A few weeks after winning their first-ever “Liberty in Action” achievement award for “Spreading the Message”, as popularly voted on by Free State Project members, the FSP’s unelected board of directors banned me and my talk radio show, from attending FSP events like Porcfest. (An event I helped sponsor and promote for many years.)
Last year that festival became “family friendly”, after years of prudish libertarians complaining about drug use and occasional female toplessness. To kick off the changes, I was banned from the FSP events because of my libertarian views on age of consent, according to their press release. It’s commonly known that my most recent girlfriend was a later-teenager and this supposedly infuriated key volunteers within the FSP, leading to my ouster.
Did you know that John McAfee was in his late 50s when he had a 16 year old girlfriend? According to the same WIRED article, at age 66, one of his multiple live-in girlfriends was 17! Surely plenty of men secretly wish they could do the same, while outwardly condemning John for his attraction to young women.
Have you signed the Shire Society Declaration yet?
To be clear, I don’t want John to get banned from Porcfest, nor do I have any interest in being part of the FSP. I just want to point out the glaring, laughable hypocrisy. People who love liberty should probably still attend Porcfest, but it’s getting harder to recommend that, given that the event length this year has been chopped in half but the price hasn’t lowered one bit.
Plus, Porcfest now has a more-principled competitor, SomaliaFest, which is set to happen June 16th-20th, at Rogers Campground. That’s right before Porcfest, which is slated for June 21st-25th at the same campground. Unlike today’s Porcfest, but more like Porcfest from the old days, SomaliaFest has no entrance fee. Attendees can just camp, vend, hang out with cool liberty folk, and self-organize whatever they want. SomaliaFest sounds like a good time, and much more market-driven than the now-centrally-controlled Porcfest. (more…)
Last night around midnight, an NH state trooper pulled over some young men just outside the LRN.FM studio in Keene, NH. The officer must be new to the force, as there are about a dozen liberty-oriented folks who live on this street corner, which means that at any time of the day or night, it’s likely someone is awake and will notice. Renee and I spotted the pullover and after getting on some warm clothing, given it was about zero degrees Fahrenheit, we immediately responded. Here’s the video:
As we approached the scene, we heard the officer badgering a guy in the back of the car about ID. As I understand it, it’s not a requirement for anyone in a car except the driver to show ID, so I told the officer he doesn’t need to be asking for that information. Pretty much right as we arrived, he went back to his cruiser. I then approached the driver and asked if he was okay with us recording the scene. He was. (more…)
Bureaucrats love to try to throw their weight around to try to get you to do what they say. Some really seem to get off on controlling others. In this case, the clerk inside the courtroom at Portsmouth district court lied to me this morning, claiming I was not allowed to record the judge in court.
This despite having a media registration with the NH Supreme Court and countless hours under my belt recording in various courts around New Hampshire.
However, this was my first time in Portsmouth’s court and the well-fed bureaucrat thought she’d be able to intimidate me. I stood my ground, and sure enough when judge Gardner entered the room she said nothing to me or Derrick J Freeman or David Jurist, all of whom were armed with cameras in the courtroom. (more…)
In New Hampshire, it’s legal to open carry a gun on public property and plenty of private property (where the property owners welcome it). However, concealing the gun is illegal without a “license” from the state. The “live free or die” state is frequently touted as being more gun friendly than other states, and that’s definitely true. However, if the state people decide they don’t like you, the concealed carry statute is written with a loophole they can drive a Mack truck through:
shall issue a license to such applicant authorizing the applicant to carry a loaded pistol or revolver in this state for not less than 4 years from the date of issue, if it appears that the applicant has good reason to fear injury to the applicant’s person or property or has any proper purpose, and that the applicant is a suitable person to be licensed.
The “suitable person” loophole appears to allow police to deny someone a concealed license for anything they want and so far the NH supreme court is backing them up. In 2014 Derrick J was denied a concealed license by Keene Police for basically not being obedient to police, as they later explained in court. Keene’s district court judge Edward J Burke agreed that despite Derrick J being completely peaceful, the Keene Police’s decision to deny him was legal.
The latest development in the ridiculous concealed carry denial saga is my recent rejection by Keene Police (PDF). This time their rationale for denying my supposed right is not because of what I’ve done in the past, but merely because there’s a “current drug investigation” involving me.
