Keene is a special place. It attracts some of the best, most noteworthy activists out there. Some move on to other parts of New Hampshire, some continue their journey elsewhere, and others put down roots here. We don’t get the number of movers that Manchester does, but those that come are some of the most distinguished activists out there. The other Keeniacs who are part of Tony Stiles’ list include, Chris Cantwell, Derrick J Freeman, and this blogger.
When you move the best activists together, amazing things can happen. That’s the point of the Free State Project. If you love liberty, you should make plans to move to New Hampshire and get active. Here are 150+ reasons to consider Keene as your destination.
According to Free State Project founder Jason Sorens, the database available on the FSP website does not actually catalog when movers moved, despite using the term “mover” in the database. The date shown there for each mover is apparently their date of signing the FSP’s Statement of Intent. So despite us double-checking the numbers, this confusion resulted in an inaccurate article I posted earlier today. Here is a correction to that article.
In the original article here, I corrected (or so I thought) the incorrect (and subsequently withdrawn) article that was originally posted by the FSP that used bad numbers to determine that FSP movers numbered 36% of domestic migrants from Jul 2013 – Jul 2014. Using the numbers provided to me by Darryl W. Perry, we determined that, using a larger timeframe of Apr 2010 – Jul 2014, the actual percentage of all migrants (including international) was 15%. However, due to bad input data it turns out that the actual number is over 26%!
Here’s how I determined that FSP movers amount to 26% of the net migrants into NH from Apr 2010 – Jul 2014. First, I kept the same number of net migrants from the census data, which is 3,013. Then, using data from Archive.org from April 2010 and July 2014, I determined that according to the numbers presented on the front page of FreeStateProject.org on those dates, that 810 people moved to New Hampshire in that timeframe. 810/3013 = 26.88%!
That’s an impressive percentage, especially if you consider that the FSP’s official move has not yet been triggered. When that happens (at 20,000 FSP signers), thousands more liberty-oriented activist movers will be on-the-way.
Recently I shared a couple of news articles describing the contentious scene at this year’s Grafton deliberative session. I had wondered what the activists would have to say about the scene there and now Bob “Weeda Claus” Constantine has weighed in:
I am one of the unfortunate people that the town of Grafton, NH sends a demand note to, often euphemistically and oxymoronically referred to as a property tax bill by government apologists. Therefore I attended the annual Town Meeting or Deliberative session on Feb. 7th 2015, in an attempt to reduce the theft and rattle my chains, well aware of my forced subservient position within the coercive government food chain. Plus I know they’ll steal my home if I don’t pay their ransom.
This year’s meeting was again run sloppily by Susan Frost, a serial bureaucrat and the same moderator who proclaimed her “fairness” in her 2014 Town meeting preamble by quoting Voltaire. You know the quote, something like I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Less than two hours later, she had Brian Fellers, a friend and a forthright long time Grafton resident, arrested for asking the deliberative body to “examine his right of free speech”, that is, if you still believe in that kind of stuff. Or “being disruptive”, if you think Voltaire quotes sound good, but weren’t meant to actually be followed. No, I’m not making that up. Brian has stated the real reason he was arrested in 2014, was that he told the Police Chief prior to his arrest that he was there to cut his budget which had bloated enormously in recent years. Brian does not mince words. The cop has a gun. Guns, sadly trump words. Apparently Voltaire is an electrical term to the double dipping salaried and hourly overtime paid Police Chief. (more…)
Liberty activists in Grafton are making headlines again this year. They’ve submitted 20 warrant articles, which unlike Keene’s school board petitioned warrant articles, were not gutted at this year’s deliberative session. The deliberative session in Grafton was reported on by both the Union Leader and the Valley News.
The conflict-heavy meeting reportedly went to the ten hour mark and the moderator of the meeting was allegedly driven to the verge of tears, according to the Union Leader report. Activists in Grafton are definitely having an impact! Hopefully Grafton activists will weigh in at some point with a full report on the successes and failures of the brutally-long meeting.
As reported here at Free Keene yesterday, buses for the Gilford school district have been illegally equipped with video cameras that capture audio. Now, much better, longer video has been posted where drivers admit that the cameras have been present for months and without any posted notice until Tuesday of this week. This is a clear violation of the awful NH “wiretapping” statute. There is a section of the statute exempting school districts, but only if notice is posted. It wasn’t, as the drivers make clear. Though the police in NH have arrested countless average folk and activists for violating the statute, the school board will avoid any consequence – just watch.
Congrats to whatever brave teens who produced this VERY entertaining video. It’s particularly entertaining thanks to the ridiculous third bus driver who gets on her two-way radio to report the dastardly students who are conducting an investigation. Thanks also to Josh Youssef for posting the hilarious video:
Thanks to hosts Parker Springfield and Judy Fine for having me! I hope I’ll get to come back, as the conversation has just gotten started. Maybe by then someone can step forward to face me on the show and explain why freedom is such a bad idea. Until then, subscribe to their youtube and follow Monadnock Showdown on facebook.
