Hello, I’m Ian Freeman. As you may know by now, I filed last month to run as a Libertarian for NH Senate district 10 (the Keene area). As with my previous campaigns, I’m not accepting campaign contributions though I will certainly accept media requests and fill out candidate questionnaires sent by various interest groups from across NH and beyond.
Additionally, I’ll be posting those filled-out questionnaires online for everyone to see. Starting with the first one I’ve received and just mailed back today, to the National Education Association of New Hampshire (NEA-NH). Click for PDF.
I’ll also use these posts as an opportunity to state my position in much-easier-to-read text on the various issues raised by the interest groups. So, here’s a summary of what I said to them regarding education:
The problems with public education today aren’t the people running the system. They are good people who genuinely want to help educate the youth and are doing their best under the circumstances. The problem with the system is that it is “public”, meaning government-run and funded through coercive taxation.
Government schools, whether they be standard or charter are never going to rise to the level of quality they could reach if they were self-owning competitors in a free market in education. Instead, because of the one-system-fits-all structure of the government schools, everyone is brought down to the lowest common denominator and there are constant public fights between interest groups and political parties over how the money is to be spent. The NEA questionnaire brings up multiple issues that people are frequently warring over including pensions, charter schools, and vouchers. None of these things would be an issue in a free market in education. People could just choose to support the school models they like. No need for fighting with your neighbors.
The school people are good, but the system sucks.
I’ve proposed this before locally on a talk show and was told by the host (a former city councilor, Cynthia Georgina) that it would be great, but that it can’t happen.
Well, why not? Just because government schools have existed in our lifetimes and have been funded through taxes doesn’t mean it always has to be that way. Change your beliefs, and you’ll change reality.
How do we get from here – where education is provided by the slow, expensive monopoly on violence known as the State of New Hampshire – to the free market in education where a thousand ideas can bloom without any coercion?
In order to create as much of a win-win transition to the market as possible, I propose each government school be turned into a self-owning, market-based school with shares of ownership distributed to all current and retired school staff. This would set the schools free to determine their own future. They figure out funding, retirement, rules, curriculum, etc. If they fail, they can sell off their assets, like anyone else who fails in the market. If they succeed, they’ll do that by satisfying their customers. Anyone who doesn’t like their educational model would just choose to send their child elsewhere. (more…)
Darryl W Perry interviews Porcfest head organizer Rodger Paxton in the LRN.FM Tent at Forkfest 2018
Forkfest 2018 was a success! From those I spoke with on the subject, we had way more attendees than last year (which was the first year of the new, decentralized libertarian camping festival). Numbers were noticeably heavier on the first day this year and we hit an estimated over 100 by Saturday. 150 more arrived Sunday for Jay Noone’s wedding and many stayed until the final day, Monday, which included parties thrown by Darryl W Perry and the now annual final night bash at Jim and Chris Babb’s campsite.
The attendees were much more geographically diverse with attendees from across the United States and even from as far away as Lithuania!
Of course, since Forkfest is decentralized and has no organizers or tickets, we really have only estimates of attendance based on observing the state of the campground. That said, it was clearly up maybe three times more than last year, and that’s if you don’t factor in the 150 wedding attendees.
The weather was excellent until the very last day when we were hit with a pounding storm during Free Talk Live‘s recording. Like last year, we broadcast from the event every day from one of the RV sites. Initially it was the opening night hangout for the hardcore campers who showed up for the always-least-populated first day of Thursday.
Rich Paul leads the traditional 4:20 celebration at Forkfest 2018.
On Saturday, we gathered at the LRN.FM broadcast tent for 4:20 with Rich Paul performing his invocation over the PA system. Much cannabis was smoked and a good time had by all.
Sunday was Jay and Shalon Noone’s beautiful wedding and reception, attended by a good portion of the entire park. You can see photos from the wedding as well as the LRN.FM tent broadcasts on my Google Photos album here.
