The bitcoin & cryptocurrency news sites are ablaze with the headlines that New Hampshire’s state representatives are again considering legislation to authorize state agencies to accept bitcoin for fees and taxes, HB 470. Here’s what you won’t find anywhere else – full video of Wednesday’s hearing at the state house, where everyone spoke in favor of the bill:
City Approves Pho Keene Great Sign!
According to Isabelle Rose, Pho Keene Great’s part-owner, not only has the sign been approved, but it happened without them having the meeting that was scheduled with the city manager to discuss the manager’s concerns over the supposedly “offensive and not appropriate” name of the business.
It’s unfortunate that the new city manager, Elizabeth A. Dragon created the ridiculous situation in the first place, but apparently cooler heads at the city gang prevailed and Dragon has backed down. Good choice, considering the “City of Keene” would only continue to be ridiculed by people and headlines around the world if they continued to push all the way to court, where they would likely lose, just like they did when they tried to crush Robin Hood of Keene’s free speech.
The City of Keene happens to own the building in which Pho Keene Great will be opening, but that shouldn’t give them any further rights to control the name of a business. Especially after that same city manager had signed a lease agreement back in April of 2018 knowing full well what its name would be. They then collected rent from Pho Keene Great for the rest of the year before Dragon called Rose on Christmas Eve to object to the name and demand her temporary sign be taken down.
Pho Keene Great – T-Shirts Available at Rt 101 Local Goods!
“We stood our ground regarding our business name. And, on the basis of the First Amendment, we defended it. The City cannot regulate content. Further, no where in the contract did it stipulate we could not use that business name. The government cannot demand or require us to do anything that supersedes our baseline rights. We are deeply grateful to everyone that offered and gave their support and appreciate all opinions and input, even with those that were offended by our business name. Thank you.”
That’s not the only win for Pho Keene Great, however. The city’s predictable stupidity led to a media explosion with coverage coming from countless major media from all over. You can’t buy advertising that good and as a result of the publicity, the Pho Keene Great official t-shirts have been flying off the shelves at Route 101 Local Goods.
The little local shop was slammed with orders both in real life and on the internet from as far away as Australia and Afghanistan. Route 101’s owner Chris Rietmann says his shop has never been so busy and he’s shipped out well over 1,000 shirts so far. The story went so big, there were even people trying to sell knock-off shirts on other websites. However, only the official shirt sold at Route 101 Local Goods is the one where profits benefit Pho Keene Great, so get yours here online or stop in at 661 Marlboro St. in Keene!
Isabelle Rose, at her food truck in 2016.
Now rather than gearing up for a protracted legal fight that would only hurt the taxpayers of Keene, Pho Keene Great’s owners can focus on opening their doors in the heart of downtown Keene’s Central Square, next to the City offices this March as planned, with an awesome logo and name intact. Hooray!
Chris in Simpler Times, Acting as Security for the Hallowkeene Dance Party in 2014.
In my last article about him, written shortly after his arrest in Charlottesville at a white nationalist hate rally, I explained that despite Chris’ libertarian activism being covered by this blog in the past, he had never been a blogger at Free Keene, nor was he ever invited to be. When he came to Keene in the early part of this decade, he was just crass libertarian comedian Chris Cantwell from Long Island. He wasn’t a racist, but still caused much controversy for his hatred for the police.
Today, Chris has embraced the police as his potential tool of oppression, even though they recently threw him into a jail cell for months in Virginia. As he revealed in our conversation Tuesday night, he literally wants to become the state. Shortly after 2 hours, 22 minutes in he actually says he wants to force his beliefs on others, and then moments later says, “I want to be the government, yeah.”
His dramatic shift to statism isn’t a first for the Free State Project libertarian migration, which was the original reason Chris chose to move to New Hampshire. Early mover to Manchester Amanda Bouldin went from being an anarchist to a hostile-to-libertarians leftist. Conversely, Chris has gone from being an anarchist to a actual NAZI. There’s not a shred of a libertarian left in him. Libertarians, voluntarists, and liberty-loving anarchists believe people should be judged as individuals, by their words and actions. Chris is obsessed with race and admits in the conversation that it’s lazy to judge people based on the group into which they are born, but nonetheless runs with the idea anyway, as he considers the laziness of racism to be an efficient filter for his ideal society.
Previously a libertarian against the war on drugs, he’s now for prohibition.
The conversation we had on the Twitch-only show (though I’ve since exported it to Youtube here) had some particularly bizarre moments including Chris holding the confusing position of having used cannabis while supporting continuing prohibition against it. He speaks out of both sides of his mouth by acknowledging the benefits of harm reduction and decriminalization but refusing to advocate for policy changes in that direction. It’s a perplexing perspective. Despite his own personal knowledge of the ineffectiveness of prohibition and the various studies proving it is an abject failure that creates the opposite of its intended results, he rejects all that on the near-religious belief that outlawing something reduces its use. It’s a belief wholly at odds with how he used to think on the issue.
