Facebook Commenting is Back!

by | Mar 21, 2012 | 4 comments

After disappearing mysteriously and me spending way to much time troubleshooting, I finally figured out that another plugin had killed the Facebook commenting feature. It is now back! Enjoy.

NH House Votes Overwhelmingly to Keep Gay Marriage

by | Mar 21, 2012 | 3 comments

Great news from Concord via the AP:

New Hampshire lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have made their state legislature the first one to repeal a gay marriage law, an action that the governor had promised to block.

The state House voted 211-116 to kill the measure, ending a push in the Legislature to rescind New Hampshire’s 2-year-old gay marriage law. Nevertheless, both sides are pledging to continue fighting into the fall elections. (more…)

Jim Hightower Weighs in on Keene’s BEARCAT

by | Mar 21, 2012 | 10 comments

BEARCATFrom the Sheboygan Press:

During a recent city council meeting, the mayor of Keene, New Hampshire leaned over to a council member and whispered excitedly: “We’re going to have our own tank.”

Yes, the tank (or, more specifically, the “armored personnel vehicle”) is the latest must-have toy for mayors and police departments. Even in this picture-perfect and tranquil New England town of about 23,000 residents, officials hurl common sense to the wind at the very thought of having such a cool ride parked in front of town hall. Maybe they’ll even get to drive it in the next Fourth of July parade. Never mind that Keene has no crime that would warrant rolling out a tank. (more…)

Popularity is No Virtue

by | Mar 21, 2012 | 31 comments

The path to freedom is not clearly marked. To me, Liberty means freedom to act. Unless coercion is used, the actions of others cannot impede one’s own pursuits. I value a varied approach to achieving liberty, which is why I am disappointed to see Skeptikos go.

In his parting post, he references 3 bits of activism in which I took part (I made 2 of the 3 videos), and then claims that Ian’s disregard for some people’s criticism is the motivation behind “wildly irrational decisions” (read: “unpopular actions”).

Anyone can point out what is and is not popular. I realize that today violent solutions to complex social problems are more popular than peaceful ones, and that people dedicated to peace will face a chorus of discouragement. However, I’m encouraged by the words of Jack Kerouak when he said, “Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

The world is not molded by people who talk but by those who act. Since action reveals confidence in one’s ideas, my hope for Skeptikos as well as anyone with criticism is that his dismay will ignite a flame of action which burns brighter than ever before. Show me how it’s done. May you be guided from within rather than from without. Best wishes.

Goodbye, Will. I wish you the best.

by | Mar 21, 2012 | 109 comments

WillWill May is a great inside-the-system activist, and I’m sad to see him leave Free Keene. I invited him to blog here a long way back and he eventually took me up on the offer. Since then, he’s provided some really great content, despite the fact that unlike the rest of the bloggers here, he supports some level of coercion against peaceful people. Still, I thought it would be good to have someone blogging here who comes from a different perspective, and it was.

Sadly, he’s fallen into the trap that many politics-only activists have in the past. He has identified some activism that he doesn’t like (holding certain government workers accountable) and has decided that the reason he fails at his activism is because of the actions of other people that he can’t control. Since he’s frustrated, as he admits, he has decided to throw up his hands and call it quits from this blog.

Like many people who have decided that someone else is the source of their problems and frustration, he is lashing out verbally on the way out the door. (more…)

Peaceful Devolution

by | Mar 21, 2012 | 87 comments

Ian Freeman is embarrassing.

It’s a view you rarely never see on this blog, but it’s a view held by myself and a serious portion of liberty activists in the Keene area. (Not to mention the overwhelming majority of Keene residents.) Lately it’s been the senseless pestering of city bureaucrats, the quixotic school outreach, and his involvement in the war on grandmas. Yes, he does other things which are more legitimate and professional, but, for as long as I’ve been in New Hampshire, it seems that Ian has always been vocally supporting activism that’s jarringly wrong-headed.

I joined this blog in 2010 in order to openly criticize certain activist tactics that struck me as counterproductive. At the time, I was worried that the suppression of criticism was creating an atmosphere of groupthink— a situation where the systematic lack of criticism leads groups to make wildly irrational decisions. Since then, I’ve changed some hearts and minds with regards to criticism, and caused people to look twice at things they’ve taken for granted. This has been very satisfying.

But, where it really matters, I have failed. (more…)