Hello Keeniacs,
I'm Michael, currently living in Italy, though I had the dubious privilege of being born in Czechoslovakia.
(If anybody wants to know what life was like in full-on socialism/communism, just ask. :))
I'm an FTL listener, voluntaryist, and I'm interested in the activism that's happening in Keene. It's nice to know that there's a place with more than single digit quantities of truly liberty-loving people.
I'd love to move to Keene, but the US immigration laws are kind of in the way. I'm not ballsy enough to immigrate illegally, so for now I'll have to console myself with admiration from afar. 
Ciao,
Michael, alias Mr. Binary
Welcome to the forum.
Welcome and consider contributing to the CDEvolution fund - great way to help from afar.
Welcome, Mr. Binary. Were you in Czech during the war? I'm glad you'll be participating on the forum.
You mean during the russian invasion in 68? No, I'm not that old.
I was barely a teenager in 89 when the old-school totalitarian socialism was transformed to the new "soft tyranny" we enjoy in the EU today. But I remember a lot from that time, and of course now I can look back at these things with new insight.
Especially telling was the almost seamless transition from one government to the next, or former "dissidents" becoming the new bureaucrats and/or extremely wealthy. These and other things convinced me that the only way to attain a free society is by peaceful, gradual evolution. That's why I think you guys are doing it right. "Overthrowing the government" does nothing when the people in general don't have the right mindset.
And as for voting…socialist Czechoslovakia had elections too. Granted, there was only one box to check on the ballot, and participation was mandatory, but the government still claimed to have the "consent of the governed". I remember my father making jokes about his "decision to give his vote to the communist party".
Welcome to the forum, Michael. You might see Denis Goddard around some of the other NH forums. His wife Irena is also Czech.
Hello Michael, thanks for helping out and welcome to the forum!
Wow, your english is better than mine.
[quote author=TackleTheWorld link=topic=3086.msg34155#msg34155 date=1272640109]
Wow, your english is better than mine.
[/quote]
I find that's often the case for those who didn't learn something as their first language. They learned it all proper-like instead of organically and avoided all the bad habits that we tend to learn with it.
You should hear me talk. I learned english mostly from reading, so I can't pronounce half of the words properly.
(Edit) BTW Dale: love your comics.
Welcome Mr. Binary,
I visited Prague on one of my trips around Europe. We changed trains crossing the boarder from Germany. They had agents searching everyone's bag, but left us americans alone, instead targeting a middle aged lady on the train forcing her to open her bag in front of everyone. We went from this modern rail car to something out of an old black and white movie about crossing Siberia. It was really shocking to see the change in landscape, building, trains all drop so obviously when crossing an imaginary line.
We got off with our luggage (and snowboarding gear) at Pariah 6 instead of 1. Brian wasn't all the way off the train when it started pulling away, because the conductor didn't see us. It was about 2am on a weekend and there were were, two obvious tourists at a deserted station on a dark night surrounded by empty streets. Talk about scary! Luckily a cab came along, I negotiated a fair rate, and we made it to the hotel.
While there I enjoyed the hot dog thing the street vendors sold; We went to a nice sports bar and had +20oz beers for about 68 cents; and I have some wonderful artwork that I brought back. Welcome to the forum.
I'm from the other part of Czechoslovakia, that one which became Slovakia / Slovak Republic after the country split in 1993.
For those of you who are familiar with Michael Gogulski AKA "Stateless Person" from nostate.com, I'm from the city where he was living briefly after he renounced his US citizenship, Bratislava.
But pretty much all cities in the eastern bloc look the same, or at least the parts where the commies got involved in the field of architecture. I grew up in one of those concrete monstrosities, in a "dwelling" called Petrzalka, district "Meadows 5" (an Orwellian name if there ever was any). Funny thing is, I know people who still live there and think it's just fine and dandy, a neat place, really.
I always get depressed when I return there to visit relatives. It's housing completely devoid of any humanity.
Anyway, thanks everybody for the warm welcome to the forum. If this isn't the most polite forum on the internet, I don't know which is.
Mike? I'm friends with him. Bratislava, right?
Yep, that's the one.
Welcome!
I suspect that people who think their dreary, inhuman housing is just fine and dandy simply have no frame of reference - nothing to compare it to. For that matter, I think that's the problem with many statists.
I'd love to hear more about your current geographical location, feel free to talk about it some more.
Areas for interested topics of my would be women, computer access, video games, theological discussion, political organization(not as it is on wikipedia but in practice), and availability and pricing of chocolate(dark not milk).
My current geographical location is Italy, more specifically the coastal town Rapallo in the Tigullio bay near Genova, but we (my wife and I) are currently moving to a larger apartment in Desenzano del Garda on lake Garda.
You could call it a golden cage of sorts; no liberty whatsoever, but a nice view.
Ah, if we could only remove bad people from good looking areas…