by Ian | May 22, 2020 |
Best protestor at the first big right to assemble protest; “FEAR IS THE REAL VIRUS”
The last couple of months have been disappointing, even for an optimist like me. As a tremendous overreaction to a virus, a medical authoritarian state has arisen across the planet. Some government gangs have gone farther than others with this COVID crackdown, but it’s been common in most places across the United States to see restaurants, bars, and various other businesses partially or fully shut down in response to the “orders” of men and women calling themselves “governors”.
As one might expect, with only the ability to provide take-out or delivered food, many restaurants closed temporarily rather than offer those limited services. Some have since shuttered permanently including several local eateries, one of which had been in business over two decades here in Keene, the popular Elm City Bagels.
Even the local newspaper, the Keene Sentinel, is asking for donations. They were already losing subscribers over the last two decades, but when a traditionally advertiser-supported media company starts asking for direct reader support, you know they are seeing some really tough times. Newspapers across the country are slashing jobs as advertisers are disappearing.
It’s not just newspapers, but radio and television are also suffering from a major advertiser downturn. I spend my mornings calling talk radio stations across the country to pitch my show to them, and many are seeing large drops in ad revenue. Radio companies have been laying off employees and asking others to take pay cuts. The next step will be some stations going out of business entirely and selling their assets for pennies on the dollar.
These are just a few examples of how business is taking it on the chin economically, which leads to personal destruction in the lives of the owners and employees. Those who advocate for the forced shutdowns say things like “if it just saves one life”. What about the lives of those people who have already committed suicide due to their life drastically changing for the worse? How about the people who are being physically beaten by government agents in places like New York City or Uganda, just for leaving their homes?
Masked Concord Gang Members Threaten Parents, Kids at Playground
How many people would have quarantined themselves if it weren’t “required”? Are these tyrannical governors’ “emergency orders” even legal? Arguably, even under the state system, they are not, but that’s not going to persuade a cop from ceasing an arrest. Sure, you can challenge the arrest in court later, if you survive it and can afford the attorneys. Legal or not, some states are enforcing their orders with violence. The New Hampshire government gang has been mostly hands-off regarding police enforcement, though they are still trying to intimidate in some cases.
We can’t be sure how many people would choose to put these state “guidelines” into place if they didn’t think they were mandatory. I spoke with a local business owner recently about the idea that the governor’s “orders” are actually just suggestions. I even had an attorney who was interested in taking the case if the owner opened up in spite of the governor’s orders. Despite having an attorney’s interest, the owner was not willing to have to face down the government gang.
They government people can be a scary bunch, and everyone knows that they have the power to ruin your life and business if they want. As we’ve seen with the salon owners and barbers who’ve bravely stood up against “the state” people across the country, most of them roll over and submit once their “license” gets pulled and they are then facing hundreds of dollars a day in fines. Why would they pay the fines? Obedience to the system. Certainly, they know on some level that if they don’t pay – men with guns calling themselves “the police” will show up and stop them from opening their business.
Whether people obey because they actually agree with the lockdowns and are afraid of catching the virus, or whether they obey because they are afraid of the state gang members’ retribution, the common element is fear.
Fear is the opposite of love. It is a killer. Fear kills dreams and opportunities. It kills fun and enthusiasm. Fear kills inspiration and hope. I could surely continue this list, but in this bizarre world we’ve found ourselves in, fear is killing the economy and freedom and the people calling themselves “the state” or “the federal government” are feeding on the fear and destruction. Many people are begging the state people to rule them and to rule harder – with an iron fist – if it just saves one life.
Did New Hampshire people choose death over freedom?
It’s been particularly disappointing to witness the effects of fear here in the supposed “Live Free or Die” state. Sure, there have been some great protests with hundreds attending at the state house, but we haven’t had much in the way of resistance against this tyranny from businesses, the activity of which is what gives life to the economy. Though one NH salon owner has this week filed a lawsuit against “HIS EXCELLENCY” governor Chris Sununu’s office, even this “pushback” still acknowledges that the state is in charge. Suing works within their system, acknowledging its legitimacy. It’s asking one tentacle of the monsterous state to stop the other one from choking you to death.
