If you’ve been following this blog within the past few months, you’re well aware of the situation wherein the people calling themselves the “City of Keene” have been threatening me over a couch in my tenants yard. In case you need to catch up, here are the two most recent posts on the issue prior to this one: post 1, post 2. The current situation is that they are demanding I come to their “trial” about this issue on November 14th at 1:30 PM in Keene “district court”.
“Why don’t you just move the couch?”, you might ask. The answer is it’s my tenants’ lawn, they utilize the couch for Halloween decorations, in the other seasons of the year it’s relatively unobtrusive, plus no one has ever complained, until recently. The people calling themselves the “city” claim that there is a complainant who lives down the street, however this person allegedly refuses to meet me and talk to me like an adult. Instead, the alleged neighbor calls the Blue Light Gang to try to intimidate me into disposing of the couch. (more…)
Today, I paid a visit, under duress of course, to Keene “district court”. Video of the event will be posted to FreeKeene later on, and you can hear audio and my thoughts on tonight’s Free Talk Live. Unfortunately, this morning “judge” Edward Burke interrupted me before I could get to the appreciative comments I had intended to share with him. I was inspired to write him a letter with my thoughts, especially after one of the “court” bureaucrats told me that I “wasn’t allowed” to communicate with Mr. Burke. Considering I have not consented to their process at all, and there is no evidence of an agreement between us, I’m not sure how that particular bureaucrat could make such a claim. I’m presuming she was uninformed. Here is my open letter to Edward Burke. I will be sending a signed copy to Mr. Burke via private delivery signature service.
Mr. Burke,
Earlier today, I had intended to tell you of my appreciation for some of the decisions you have made recently. I will do so now, as I have the opportunity. I’d like to thank you for your recent “not guilty” decision in Nick Ryder’s “speeding” case, your sensible decision to allow multiple recording devices into your “court”, allowing camera panning, and the reasonable ways you handled Russell Kanning and David Krouse’s “driving without registration” cases. Also, a while back I was pleased with how you handled David Manning’s “illegal U-turn” situation. You appear to be a reasonable man and I hope this letter finds you and approachable mood.
Before I continue, I’d like to apologize for the rather unusual situation you have been put in. (more…)
If you’ve been reading this blog for the last month or so, you know that the “City of Keene” has been threatening me over my tenants’ couch in their lawn. First, they sent one of their “enforcers” to threaten me with a $100 ticket. Then, one of the commenters here on Free Keene dug up a little dirt on their “enforcer” Carl Patten Jr. Early last week, my tenants snapped a photo of Mr. Patten snooping around and photographing the couch.
Here is the latest on the situation. The day after Mr. Patten was caught snooping, a letter arrived in my mailbox (more…)
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…)
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:
If you’ve been following this blog within the past few months, you’re well aware of the situation wherein the people calling themselves the “City of Keene” have been threatening me over a couch in my tenants yard. In case you need to catch up, here are the two most recent posts on the issue prior to this one: post 1, post 2. The current situation is that they are demanding I come to their “trial” about this issue on November 14th at 1:30 PM in Keene “district court”.
Today, I paid a visit, under duress of course, to Keene “district court”. Video of the event will be posted to FreeKeene later on, and you can hear audio and my thoughts on 
FreeKeene’s Ian calls WKBK’s Talkback to discuss governments’ lack of incentive and the “Pledge of Allegiance”.