Monday included the parties I mentioned above and many vendors arriving for the Porcupine Freedom Festival which is the long-running, centrally-organized, ticketed libertarian festival that begins at the end of Forkfest.
Speaking of vendors, with the exception of a couple of heroic breakfast vendors, food vending was largely a missed opportunity. Many Forkfest attendees had to acquire their own food throughout a good portion of the festival. Luckily, the restaurant at the just-down-the-street Cabot Inn, “The Olde Bostonian Tavern & Grill” had recently started taking cryptocurrency like Bitcoin (BTC) and DASH! Some of us ate there on multiple evenings!
Shalon and Jay Noone, shortly after getting married – the first ever at Forkfest.
Word has definitely gotten around about Forkfest and many attendees were only planning on staying for Forkfest rather than staying all the way through the Porcupine Freedom Festival (Porcfest). Attendees I spoke with seemed to appreciate the fact that no one was in charge, the decentralization, and the freedom found at Forkfest as a result. (Porcfest, as an organized, board-directed festival, has acquired a number of undesirable rules and vendor fees that has turned many away over the years.)
As with last year, this year’s festival had different names, depending on whom you asked. Whether Forkfest, Somaliafest, or Banned Camp, it’s intended to be the five days prior to the start of the Porcupine Freedom Festival. Forkfest is five full days of no rules (beyond what Rogers Campground already has, and they are pretty hands-off) and just good liberty-oriented company at a beautiful site located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Each attendee decides what to do, bring, or create for others.
Pencil in Forkfest on your calendar for 2019 from June 13th until the 18th. Those are tentative dates, based on what Porcfest organizer Rodger Paxton said about Porcfest 2019’s likely dates of 6/18-23. For the latest info and to plan for next year with other attendees, please join the unofficial Forkfest forum and Telegram chat, which you can find via the unofficial website at Forkfest.party. You can also RSVP via the Forkfest 2019 entry on Liberty.menu. Given we only promoted this year’s event for three months prior and we’ll be promoting 2019 for a full year, it should be even bigger next year! See you in 2019!
Border Patrol Agent Salutes Camera at NH Internal Oppressive Checkpoint
On Friday, several Forkfest 2018 attendees drove an hour South of Roger’s Campground to I-93 around Woodstock, NH – the site of the repeating temporary internal Border Patrol immigration checkpoints. Based on activist reports, the checkpoint appeared to have been operating that day from noon until 7pm. As is typical of these checkpoints, they were stopping every car to ask occupants if they are “US Citizens“. They also had a dog they were walking up and down the line of waiting cars.
As it turns out, a car full of people with video cameras wasn’t welcome in their secondary screening area. After one agent orders me to pull into their secondary screening for refusing to answer questions, his commanding officer intervenes before I can even cross over a single lane of traffic, and even apologizes for not wasting more of our time with their invasive screening! In hindsight, I should have told him to apologize to all the cars without camera-toting occupants for wasting everyone’s time with their oppressive police state checkpoint. Here’s the ridiculous video:
No one in the car was planning to answer the agents’ questions, given one has a right to remain silent (that the US Supreme Court has now required be invoked in police encounters). Obedience to tyrants only encourages them. Besides, as someone who believes in liberty, I don’t believe in government borders. Peaceful people should be allowed to enter a free country. Of course, we all know by now the United States is not a free country, and in fact has been dropping on the various international freedom rankings.
Also this weekend, NH Libertarian Party candidate for US Congress NH-2, Justin O’Donnell also traversed the checkpoint while live streaming to facebook. His friend in the passenger seat obediently answered the agent’s inquiry while O’Donnell debated with the agents, ultimately admitting to having been born in Boston, MA. Prior to this, the agent threatened to detain O’Donnell until he answered the question. (more…)
Liberty-oriented campers hanging out by the LRN.FM broadcast tent, Day One of Forkfest 2018
Forkfest 2018, the decentralized liberty camping event has started small but strong, kicking off yesterday at Roger’s Campground in the beautiful White Mountains of Lancaster, New Hampshire.
