Here’s a comment left by an inhabitant of Keene about “code enforcer” Carl Patten Jr. on my original video post, followed by my comments:
I am a resident of Keene who (reluctantly) filed a complaint back in April with Keene Code Enforcement against a neighbor for having an unregistered truck on our property line, as well as running a business out of our quiet, residential zone…not to mention filling up our deeded right of ways with his unused camper and business equipment. My complaint was passed to Carl Patten who called me on the telephone and in a very condescending manner told me that our neighbors were within their rights to park as many trucks as they wanted and that he ‘didn’t see’ the engine block sitting in the driveway, or the pallet of bricks and stone that are strewn about the driveway…nor did he notice the unregistered truck in their yard. Next thing I learned, Carl is FRIENDS with this person who is clearly violating our deeded rights. Our Realtor was told by code enforcement last week that I called to have the file closed a few months ago(which I did not). So….now that I hear about your situation, I can clearly see that Mr. Patten brings favoritism into his work ethic…hmmm, perhaps he would allow you to put a couch in MY front yard and you and your tenants can do all the bird watching you would like because obviously, on my street, this stuff is allowed. We may be on different sides of the political track but we obviously have a similar gripe about how a city employee handles his job…Good luck to you…I am definitely staying tuned.
Tina, thank you for sharing your story. What you are seeing here is not an isolated incident but instead quite typical of government. Because government is funded through coercion, its agents can rule arbitrarily and capriciously, punish their enemies, and reward their friends. If you decide you’ve had it with them and refused to pay a portion of their “property tax bill”, they could try to take your house from you! No business in the voluntary society operates in this manner.
I’m not sure what “side of the political track” you’re on, but I assure you I’m not on either side. I believe politics just leads us into conflict over who should rule the other. It is an endless conflict as multiple interest groups struggle to wrest control of the violence of the state away from each other. (more…)
Free State project is moving slowly
Like-minded people are still coming to the Granite State
By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff
Published: Saturday, August 30, 2008
Nearly five years have passed since the Free State Project adopted New Hampshire as its home base and began the task of convincing 20,000 activists to commit to uprooting their lives and moving here.
They would come in droves, the plan went, overwhelming the sparsely populated state and ultimately changing the way big government works by limiting its power through free-market solutions.
There would be tax reductions; regulations such as being required to have a driver’s license to get behind the wheel of your own car would be relaxed or scrapped; power would be restored to the people and the Granite State would become the Free State, a model for the rest of the country and even the world.
That hasn’t happened yet, and only 8,558 people have committed to making the move since the project’s inception, according to its Web site. (more…)
One week ago, someone claiming to be from CITY OF KEENE “Code Enforcement” threatened me over a couch in my tenants’ yard. They use the couch for birdwatching and it has been there for longer than I can remember. Now the Blue Light Gang has a problem with it? Whose property is this, anyway?
Today, 08/26/08 he returned and I had my camera ready.
Keene’s government people are hereby put on notice:
Everything you know is about to change. As each month goes by, more liberty loving activists will be moving into the Keene area. Please understand that voluntary interaction in a free market is the most humane method of interaction for mankind. These ideas of liberty are powerful and infectious. As our concentration and influence build, our ideas will become popular. Your government corporation will lose its most precious element of legitimacy as more and more people choose to ignore your dictates and live as free men and women.
Enjoy your coercive reign of the people in Keene while it lasts. I expect you’ll find your power over others diminishing over time, hopefully sooner rather than later, but I want to assure you that it is going to happen. Therefore, you should start thinking about products or services that you can offer into the marketplace on a voluntary basis, just like the rest of us peaceful people.
As a little taste of what is coming, here’s an what just one Keene-bound activist is doing down in his current home of Texas. Sam from the Obscured Truth Network will be arriving here sometime before the end of this year:
An Olympic caliber haze has China looking to enact more drastic measures to clean up the cloud of pollution in Beijing’s skies. This article goes on to say, “Pollution has been a pressing concern for the Games, as local organizers have promised to hold a ‘Green Olympics,’ despite the air that often ranks among the most polluted in the world.”
I hope that the conditions remain as bad as they are to show the world the truth of everyday Beijing.
I am aware this has little to do with Keene but it speaks to a larger point about how this one current distraction being pawned off on the vapid TV viewing masses is so utterly absurd.
Don’t worry about the wars in the Mideast, we need to fix the planet first.
Mr. Bantz does a pretty good job at summarizing what’s gone on to this point. It may be hard for people in this community to understand why it’s a “surprise” that the police were welcoming to the cameras. Just this week, news came out of a videographer taking news footage being taken down by an officer that just didn’t want to be recorded.
Copwatch isn’t about being aggressive. Aggression and force starts by the police when the blue lights turn on behind somebody. We just want to be there so that the officer involved knows everything he does must be able to stand up to scrutiny. There are police agencies just states and cities away from us that take questions and cameras as threats and challenges to their authority, and they don’t respond well to them. It’s great that Keene officers are open for the most part, and Copwatch is about making sure we’ll see it if they go down the road toward corruption.