The salon owner suing the governor’s office isn’t wrong for doing so. She believes it’s her only option. The state reopening “guidance”, which confusingly are also termed “orders” to make them sound mandatory, are strangling her salon and will put her under. To simply reopen her business in whatever way she wants, ignoring the guidelines that would harm her, is to her not even an option. However, that is the solution to this medical authoritarian tyranny: ignore the state, damn the consequences, and open your doors, business owners!
Belief in and obedience to the idea of “the state” is what has gotten us to this point in the first place. Whenever the first “business license” was created by the state gang, freedom-loving business owners should have pushed back and refused to get one. No one should have to beg for permission to offer a product or service in a free market. Sadly, for whatever reason, they got the licenses and subjected themselves to the arbitrary rule of the state gang, consenting to the idea of a regulated marketplace. Now, when the state gang says jump, they do what they are told, or men with guns will destroy their livelihood.
If enough business owners opened up, and it wouldn’t even need to be a majority of them, maybe just ten percent – the state could not stop them all. If they refused to pay the fines, their freedom-loving customers would support them, surely. If the arrests come, let them. If the state gang wants to show the people how violent they are, let’s show people the violence clearly on video. We don’t need the idea of “the state” or coercive government. It’s important to realize, “the state” is just an idea. One in which people believe so strongly they’re willing to kill for it, if necessary, but ultimately a mass delusion. The idea of the state doesn’t make life better. The state destroys life and feed off of productivity. The state propagates fear and war. If people are afraid, the state’s power grows. War is the health of the state, and surprise! The government goons and its lapdog media are talking about the COVID thing like it’s a war.
Order your “The Real Virus is Fear” Shirt from CustomInk. We don’t make anything on this – just wanted to share the design with you.
The federal gang are also printing money at record levels, already multiple trillions added to the debt and likely more on the way, worse than any war in U.S. history. While it looks on the surface like they are helping – free money is arriving in bank accounts – there is a cost to this, and it’s called inflation and possibly hyperinflation.
The state cultists want to remind you of why you need them. But you really don’t. If you do want the state in your life, bend over, cause they’re gonna give it all to you as hard and fast as they can get away with. Just like they did after 9/11, but worse this time.
Though I will continue to attend them, protests are just begging. Free people refuse to obey. Open up. Stop asking permission. Do the right thing, before it’s too late.
Oh, and if you love liberty, get to New Hampshire ASAP and help us. If now isn’t the time to migrate for liberty, when will it be time?
P.S. I found a slick website that lets you custom design t-shirts and print only one if you need, or a bunch at a discount. A local group of freedom-lovers ordered several and so I wanted to share the link to the design we made for dual-sided “The Real Virus is Fear” t-shirts. You can put the logo on whatever you want, or make your own that looks completely different. I don’t make any money if you buy through this link – I just wanted to share the design with you in case you want one.
by Ian | Mar 20, 2020 |
New Hampshire’s Longest Running Regular Libertarian Social Meetup
The last couple of weeks have been nuts. We’ve seen authoritarianism rising globally at a rapid clip, using health as the excuse and scaring people into total obedience and isolation. It’s tragic. In New Hampshire and several other states, restaurants and bars have been told they aren’t allowed to serve customers inside their establishments with the exception of take out and delivery. Other businesses are having people work from home and “social distancing” has been put in place as the new normal. In other cases, like California, total lockdowns are now in place. In NH, an “emergency order” was issued by the state governor, Chris Sununu, who – no joke – is actually referred to as “HIS EXCELLENCY” in the order which purportedly bans any gathering of over fifty people.