Like the first event last year, this year started slow on Thursday while many are still at work. By my estimates, more are here already this year than were here last year by this time. Not only that, the geographic variety of attendees is more pronounced. This year already has visitors from Lithuania and the United Kingdom as well as a couple from Virginia. Plus many others have indicated they intend to be here no later than Saturday.
What’s happening at Forkfest 2018? Good question! Parties, athletic events, a wedding, a letter-writing event for Ross Ulbricht, a Mesh Networking session, and others have been announced by various attendees. Of course, plenty of socializing and just hanging out by a campfire. There are already a couple of competing calendars that have popped up for attendees to use to promote whatever events they’re involved with. You can find those calendars via the unofficial Forkfest Forum.
Tavern Owner Laura Hardiman Poses with the Anypay App and Cryptocurrency-Loving Forkfest Attendees
If you’re in the area, come on up to Lancaster and join us. There are no tickets to Forkfest (and no organizers or board of directors)! Your only expenses to enjoy your time with other libertarians, voluntarists, and liberty-loving anarchists are your camping costs from Rogers Campground.
Forkfest continues through Monday the 18th and is expected to grow throughout the weekend. Of course, it’s not going to be the size of the fifteen year event that it was spawned from, the Porcupine Freedom Festival (aka Porcfest), which begins on Tuesday the 19th at noon and runs through Sunday the 25th
Yesterday morning I took a trip to the NH Secretary of State’s office in Concord and was the first candidate from any party to file for the NH Senate District 10 race. It was also my first time in the dozens years I’ve lived here that I’ve been able to actually file as a Libertarian! In 2014 and 2016 I ran as a democrat in the gubernatorial primaries, since at that time it was insanely difficult for the Libertarians to qualify for ballot access. Thankfully, all that changed after the 2016 election, when (probably thanks to the awful Trump and Hillary choices at national) the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire regained full ballot access status on par with the two big parties, for the first time in two decades!
As a result of this change, hopefully you’ll be seeing more Libertarian candidates on the ballot this year than ever. My campaign platform is the same as it was when I ran for governor:
End All Prohibition of Victimless “Crimes”
Secede from the United States
Make Taxes Voluntary
As before, I will not be accepting campaign contributions. This is a decentralized campaign. If you want to support it somehow, that’s up to you. I appreciate your support, in whatever way you choose to express it.
My goal with the campaign, as always, is to give voters the option to choose freedom and communicate the ideas of liberty in any media appearance, debate, or wherever I’m given the opportunity to do so. As a principled voluntarist, I advocate for the Non-Aggression Principle, which means that I believe that aggressive force should not be used against peaceful people. I’ll be explaining that during the campaign and what it means when applied to government, which is an agency with a monopoly on aggressive force. (more…)
Great news! As of 2016’s election, the Libertarian Party of NH regained ballot status equal to the Rs and Ds for the first time in two decades! I’d previously been registered as a Democrat for the purposes of running for office but this year I made the switch to Libertarian, since it was the first time I’ve been able to do that since moving here in 2006.
That’s the short version of the story. There’s more, however. In addition to re-registering to vote as a Libertarian, I also modified the voter registration form to reflect my “state citizen” status and put the Keene City Clerk and Secretary of State of NH offices on notice of that.
What is a “state citizen”, you ask? Good question. Here’s my understanding, which the clerk and S.O.S. didn’t contradict. I present to you the notice I sent to the clerk and S.O.S. and the video of my visit to the clerk’s office to change my voter registration and notice them of my state citizen status, under duress. Below the video, I’ll discuss in more detail.
First, beware that there are a lot of “paytriots” out there who will sell you information purported to get you out of the state system if you just file the right papers in the right order in the right places. It’s all a bunch of crap, from what I can tell. If you try their methods and they don’t work, they’ll just claim you did something wrong. You didn’t study enough, didn’t buy the advanced course, etc. (more…)