So, now all the police in New Hampshire have to do to deny you the right to defend yourself via concealed carry is open an investigation into you. When do they have to close said investigation? Apparently there’s no specific timeframe.
Liberty-minded state reps have been working to end the concealed license requirement entirely, but thus far it has been stopped by the governor, Maggie Hassan. Another bill attempted to remove the “suitable” loophole from the statute. Perhaps the next election will shake things up a bit more in favor of liberty. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for more on the 2016 election.
Meanwhile, I’m still considering re-applying for the concealed license, likely being denied again, and then taking the mandatory appeal to the district court just for fun.
Now that the voters of Britain have voted to leave the European Union, the world is abuzz with talk of secession. Other countries in the EU may now also hold similar referendums and here in the US, the Texas secessionists (long the most noteworthy independence movement in North America) have been garnering press coverage for a “Texit”. New Hampshire activists have been promoting secession for a few years via the Foundation for NH Independence and the NH Liberty Party. We’re ready to move ahead with #NHexit if some politicians can show enough backbone to get behind the idea and put forward a serious proposal to the people of the Shire.
However, in both Texas and NH we have a long way to go. I think we need a little friendly competition between Texas and New Hampshire to help move things along. While the Texas secessionists have been at it a while, they are not advocates of freedom. Many of them want a theocracy and are xenophobic, so if they were to get their way, it would likely lead Texas to being even more of a police state.
NH, on the other hand, continues to have liberty-minded activists move in, many of whom are very interested in NH leaving the United States. We have the most principled, pro-liberty secession movement out there and it will only get stronger.
Secession NOW!
Here’s a message from Dave Ridley, the founder of the new NHexit group here in the Shire:
If UK can do it to EU, why can’t NH can do it to DC?
In 1788 New Hampshire tried to become part of a dream…a Federal system which made to her many of the same kinds of promises which the EU made to Britain. But many New Hampshirites, like Britons, have experienced growing disillusion with the ever-bloating central government they joined. It has become a bloodthirsty empire to which they now find themselves tightly bound.
Faced with a more humane government at Brussels than the Washington regimes have ruled us, British voters nevertheless chose to walk away. How much more justified New Hampshire’s departure would be…from the murderous wannabe globe-rulers in DC. (more…)
The Free State Project migration of liberty activists to New Hampshire continues to be a topic of discussion in NH media, because we’re making an impact, unlike libertarians pretty much everywhere else in the world. Most libertarian groups never or rarely get press, but liberty activists in New Hampshire get coverage frequently.
Dan Eaton, also an in-studio guest and a state rep from Stoddard called Free Staters in the state house “obstructionist” and accused them of hiding their true political affiliations. He also insulted Keene’s Robin Hooders, calling us “rude” and suggested that we are un-civil. Eaton trotted out the claim, long since proven false, that Robin Hooders “harass” the parking enforcers. Gericke let this slander slide by with no response. Overall, Gericke did well in the interview and did defend independent media when Eaton accused us of “intimidating” senators with our video cameras from the NH senate gallery.
Free State Project President Carla Gericke Keynoting Keenevention 2014
Eaton and a caller accused Free Staters of hiding their true beliefs to get elected. While some people may not be being honest in politics, no one can accuse Keene libertarians of hiding. One caller did point out correctly that Free Staters are running as republicans and democrats because the ballot access for third parties in NH is very difficult and was made that way by the very same people who are complaining about the Free Staters “hiding”.
Eaton specifically attacked Free Keene and suggested that we somehow set up the topless open carry event from several years ago, which we didn’t – we just reported on it. Eaton (or maybe it was Union Leader’s Drew Cline who was also a guest on the show) also called for the FSP to purge its rolls of all anarchists and Carla did not respond. While I personally don’t identify with the term “anarchist”, as I am a voluntarist, I am pretty sure that Carla has referred to herself as an anarchist in the past. Is Carla now a “minarchist” (a supporter of small government) or is she also hiding her true beliefs?
Exchange host Laura Knoy has been made aware in the past that Keene’s Robin Hooders would be happy to appear on her show to address the lies told about us, and she’s never taken us up on it, instead allowing the slander to continue, interview after interview. Carla, despite knowing the truth about us, sits silently rather than defend the peaceful Robin Hooders that brought the Free State Project millions of dollars in good publicity internationally. Further, Carla even labels Keene activists as “shock jocks”. Is that a term only for those of us doing talk radio here or all the controversial activists?
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