Last November at the Third Annual Keenevention five Copblockers had a lively panel discussion. Video of that talk has been up for a while, but in case you didn’t yet catch it or you balked at its length, this video includes some excerpts.
Props to those involved: JP Freeman, Jessica Phillips, and Steve Daves, all of Keene Cop Block, and Rob Mathias and Ann Leverette, who are based in Manchester, where they create weekly the Rebel Love Show.
And of course, much love to Ian Freeman and other Keenevention organizers for spearheading the event and capturing and sharing the footage. You can find out more about the upcoming Fourth Annual Keenevention, which is happening November 4-6, at http://Keenevention.info
Sparked by last year’s “Free the Nipple” protests, some prudish state representatives filed legislation that would make it a misdemeanor for women to be topless anywhere in New Hampshire. (They did make an exception for breast-feeding.) A topless lady would be facing up to a year in jail, were this terrible legislation to pass. Men would still be allowed to be topless under the discriminatory bill, HB 1525.
Thankfully, the bill is nearly dead thanks to a unanimous vote to kill it by the NH house criminal justice committee. The committee voted today 18-0 to “ITL” (Inexpedient to Legislate) the legislation. The bill is not yet off the table – that will happen later when the full house votes on it.
Liberty rep John A. Burt put forth the motion to ITL the bill and also wrote the majority “blurb” for the house calendar along with Free State Project early mover and state representative Amanda Bouldin. (Amanda previously had made headlines for defending topless freedom from attack by the prudish reps who proposed the topless ban.) Here’s the text of Burt and Bouldin’s blurb:
This bill expands the indecent exposure law to include the anus (regardless of gender) as well as the nipple and areola (only if female). The committee heard testimony from many who warned that, due to likely acts of civil disobedience, the state would face expensive court fees should this become law. The NHCLU testified that violation of such a law could be considered protected political speech, indicating that the state would be unsuccessful in litigation. The committee sees no sense in passing a law that cannot be enforced.
The committee also believes that this bill violates Art. 2 of the State Constitution, which states that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, creed, color, sex or national origin.” This bill attempts to apply a law to women only. This bill would also place police officers in the uncomfortable position of having to determine the gender of a potential offender. Lastly, an offender (if convicted) would be listed in the state’s sex offender registry after a second conviction, which many considered to be an excessive punishment.
In a state with a nippy average temperature of only 46 degrees, the risk of rampant nudity seems rather low. The committee considers this legislation inexpedient to legislate for these reasons.
Today is a decisive loss for the prudes. To them I say leave topless women alone – your kids will be fine. If you don’t like seeing female areola, then advocate all public property be abolished and turned private. Then you can have a private beach just for people who want to keep their clothes on.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on Free the Nipple NH.
Recorded February 20th, 2016
The Rebel Love Show broadcasted live from the Radisson Hotel in Manchester NH for the Free State Project’s annual Liberty Forum. This week we loaded up with guests including Renee Kate of Anarchy After Dark, Matthes Von Guttenberg, Virgil Vaduva of Cell 411, Christopher David of Arcade City, Ellen Ball, Tatiana Moroz plays a song dedicated to Ross Ulbricht, and Lyn Ulbricht comes on to talk about her son and how you can support him at FreeRoss.orgThe Rebel Love Show airs every Tuesday night 10pm-12am EST on LRN.FM and RebelLoveShow.com/live.
However, for reasons yet unknown, it’s being claimed by new FSP president Matt Philips that keynote speaker Edward Snowden requested there be no recording by audience members. Free Keene blogger and NH native Garret Ean recorded anyway and released it here yesterday.
Why would Snowden try to restrict recording when hundreds of people would be attending with recording devices, including, likely some undercover federal agents? I tweeted at Snowden today in an attempt to get a comment and received no reply thus far. According to the organizer of the Liberty Forum in an unofficial facebook post, there was some agreement to allow the FSP to record the event and have Reason.com (whose editor Nick Gillespie conducted the interview with Snowden) release it via their YouTube.
Many in the liberty community are on an all-out attack against Garret for making the recording, and me for refusing to pull it down. One even called for “Free Keene” to be banned from all FSP events. Hilariously, that ban would include FK blogger JJ Schlessinger, who is the video professional the FSP hired to record the event. He called Free Talk Live Tuesday night to inform our audience that he is currently editing a high-quality five-camera HD shoot of the Snowden talk.
NH mainstream newspapers are now picking up the story of this latest FSP schism. Here’s the first two headlines, posted online and appearing in print today:
The 2016 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, held this past weekend at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, was the usual gathering of hundreds of libertarians and anarchists for the annual conference. Different this year was the headlining event, drawing the largest crowd of the forum, and featuring a speaker who was occupying the opposite side of the globe. Broadcasting into the parlor via a live video feed was Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower famed for revealing the details of government surveillance operations targeting humans situated both within and without the borders of the United States.
In the approximately fifty minutes that Snowden was linked into the room, he was interviewed by Reason’s Nick Gillespie on a variety of topics from Snowden’s perspective on current events, the United States presidential race, ideological inspirations, and potential paths for the future.
Strangely, an announcement was made before the event requesting that all unofficial filming be suspended. In the interests of objective journalism, I ensured that an audio device was running for the duration of the event, which resulted in poor audio quality compared to what could have been captured without the restriction. Illustrated with images captured by multiple sources from the event, enjoy this presentation of Edward Snowden’s appearance before the audience of the 2016 NH Liberty Forum.