At one point in the conversation he actually refers to himself as a caricature. What does he really believe? Outside of another total personality shift to a communist, that which he currently hates, or perhaps maybe going transgender, it’s hard to imagine where Chris will go from here.
Speaking of transgender, Chris also had a segment with the Anarchist Shemale, Aria DiMezzo. Aria wrote about it on her blog, and was disappointed she didn’t get more time on-air to fight with Chris. I’d invited her there with the expectation that Johnson wasn’t going to stay through the whole show and that Aria could take his chair later. Turns out, Johnson stayed the whole time. She was also upset that we didn’t go toe-to-toe with Chris on trans issues, which I honestly know next-to-nothing about.
Only advocates of peace are allowed to blog at FreeKeene.com
Others, like me, can see the value in giving enough rope to Chris to verbally hang himself. We don’t think that bad ideas should be shut down, but instead they ought to be countered publicly. The answer to ugly speech is more speech, not de-platforming or censorship. If you don’t think I was the best person to counter Chris’ ideas, that’s fine. If you hate me because I’m kind to Chris, that’s fine too. Hate only hurts the hater. That’s ultimately the true irony here, that hating Chris only makes you more like him.
Chris has become what he once hated – an arch statist. He has rejected the libertarian principle of non-aggression and instead embraced coercive, institutionalized violence as his tool. Of course, violence begets violence and he will reap as he sows.
Though Chris is certainly responsible for his horrible beliefs, he’s ultimately a creation of a society that has long embraced the aggression of government as a tool to control their neighbor. If you hate Chris but you support the coercive state, you ought to look in the mirror. People cover their support for state violence by believing in nonsense like the “social contract” and refusing to see the threats of violence that back all government programs. They hold conflicting positions, like supporting the state while believing they themselves support peace. To his credit, at least Chris is honest about his reasons for supporting the state. He knows it’s a tool for the violent to control others and is eager to use it for his purposes. If you support the state, you helped make Chris into a monster.
Here’s the full, unedited, over three-hour show:
With the help of Free Talk Live‘s generous listeners and the Shire Free Church, we successfully raising over $30,000 to buy some land to be used by a Ugandan orphanage! As an incentive, FTL host Mark Edge had promised he’d get his hair dyed. Here’s a time-lapse video of the active parts of the 2.5 hour salon visit (I cut out a lot of the waiting around). You can learn more about the fundraiser and orphanage at http://hope.freetalklive.com
Special thanks to the cryptocurrency-accepting Moda Suo Studio Hair Salon in Keene, NH!
Vin Armani of Cointext.io and Chris Rietmann of Bitcoin Embassy New Hampshire were the special panelists at the recent “Science on Tap” put on by the See Science Center in Manchester, NH.
The audience had great questions and Vin and Chris provided excellent answers. The over-an-hour-long video is an excellent introduction to some very important concepts with cryptocurrencies. Highly recommended!
The transsexual Libertarian candidate for Cheshire County Sheriff for 2018 has been put in “Facebook Jail” with a seven-day ban for “hate speech”. Aria DiMezzo, the “Anarchist Shemale”, had video recorded of her in the Keene, NH Gamestop where she tore off her jacket in parody of a recent viral video.
The video DiMezzo was parodying involved a hulking trans person who made an outrageous scene at an Albuqueque, NM Gamestop over being called “sir”. In that video, the brutish Tiffany Michelle bellows at the poor Gamestop employee and kicks over a display while storming around and shouting profanities. As the original, now-viral video begins, Michelle was upset with the Gamestop returns process then flips out on another customer for using “sir” when referring to Michelle and turns and targets the Gamestop employee when he referred to both customers as “guys”.
Aria DiMezzo files for Cheshire County Sheriff as a Libertarian
After DiMezzo posted the video to her Facebook page, she was given a seven day ban within 24 hours for “hate speech” and the video was pulled down by Facebook. DiMezzo appealed the decision and Facebook admitted they were wrong to consider the video as “hate speech” and restored the video, while bizarrely leaving her account banned.
If you’re looking to escape Facebook, you can follow DiMezzo’s account over on the decentralized Mastodon social media network. Also, check out our previous article showing multiple alternatives far more useful for communication than Facebook.
Welcome to New Hampshire!
The good news is there are multiple platforms on which people both inside and outside the Shire are meeting online that are much more useful than facebook. Of course, the more people use them, the more useful they become, so consider this your invitation. Facebook has thrown so many features into its platform (then purposely crippled their usefulness), it will require multiple other, better venues to replace it. Here are the key activist-related aspects of facebook and superior alternatives to replace each of them that are already excellent, effective, and free:
Activists are leaving Facebook, for good reason.
Liberdon is the Libertarian/Voluntarist Server running Mastodon
By no means is that an exhaustive list of alternatives to replace facebook and do what facebook once did, and better than facebook. There are many other useful platforms, but these have been working well for us so far. Be part of the solution and join us on the alternatives. Start with the Shire Forum. It’s free and an effective way to communicate with people both inside and outside of New Hampshire.
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