and corporate protectionism. Additional coverage has recently run in Mother Jones, The Washington Times, Common Dreams, and The Boston Liberal. As posted to the Concord-NH.patch.com:
Participants and sympathizers of what was the Occupy New Hampshire movement are shocked to learn that the city of Concord considers us a potential threat to public safety and that we “present daily challenges.” In fact, the city considers us such a threat that it filed a fraudulent grant request to purchase a quarter of a million dollar armored attack vehicle to protect the community from non violent activists in this state.
Occupy NH established an explicit nonviolent ethic at its onset. No ONH event has ever witnessed a single act of violence. Furthermore, while Chief Duval claims that this is for the protection of the citizens of Concord, and wonders about the concern of citizens outside of Concord, he made this process a statewide issue and invited non-Concord residents to participate in the discussion and decision making process by targeting statewide organizations such as Occupy New Hampshire, and the Free State Project. (more…)
It’s interesting to be the fly on the wall for the conversation between people who are believers in the state and who feel threatened, angry, or confused about the liberty movement in NH. The misinformation and lies are pervasive, of course, as are personal insults about prominent liberty activists. That’s all to be expected when you have an effective movement that is actually making an impact – something the liberty movement has never had until the Free State Project.
More interesting still are the conspiracy theories that the state-believers ascribe to the liberty activism world. While some people in the liberty movement follow conspiracies (and in my opinion, to their detriment), apparently so do the statists. Here’s a summary of those I can recall off the top of my head or are currently being discussed in the brand new facebook group for haters of this website and the people associated with it, “Free Keene from Free Staters“.
The Keene Sentinel has been infiltrated by Free Keene operatives. – This one is brand new and courtesy of a thread on the Free Keene from Free Staters haters group on Facebook. Basically, someone posted an old article about Mark Edge from the Keene Sentinel, which discusses his past as a prisoner for nine years for a murder charge. Mark didn’t kill anyone and has turned his life around. Nonetheless, the state-believers are so paranoid that they think Sentinel reporter is candy-coating the murder rap and therefore must be Free Keene operatives that has infiltrated the Sentinel (former Sentinel reporter Phil Bantz is indicated by one hater group member as a possible mole). It is stated in the group that the paper’s editors will be approached, and much trashing of the Sentinel is done as well. The poor guys at the Sentinel can’t win, it seems. Now they are part of the liberty movement, according to paranoid state-believers.
Activism must be organized hierarchically, like the state. – This one is pretty pervasive. People who believe in the state tend to believe that every other group of people must be organized just like theirs – an understandable confusion. (more…)
The DHS grant application states: “The State of New Hampshire’s experience with terrorism slants primarily towards the domestic type. We are fortunate that our State has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike however on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges. Outside of officially organized groups, several homegrown clusters that are anti-government and pose problems for law enforcement agencies.”
As president of the Free State Project (“FSP”), a NH-based non-profit organization with the sole mission of attracting 20,000 pro-freedom people to the Granite State, I am alarmed and appalled at the cleverly worded insinuation that the FSP is a domestic terrorist threat, or that “Free Staters” are “active and present daily challenges” to the Concord Police Department.
Individuals who sign up for the FSP generally subscribe to the non-aggression principle, an ethical stance which asserts that "aggression" is inherently illegitimate. "Aggression" is defined as the initiation of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property. Our website specifically states: "Anyone who promotes violence, racial hatred, or bigotry is not welcome." (more…)
The Concord (NH) PD has applied for a Lenco BEARCAT, according to the Union Leader, the application states “Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges,” in addition to organized groups, it cited “several homegrown clusters that are anti-government and pose problems for law enforcement agencies.”
The NHCLU Executive Director Devon Chaffee said, “It’s far from clear to us why an armored vehicle would be necessary to address what are generally, by and large, non-violent movements that in fact provide little or no threat to the security of our state.”
Thanks to Devon Chaffee of the NHCLU, I now have a copy of the application, which is being posted for the world to see! (more…)
For starters, patients can’t grow their own cannabis, there will only be 4 dispensaries in the entire State, and patients will be forced to pay a yearly fee to have a “therapeutic cannabis” ID card, not to mention that such dispensaries will not be open for quite some time.
Some people are making a big deal over the fact that PTSD was specifically removed, however better terminology (“traumatic brain injury, or one or more injuries that significantly interferes with daily activities as documented by the patient’s provider”) was added.
The legislation does not allow for anyone in NH who is not a “resident” to be treated as a “Visiting qualifying patient” (The law defines a “Visiting qualifying patient” as a patient with a qualifying medical condition who is not a resident of New Hampshire or who has been a resident of New Hampshire for fewer than 30 days and is not eligible to purchase therapeutic cannabis in New Hampshire or receive cannabis from a qualifying New Hampshire patient.)
One can only hope that this bill is improved in the next session!
July 18, 2013 was National Chalk the Police Day. Several Keene activists went to Central Square, and then to the sidewalk in front of the KPD “Satellite Office” across the street from the Square. Those who attended chalked pro-liberty messages, and had some pleasant conversations with people walking through the area. And, it wouldn’t be Chalk the Police without an interaction involving a Police Officer.
While Robin Hooders prepare to spend a full day in court, this evening Concord city bureaucrats will hold the public hearing on the now infamous BEARCAT grant sought by the police. At 7pm, the public meeting is slated to begin at the council chambers on Green Street. Check out the informative response from Occupy New Hampshire, reformed following the decision to label them a terrorist group by the local police, who gathered to express their opposition to militarism and corporate protectionism. Additional coverage has recently run in Mother Jones, The Washington Times, Common Dreams, and The Boston Liberal. As posted to the Concord-NH.patch.com:
![Gericke_Carla2008[1]](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Gericke_Carla20081.gif)
