by Ian | Jun 28, 2011 |
Recently, Slate.com’s David Weigel ran a piece on Free Keene and that prompted Koch Industries to send David a notice informing him that Koch Industries has nothing to do with Free Keene.
Whether paranoid political control freaks want to believe it is up-to-them.
In other news, the Keene Sentinel acknowledges Free Keene as a viable competitor in the same breath as WMUR TV in this piece about how the Sentinel handled the self-immolation, from former Sentinel staffer Sarah Palermo. The Sentinel’s Jessica Garcia said:
“We were a little disappointed, to tell you the truth, when other news sources such as WMUR and even Free Keene had video from the scene”
How did FK scoop the Sentinel? It was all thanks to Porcupine 411 and activist Kurt Hoffman for making the call.
by Ian | Jun 27, 2011 |
Here’s the story that NPR is running on the 2011 Porcupine Freedom Festival.
SUSAN STAMBERG, host:
Raising money has also been tough for little-known Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson. The former New Mexico governor has called his own fundraising pathetic. Johnson is hoping to jump-start his campaign at a unique political event winding down now in the mountains of New Hampshire. It is the Porcupine Freedom Festival, or Porcfest, and it’s an offshoot of the Free State Project, a movement to colonize the Live Free or Die state with people who believe government should do no more than protect individual rights. (more…)
by Ian | Jun 17, 2011 |
Liberty on Tour‘s Pete Eyre took the time to thoughtfully respond to Dave Weigel’s excellent piece on Free Keene that appeared this week on Slate.com.
David Weigel’s piece Live Free or Move on Slate.com about Kene, NH’s pro-liberty community went live last night – I thought I’d share some related thoughts as Liberty On Tour was specifically mentioned and I was one of those interviewed.
(Full transparency – I first crossed paths with Dave maybe five years back when I worked in DC’s libertarian think tank world.)
I was happy to read Dave’s positive overview of the going-ons here – it never hurts when an outlet with as many readers as Slate.com helps to introduce more people to voluntaryism. Thanks Dave! That said, at times I found myself wishing that different words or examples were used to paint a more-accurate picture.
In the first sentence Dave likened Ademo Freeman, Ian Freeman and me as “antigovernment activists” rather than something like “self-government advocates.” This differentiation may seem trivial but I think it’s important to tease out as our lives aren’t reactionary or led by negativity, but are proactive and led ultimately by love.
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by Skeptikos | Jun 16, 2011 |
The Union Leader reports that New Hampshire officials intend to cooperate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in their effort to piggyback on the work of local law enforcement.
The initiative, eerily named “Secure Communities,” would check the fingerprints of everyone who is arrested against federal immigration databases. In the case of a match, the ICE is notified and the agency uses its discretion to decide how to respond.
The ICE says that its priority is the removal of convicted felons, but, according to ICE data, 28% of the 49,638 people deported between October 2009 and September 2010 as a result of Secure Communities were convicted of no crime whatsoever. Many others were charged only with misdemeanors. According to the Immigration Policy Center, “Examinations of ICE’s Secure Communities statistics reveals that those identified by Secure Communities include large numbers of individuals with no criminal history, individuals charged with (but not convicted of) crimes, and legal immigrants with prior convictions that make them deportable.”
The program currently operates in 1,315 counties in 42 states, and the ICE plans to have a Secure Communities presence in every state by the end of 2011, with total coverage by 2013. Yet they’ve already been rebuffed by state officials in Washington, D.C., Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, New York, and, just recently, in Massachusetts.
The Pew Research Center estimates that New Hampshire is home to 10 or 20 thousand undocumented immigrants, and the Immigration Policy Center estimates that they pay about $5 million dollars in state taxes every year. So when will New Hampshire join the opposition?
Learn more about the impact of Secure Communities at the Immigration Policy Center, Deportation Nation, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the New York Times.
by Ian | Jun 16, 2011 |
Slate.com is huge. Alexa ranks it as around 1,200th most popular in the world and 385th most popular in the US. It’s a respected online magazine and reporter David Weigel has over 30,000 twitter followers. Thanks to David for making the drive to Keene to explore the unique liberty movement that is the Free State Project, and more specifically the interesting cast of liberty activists that call Keene their home. Here’s his excellent article. Be sure to hit the like button at the bottom of their article!
Oh, and several people David met are older than him, including me, but he’s right, there are a lot of younger adults in this movement. The families and business owners take a longer time to move, but they are coming! Also, I’m sure many liberty activists would self describe as pro-liberty or being in favor of self-government rather than describe as anti-government. Even without those minor corrections this is an amazing piece.
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by Meg McLain | Jun 8, 2011 |
Photo from the Sunday Washington Post!
It’s starting to seem like whenever I go on vacation from the Shire, I am presented with the most amusing activism opportunities. Saturday was an great example of this. Staying just a few hours away from DC, I couldn’t resist hopping a bus and attending the Dance Party at the Thomas Jefferson Monument in Washington, DC.
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