by Ian | Jan 5, 2011 |
This was recently posted on the Free Keene Forum, and I thought it deserved a wider audience. Clearly, Tom doesn’t have a complete grasp on where liberty lovers who move to Keene are coming from on the issues (immigration is a good thing and I doubt many of us would consider ourselves ‘tea partiers’ or part of the ‘patriot movement’), but regardless, if you have moved to Keene as part of the FSP or will be moving, please consider this:
Hello Everyone,
My name is Tom Davis and I am casting for a one-hour documentary that will air on MTV. The show is about people who have a strong feeling that the US government is going in the wrong direction.
The show will feature the points-of-view of three young like-minded people who express doubt about the direction the government is going. There will be no narration.
Casting Call:
Age Range: Teens though early 30’s. Male and Female applicants welcome. (more…)
by Skeptikos | Jan 4, 2011 |
In 2003, security analyst Bruce Schneier introduced the concept of security theater: “Security theater refers to security measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security. An example: the photo ID checks that have sprung up in office buildings. No-one has ever explained why verifying that someone has a photo ID provides any actual security, but it looks like security to have a uniformed guard-for-hire looking at ID cards. Airport-security examples include the National Guard troops stationed at US airports in the months after 9/11 — their guns had no bullets. The US colour-coded system of threat levels, the pervasive harassment of photographers, and the metal detectors that are increasingly common in hotels and office buildings since the Mumbai terrorist attacks, are additional examples.”
Security theater is driven by political forces: the public demands that the government do something to provide more security. This demand is passed on to representatives, who rely on the the positive perception of voters to get re-elected. Naturally, when they are being judged on these grounds, they maximize the appearance of security rather than security itself.
Over the last few years, Keeniacs have witnessed the growth of a similar phenomenon– activism theater. Activism theater refers to activist measures that make people feel like government policy is being improved without doing anything to actually improve government policy. (Even if the goal is no government, that requires a change in government policy, from what we have today to the absence of any government action.) Examples of activism theater are the School Sucks Project “outreach” and City Hall drinking games. Both of these were billed as activism, and yet there’s no plausible mechanism through which they could have changed anything– their activism guns had no bullets. (more…)
by Ian | Jan 4, 2011 |
Thanks to those of you who contributed to help support Free Keene’s advertisements in 2010. Ads were purchased all year long on the Ridley Report, Free Minds TV and Radio, and Liberty Conspiracy. I am going to continue advertising in these venues as it supports some great NH-based liberty media and simultaneously gets the word out about Free Keene to people outside NH. I’ve created another chip-in to help cover the costs. Thank you again for your help!
by Ian | Jan 3, 2011 |
It’s the end of an era. I’m sad to announce that Russell and Kat Kanning have moved out of New Hampshire. Songwriter and poet Richard Onley also just recently left. OTN’s Sam Dodson is leaving soon. Of course, they aren’t the only activists to have come and gone over the years, but they are well-known for their valuable contributions to the NH liberty movement.
News like this in tandem with the Free State Project‘s cancellation of the popular Liberty Forum event can certainly be a downer, even if you didn’t know all four activists personally, as I did. Does this signal the doom of the NH liberty movement and the failure of the Free State Project? Well, only the latter in that the FSP failed to put their event together, but that’s an indictment of the FSP’s bureaucratic and ineffective board, not of the concept of moving together for liberty. That’s the idea behind the FSP, and the early movers have proven that it is working.
There were unprecedented successes in just the last year-or-so in both politics (Knife ban repealed, 12 FSP participants and dozens more liberty-friendly granite staters elected to State Rep seats) and civil disobedience (Hundreds openly smoking cannabis without incident at events organized by liberty activists). More importantly, people are moving in greater numbers than ever before. More families and couples are coming these days as opposed to the initial influx of single, unattached males. For instance, a new couple in Keene are buying duplexes in town and families have moved into Dublin and the Peterborough area. What matters most is not who leaves, but who is coming to be part of the next wave of activism, and who stays. It’s a movement full of individuals with different stories. Many will come, and some will go. But why do they go? Here are some common reasons. (more…)
by Ian | Jan 3, 2011 |
Just a quick FYI – many of you have noticed that the trolls were easily able to exploit the Comment Ratings software. The programmer claims he’s working on a better version. If that is released, the feature may be re-enabled, but the mandatory user registration policy has successfully reduced the drive-by anonymous trolling, which was the original intent of the ratings software.
As Free Keene enters its fifth year, thank YOU for reading, participating, and making us relevant! Hopefully this will be your year to move to New Hampshire!
by Skeptikos | Dec 30, 2010 |
HCR 1:
A RESOLUTION urging the congressional delegation to begin the process for a constitutional amendment establishing that human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional rights.
Whereas, government was established to provide a social contract between naturally born persons; and
Whereas, the founders of the U.S. Constitution and Republic clearly and emphatically intended freedom of speech to mean freedom to communicate with and by natural born persons either directly or through the free press; and
Whereas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on January 21, 2010 in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations have the same first amendment rights as people, and that they can spend unlimited amounts of money on elections; and
Whereas, the Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law, because in a democracy, the people rule; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring: (more…)
by Ian | Dec 28, 2010 |
Apparently a wordpress plugin had broken the registration email process here on the blog. New registrants were not sent initial registration emails but should the person have requested a password reset, it did send that out. Anyway, it’s fixed now and so if you have registered for an account and did not get the email, please try the password reset. If you have not yet registered for an account, you can easily do so now. Please use the login widget in the top right sidebar.