It’s an outrageous order and contrary to a basic right of humans, which is the right to assemble. It’s also a violation of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In order for many humans to be happy, they need to be around other people. We are a social animal. Now the people calling themselves “the state” or “the government” have decided to threaten everyone with violence if they don’t do as they are told and OBEY – for their own good, of course.
Normally, libertarians are skeptical of the things they are told by government goons, however we’ve seen yet another schism in the movement in the last few weeks over this Coronavirus scare. Apparently if an authoritarian puts on a lab coat then many libertarians will fall under their spell.
I don’t know if Coronavirus is the threat the government and media are making it out to be. I do know this, however:
1. Politicians and bureaucrats lie. There’s no reason to believe they are telling the truth now. There is a long history of governments manufacturing a crisis and spreading fear in order to attain more power. We saw this in a big way prior to Coronavirus in the hysterical paranoia fostered by the state after 9/11. As a result we saw the rise of “Homeland Security” and the further elimination of freedom. The response to Coronavirus is even worse. In some cases like San Francisco people are under total lockdowns. They also use the term “lockdown” in prison.
2. Media benefits when it propagates fear. “If it bleeds, it leads!” News is a business. They have advertisers, so the more people they can get to tune in, the more valuable the ad space. If people are in a state of fear, they are more likely to hang on through that next commercial break. Plus, mainstream news sources depend on government for its press releases and usually incorporate them, verbatim, into their on-air copy. Though in theory their job is to expose political corruption, if they are too good at this, the state agents will not talk to them any longer and then they won’t get “the scoop”, so any critique of government from mainstream media is usually highly limited.
3. Whenever government takes more freedoms, it doesn’t cede that ground back to liberty after the “crisis” has ended.
Keene Bitcoin Meetup
Government gangsters say it and the media propagates it. As a result, people are scared to death of another iteration of the flu that as of this writing, has infected just over 250,000 people globally – according to numbers provided BY THE STATE. Some libertarians believe the governments are downplaying the numbers to keep people calm. Others believe the state agents are inflating the numbers to scare people more. Who knows what the truth is.
I do know this, people are obedient and more than willing to do what they are ordered by people wearing fancy hats, uniforms, and lab coats. They are easily frightened into giving up their freedoms, all for the promise that they’ll be able to continue to suck air.
However, what is the point of living if you can’t make your own choices?
Thankfully, not everyone is living in fear. There are occasional breaks in the fear porn news to reveal that many younger people are still getting together. In New Hampshire some heroic folks have filed a lawsuit against the “State of New Hampshire” over the governor’s unconstitutional and anti-freedom executive order.
If people across New Hampshire don’t stand up and take back their liberties, then we no longer deserve the “live free or die” slogan. To that end, in spite of Sununu’s order, the longest-running weekly social gathering of libertarians in New Hampshire, “Social Sundays” will continue. Previously held at Local Burger on Main St, it has moved to the Bitcoin Embassy NH located at 661 Marlboro St. in Keene. The new start time is now 5pm. Attend at your own risk and bring your own food and drink. If the event gets to over 51 people a special prize will be awarded. No cops allowed.
by Ian | Feb 10, 2020 |
Anypay Disables BTC Payments
As Bitcoin (BTC) is once again making headlines for crossing the $10,000 price point, the world’s premiere multi-cryptocurrency, real-life payments platform Anypay has announced they are disabling BTC from their system. Based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Anypay’s co-founder Steven Zeiler said in an announcement today that BTC was “worthless for payments”, now that transactions can be easily canceled.
Originally, when Bitcoin (BTC) launched in 2009, and for several years into its life, one of the major selling points that set it apart from other electronic payments like credit cards was that Bitcoin transactions were irreversible. Once the buyer hit send, there was no way for the buyer to undo it. There was no “authority” like a credit card company or bank that the buyer could contact to have them reverse the transaction. Business owners are very familiar with the concept of the dreaded “chargeback”, where a dishonest customer can use the credit card company’s ability to undo transactions to scam a merchant and receive money back AND keep the product. Chargebacks were impossible under Bitcoin (BTC) and this was a major reason why businesses wanted to accept BTC.
However, midway through its first decade, after its anonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared and development was taken over by others who did not share Satoshi’s vision, the newer programmers introduced a “feature” called “Replace By Fee” or RBF. The purported reason for this was to allow a sender – after they’d already sent a transaction – to update the associated fee and help it get through the network faster. However, this also allowed them to cancel the transaction entirely, as long as the transaction had not yet received its first confirmation. This RBF “feature” broke one of the fundamental tenets of the original vision of Bitcoin – irreversible transactions.
Satoshi Nakamoto, Anonymous Creator of Bitcoin
For a while, this cancellation “feature” was only accessible through the “full node” Bitcoin Core software, which meant it was relatively tough to use in a real life payments situation. However, as shown by this video here, now more mobile wallets are incorporating the “feature”, which means that accepting Bitcoin (BTC) at point-of-sale is now highly dangerous and increases the risk of fraud. Hence, Anypay has announced they are no longer going to allow Bitcoin (BTC) payments on their platform.
In a video posted today, Zeiler announces that BTC has been disabled on the Anypay Cash Register app until further notice, as he’s had a “final revelation that it’s worthless for payments”. This, after having seen the new video that shows how easy it is now to commit fraud against real-life payment systems using BTC.
While some BTC-only fanatics will be disappointed by the news, the reality is most people don’t use BTC for payments via Anypay’s platform anyway, given BTC’s ridiculously high fees compared to other, more useful cryptos that were designed for payments like Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and DASH or even Bitcoin SV (BSV), which Anypay is now supporting. Plus, when paying with BCH or DASH on Anypay at a real-life business one will usually receive 10% back instantly thanks to Anypay’s “Bitcoin Cash-Back” and “DASH-Back” programs.
I think Anypay has made the right choice here to protect merchants from potential fraud. It’s too bad the Bitcoin (BTC) programmers forced Anypay’s hand, by making BTC less useful over time. Once upon a time Bitcoin was useful for payments, as it was originally intended. Sadly, those days are long gone. Bitcoin (BTC) may still be the king crypto, but if it’s not useful for payments, is it really a currency?
by Ian | Feb 7, 2020 |
Anypaymap.com shows the most active crypto-accepting businesses in the area.
Big news from the Monadnock Crypto blog! The Keene area now has three additional local businesses that are accepting cryptocurrency for their services. All three are mobile businesses and will travel to their customers and were all added to the local Coinmap in the last month. That brings the already very high concentration of businesses accepting crypto to an all new level, keeping Keene in the top tier of cities globally that are high in crypto-acceptance-per-capita. In fact, both Forbes and Bitcoin.com have called Keene, “Crypto Mecca”.
With her new business, “EuPHOria”, the founding chef of Keene’s “Pho Keene Great”, Isabelle Rose, has struck out on her own and is now regularly meeting customers in Keene with hot Vietnamese food cooked-to-order. Another recent addition is Pure Bliss Clean, a professional cleaning service that handles home and small businesses. Also, Kenzy Dietz of “KD Prestige Detailing” recently won Monadnock Crypto’s radio giveaway contest on 92.7 Bratt FM and decided to set up Anypay Cash Register shortly thereafter. Dietz had already been introduced to cryptocurrency by someone close to her and was elated to be the winner of the $500-worth-of-crypto giveaway. When asked what her reasons were for accepting cryptocurrency at her car detailing business, Dietz said, “Cryptocurrency is the currency of the future, so I am delighted to be a local business that accepts it as payment. Not only is it easy to accept, but it’s a great way to broaden my businesses acceptance of alternatives to paying with just cash, checks, or debit. The future is coming.”
You can read the full article over on the Monadnock Crypto blog here.