A few weeks ago in Keene there was a standoff in West Keene to which dozens of cops and state police responded. They brought out the BEARCAT, MRAP, a bomb robot, all kinds of cruisers and trucks, and apparently every state cop from all over – in full camouflage, plus Keene police and Cheshire Sheriffs.
To their credit, the cops didn’t hurt the man in the home this time, but they didn’t need to respond like this. This is a scary level of police militarization and very dangerous to liberty.
Think this was the first time something like this has happened in Keene? Think again. In 2012 police had a similarly ridiculous response to an even less-threatening domestic incident in West Keene where a man stormed off into the woods while armed. Oh and don’t forget the lockdown of part of Downtown prior to that in 2010 over an abandoned backpack full of beer. More recently, who could forget the ridiculous response to the Pumpkinfest Riots the police created in the first place by raiding peaceful day parties.
I’m excited to announce that decentralized blockchain-based media protocol called LBRY.io is now hosting the over 900 videos from the Free Keene YouTube channel!
Yes, that’s more than a decade’s worth of video! Thanks to LBRY, we’re no longer subject to YouTube removing our videos, since they’ll be ingested into the censorship-free LBRY system as well.
Based in New Hampshire, LBRY has contributors from around the globe and has welcomed Free Keene, even sending an email announcement to their followers letting them know about the Free Keene LBRY channel. Before you click on that, you’ll need to install the LBRY app (available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS).
While LBRY does allow its content creators to monetize their videos via their cryptocurrency the “LBRY credit (LBC)“, Free Keene’s videos are free to download and watch and you don’t have to watch ads! In fact, every video you download with LBRY, you also host (like file-sharing networks), so you’re contributing to the LBRY just by watching. It’s a pretty cool system and I’m really pleased that Free Keene is in early as a featured content provider.
I look forward to the day when decentralized media storage and service is helping protect more content globally from corporate and government censorship. Please check out LBRY.io, download and run their app, and please subscribe to the @FreeKeene channel for the latest, censorship-free NH-liberty activist video content!
The three of them outnumber the total number of Libertarian Party state reps in all the other 49 states combined.
At this year’s LPNH convention in Concord both Reps Dyer and Phinney spoke to the attendees about their decision to flip to the Libertarian Party of NH and what it’s meant to them. (Rep. Stallcop wasn’t able to make it.) Phinney even highlights some of their legislative victories. Here are both videos. First, Caleb Dyer’s speech:
Lily Tang Williams tells her story of growing up in and eventually leaving China to seek individual freedom, which ultimately led her to Colorado, the Libertarian Party and now to her new home in New Hampshire! This was recorded at the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire‘s 2018 Convention last weekend. Full video from the convention business session will be available on the Free Keene YouTube.
Here’s the final video from the series of videos from this year’s 4/20 Rally in Concord, NH at the state house steps where a lone state trooper walks up and attempts to intimidate the peaceful cannabis users into leaving a place where they have a right to be by bellowing, “If you’re smoking marijuana here you need to leave… move out now!”
A few inexperienced attendees begin to make an exit but most of the crowd stays in defiance. After being greeted by state representatives who were attending the event including Dan Hynes, the lone trooper tries again with a much more timid, “If you’re smoking marijuana, please move off the property.”
No one leaves. While he could have written tickets for anyone smoking the now-slightly-decriminalized cannabis, he instead exits the scene, never to return.
For those keeping track, this is the first time in nearly a decade of 4/20 rallies at the state house steps where any such intimidation was tried. At previous rallies, all participants were risking misdemeanor possession charges, yet no one was ever arrested. This year was the first where decrim for under 3/4 oz has been in effect.
Thanks to Garret Ean of Free Concord for capturing this on video.
Boy did the gun control advocates make a mistake! Since 2010, liberty activists and cannabis users have gathered every year on April 20th at 4:20pm to take part in mass cannabis civil disobedience at the state house steps. Of course, given that the state house is public property, you never know who else might show up and this year the gun grabbers held a rally very nearby the 4/20. Theirs was right out by the street while the 4/20 was up by the state house steps.
As Shire Liberty Media blogger Carla Gericke points out in her blog covering both events, the contrast between the two events was stark – one group wanting to just be left alone (the cannabis users) and the other wanting to be controlled and to control others (the anti-gunners).
After blazing up some primo herb, guns-and-weed-loving libertarians targeted the authoritarian gun controllers for a little trolling. Some came prepared, open carrying guns or armed with pro-freedom, pro-gun signs like “Scared of Guns in NH? Move to: Massachusetts ‘the Nanny State'”. The reaction of the freedom-hating gun-grabbers was hilarious. They made a desperate effort to try to cover up the libertarians’ signs with their own, which made for some hilarious video, captured by Vincent Freeman at Shire Free Media on YouTube: