I wrote this hopefully persuasive essay for the printed newsletter published by FIJA. I’ve missed the deadline for the Summer issue, but it should appear later this year. I had been reading their letters to the editor and been amazed that no one was writing about much else besides just giving Fully Informed Jury Association information to their friends, family, and co-workers. This is good, but not particularly effective. I hope that explaining what we do here in Keene will encourage others around the country to duplicate our efforts, or better yet come to NH and get active here.
I’m publishing this article here on the blog in the hopes that it will encourage similar activism other parts of New Hampshire, where honestly, there is no excuse for activists to not be doing this incredibly simple and effective activism. We’ve been challenging the activists in other areas to take this up for months now, and they haven’t. Which of course just makes Keene a more attractive destination in comparison.
Thanks to Chris Muskus for being the driving force behind this amazingly successful FIJA outreach, as it enters it’s second year this August.
In the last year, my fellow activists and I have distributed hundreds of Fully Informed Jury Association pamphlets into the hands of potential jurors as they arrive at the courthouse for jury selection. Month after month, we gather on the first Monday in front of the Cheshire superior court in Keene, New Hampshire and offer FIJA information to every single person walking into the courthouse. We arrive at 8am when the doors open and stay until about 8:45am, fifteen minutes after the potential jurors are supposed to be there, just to make sure we reach all the late arrivals. About 80-90% of the people we approach will take the flier. Usually I’ll smile and say something like, “Good morning, would you like some free information on your rights as a juror?”, and hold out a trifold. That’s all it takes! (more…)
It’s fair to say I have a bad case of the wanderlust. Hopefully this year as a Motorhome Diaries crew member I’ll get a bit of that out of my system as we criss-cross North America. I’ve known that one day I’d decide to settle down somewhere but when looking into the future I couldn’t picture where that would be. After spending too-many years in Washington DC, I can confidently cross that off the list.
During our “search for freedom in America” we’ve met a lot of great people and have been to many beautiful places but for me, one sticks out: Keene, New Hampshire. Our friends at FreeKeene.com cover the vibrant pro-freedom activism scene in great detail that got my attention and inspired me and Pete to make it one of our first stops. This is my second visit and if one can fall for a community, I’m smitten. I’ll explain.
Keene liberty activists once again have a paper dedicated to the happenings in Keene, NH. I have finished the first issue of The Free Keene Press. Meant to be an extension of the Free Keene blog with a bent directed at the community of Keene. The FKP will start out as a single page inside the New Hampshire Free Press.
The NH Free Press was once titled the Keene Free Press when Kat Kanning, the paper’s creator, lived in Keene. Now like a seed inside a piece of fruit the next iteration of a local Keene newspaper is borne within the pages of the former one.
My goal is simply to have one more avenue of communication with the individuals who inhabit the Keene area. I will not shy away from controversy or contentious content but instead I hope to give insight where there is confusion. I have plans to expand this paper and to do some actual investigative reporting but for now it will start out small and grow into whatever it becomes.
If you have any ideas or thoughts in how to make this a better paper please share them and if you would like to lend you time in any way be sure to let me know.
You will find a .pdf of this first issue among the links to the right, titled Press. http://press.freekeene.com
Please direct any special comments or inquiries to press@freekeene.com
For those of you who don’t know me, allow me to introduce myself.
I moved to Keene in 2004 with my wife of 16 years and two children, now 7 and 8.
I have owned the same home in Keene since moving here. I attend Grace Evangelical Free Church in Spofford, am a DC-10 captain for an international charter airline, home-school our active children and play drums and other musical instruments.
I also serve as the president of the Free State Project.
Over the past several weeks, numerous news articles and opinion pieces have mentioned the Free State Project. I’d like to offer facts and opinions that I hope will shed light on the subject from an angle not yet covered. (more…)
The Free State Project (FSP) is an organization that promotes the idea that liberty-minded people move to New Hampshire and get active. A “Free Stater” is nothing more than a liberty activist, and could even be from NH. Schuman, incidentally, is from Connecticut.
Schuman claims the NH Free Press is a “media outlet” of the FSP. The NH Free Press is a newspaper run by two liberty activists, but the FSP has no control over what activists do when they get here. No one ordered me to respond to Schuman’s ill-informed piece; I didn’t ask permission from, and nor do I speak for the FSP. Russell and Kat Kanning, the publishers of the NH Free Press, may consider themselves “9/11 truthers” but I don’t know many liberty activists in the Keene area who feel the same way. We are individuals with divergent beliefs but with the common thread of loving freedom so much that we’re willing to take action for it.
As for his suggestion that liberty activists are akin to the rude person who stood in front of him at a concert once, I certainly haven’t met them all, but those I know are friendly, respectful, and are good neighbors. They also range from small government minarchists to those who are voluntaryists and absolutely oppose the initiation of force against peaceful people. (more…)
I wrote this hopefully persuasive essay for the printed newsletter published by FIJA. I’ve missed the deadline for the Summer issue, but it should appear later this year. I had been reading their letters to the editor and been amazed that no one was writing about much else besides just giving Fully Informed Jury Association information to their friends, family, and co-workers. This is good, but not particularly effective. I hope that explaining what we do here in Keene will encourage others around the country to duplicate our efforts, or better yet come to NH and get active here.
It’s fair to say I have a bad case of the wanderlust. Hopefully this year as a Motorhome Diaries crew member I’ll get a bit of that out of my system as we criss-cross North America. I’ve known that one day I’d decide to settle down somewhere but when looking into the future I couldn’t picture where that would be. After spending too-many years in Washington DC, I can confidently cross that off the list.
