Here’s another reality check for all the trash-talking haters out there:
No, not everybody loves what you are doing. People are different. As delusional and crazy as you think liberty activists in Keene are, I’m pretty sure most of us are aware that people are individuals. They don’t have the same beliefs. That includes both libertarians and members of STOP FREE KEENE!!! – not all of them agree on things, either.
Recently, one local hater, alleged to be Steven Graves (UPDATE: Graves claims it’s not him), a Peterborough-based artist (originally from Boston!) recently said this about Boston Strong on the comments section of Free Keene, “He’s right, he’s awesome, and he’s kind of my hero right now. The town, the state, good people everywhere hate you people.”
Sorry, Steven, but good people don’t hate. The people calling themselves the town, city, or state are doing wrong, but I don’t hate them for it. They’re fallible humans just like the rest of us.
Oh wait, he claimed on video the other day that he is just making sure there’s no deer in the road. No wonder everybody loves him – no one would want to see a deer get hit, especially by a man safely and gently accelerating down a neighborhood street. What a guy!
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I took a break from my life of tireless activism in the Free State to visit my former home of Arizona. I was soon reminded of why I left, why I went Galt.
People the world over remain preoccupied with survival. With finances. With hobbies and fulfillment. And, most importantly, with the eternal quest for meaning. An unlucky few of us see the world as it is, in a state of slavery and oppression. Yet, we are powerless to change that unfortunate human condition. And so we are forced to live out our constant quest for fulfillment, only with the added weight of knowing the world to be fallen.
That was me most of my young professional life, only I lacked the realism to give up on the world. When all my aspirations for success in love and labor fell away, all I had left were dreams of a better tomorrow. Instead of attempting one last futile grasp at what I had lost, I made a desperate search for the frontlines of liberty, to spend what was left of my life in service to a mad dream.
How did that desperate stand pan out? The best way to judge that is to see what happened when I tried to step back into my old life.
The short version is that I couldn’t go back. Too much had changed, and it saddened me to see old friends and colleagues in the same jaded scramble for a better version of nothing special. Never before was the distinction between existing and living so clear, and I was grateful to be a member of the second category.
The truth is, some elements of New Hampshire are an idea boom town. People with radical ways of thinking and even more radical passion are moving from across the world to the one place humanity can make a stand for a bright future. While the rest of the world remains preoccupied with making its jail cells more comfortable, in the Free State people are clawing an escape tunnel out of the very granite. What I experienced by visiting my former home was hope withdrawal.
And as I write this I’m returning to my new home, and will barely have set foot on New Hampshire soil before I rejoin my activist brethren in the struggle against oppression.
Irregularly for weeks, Matthew “Boston Strong” Schmidt has driven by the intersection of Leverett and River streets in his Amari Plumbing work truck and personal vehicles, laying on his horn and screaming “Get a job!” at the top of his lungs. Rich Paul, who lives in one of the homes at the intersection, decided to go down and confront Boston yesterday after he again drove by honking angrily.
To be clear, Boston has been engaging in this un-neighborly behavior long before his wife Jennifer Schmidt was recently issued a temporary stalking order for allegedly threatening to kill a 10-year-old boy with a knife. WMUR covered that story after it broke here on Free Keene, but WMUR did not mention any names in the case. WMUR also said that Jennifer Schmidt would not talk to the media until they speak to their attorney. In the video of Rich’s confrontation taken by activist David Crawford, Matthew broke the family’s silence in the case, alleging the boy in question was a bully, presumably towards their daughter.
When informed multiple times that his honking had disturbed children from their slumber, Boston was unapologetic. In fact, he further promises to, “make their lives a living nightmare.”
Despite seeming to have some grievance against what he calls the “shithole” on the corner, the Shire Free Church-owned LRN.FM studio and Keene Activist Center, Boston seems to think that all the neighbors who aren’t liberty activists really appreciate his loud honking and screaming. At one point he even claims, “Everybody loves what I’m doing. They love it.”
This delusion is typical of the local hater – because the people who they are close to appear to agree with them, they believe that “everybody” agrees with them. The reality is that people have different opinions. Some people in Keene dislike some things activists do, but like others. Some people like some activists but dislike others. Some love what we do. Some hate what we do. Anyone who’s not in an echo chamber of hate would understand that. Of course if any of his friends or acquaintances actually disagree with him, they probably keep their mouths shut for fear of his wrath.
Hopefully someday she’ll see the hypocrisy in her support of the state while at the same time claiming to be for peace. (She’s a board member at NH Peace Action.)
