The Union Leader has editorialized about the Free State Project and voluntaryists. They get it wrong about voluntarists, claiming that a voluntarist’s belief is that even the existence of prisons is a violation of our rights. That’s not at all the position of voluntarism. Voluntarism merely states that all human interaction should be voluntary. As a voluntarist, I have no problem with the idea of locking away truly dangerous people. I DO have a problem with locking up peaceful people.
In 2001, some libertarians thought they could secure the maximum amount of personal liberty for themselves if they convinced like-minded people to move en masse to one state. They chose New Hampshire for the combination of its “Live free or die” ethos and its small size. Their goal was to have 20,000 people move here, a state with 1.3 million people, making them a whopping 1.5 percent of the population. In 11 years, about 1,000 have come. At this rate, they will reach their goal in 220 years.
And yet this movement is what some on New Hampshire’s far left consider an existential threat. (more…)
In early October of last year, Chalk the Police Day was celebrated internationally. Readers of this blog may remember the story of a particularly pushy bureaucrat who called the police on chalkers — only to have police join the fun!
I’ve seen Andy a few times since this encounter. He was present at the opening of the pedestrian North Bridge and also at a recent city council committee meeting that I had attended. He’s never taken the opportunity to apologize for his behavior. Even if you accidentally bump someone or their property, the courteous thing to do is to square up on the mistake. So when I heard Andy would be on WKBK’s Talkback this morning, I tuned in.
I listened as a friend call in about the video and asked if Andy had anything to say about it. He chose to say nothing beyond that he had “learned from it” and was moving on. I decided to call in and hold his feet to the fire. The audio will be available once the show’s podcast is posted. After I prompt Andy to reflect on the video and consider apologizing, my call is hung up on. Hearing the radio after the call, the hosts imply that some people ‘harass’ city officials. Derrick J called in soon after that, and asked why the hosts were characterizing others as harassing, when it was the Parks and Recreation director who had engaged in unprivileged physical contact.
Why do you think it’s appropriate to act in an official capacity while intentionally concealing your identity badge?
At that, Cynthia responded, “I don’t want to talk about this”, and he was hung up on. I called in shortly after that, and should have been recording, because my approximately 10-20 second call was not just hung up on, but dumped, meaning it was erased from broadcast. Listening to the radio, you would hear the seconds before my call, and the seconds immediately after.(more…)
Now, Foster’s Daily Democrat, a NH newspaper from the Dover area, has called the delivering of flowers to Chase “childish”, and claims the “FSP has some growing up to do”. Maybe the Foster’s editors should check themselves to see if they actually possess a sense of humor. Here’s their editorial:
FSP Has Some Growing Up to Do
We would expect more political savvy from an eight year old.
On Wednesday, supporters of the Free State Project reported they had sent flowers to State Rep. Cynthia Chase thanking her “for all the free media coverage, which naturally resulted in more new people signing up for the Free State Project.”
Clyde has yet to weigh in with his side of the story, but considering its Fred’s job to be the “code enforcer”, that he likely intimidated Clyde into allowing him to take the sign. Clyde’s roommate and blogger at Free Keene, Ademo Freeman, states that Clyde was told he needed to take down the sign, to which he responded that it wasn’t his and he didn’t live there. Fred then said he’d take it down for him and Clyde said, “Fine”.
When someone uses a threat of aggression in order to obtain obedience, that is called extortion. So, looks like Fred is not a thief after all, but instead is an extortionist. He’s a very nice extortionist, but that’s what he does for a living – threatens peaceful people whose property doesn’t meet the arbitrary rules set by a group of people calling themselves the “city of Keene”.
He also really believes he’s not doing anything wrong, as the end of his message reveals. He thinks he’s hung up the phone apparently when you can hear a co-bureaucrat in the background (more…)
About five minutes after sending me an email threatening me over my Liberty 94.3 yard sign, Fred Parsells arrives, parks in the street, and appears to steal the same sign from my neighbor Clyde Freeman’s yard. Why didn’t he come steal the one from my yard? He claims in his email it was due to the NO TRESPASS NOTICE I issued to all city employees back in May 2011 – apparently that actually stops him from coming on the property without a court order. Here is surveillance video of Fred committing the act this morning at 11:35-37am:
Will Fred be held accountable for his crime? Doubtful. Remember, it’s not stealing when people calling themselves “the government” take things that don’t belong to them. Stay tuned for updates. I’m not taking the sign down.
Here’s Fred’s email, where he tries to play like he is my buddy. Hey Fred, I don’t know how you were raised, but I was raised to think that friends shouldn’t steal from each other.
RE: 73-75 Leveret Street sign violation
Greetings and Happy New Year Ian:
Recently it has come to the attention of the City of Keene/me via an anonymous complaint made to the Keene Police Department that there is an illegal sign on your property (more…)
Here’s 
