Hello,
I found FreeKeene after hearing about it through the School Sucks Podcast. I wasn't sure how I felt about a lot of the activism in FK, and took a long while to reflect on it myself. I didn't plan on joining the forum until I felt I had something to say, but I've finally figured out what I think about the sorts of civil disobedience I've read about here. What really helped me was reading the Free State Project thread about FK activism, and how much it stank of slave on slave violence. I wrote this response there, which pretty much encapsulates my opinion of FK and its activism.
I am a new father and happily married man(as opposed to a shiftless loser). I don't do drugs, or walk around naked etc. I think the attitude displayed here(on FSP forum) toward the FK movement is depressing. The point of the civil disobedience and protests on public property is not so that these folks are going to continue to do these things once the oppressive laws are terminated.
Many of us have probably run on the good side of law enforcement favoritism a number of times(getting away with speeding tickets, open containers, whatever). Civil Disobedience is necessary because law enforcement picks and chooses when to enforce their laws in order to mask their tyranny. By inconsistently applying their tyranny, law enforcement encourages slave on slave violence. Certain slaves find the level of tyranny reasonable, while the other slaves sit around in cages. A pecking order is established, where slaves arbitrarily set benchmarks of what is reasonable(usually just below what they are willing to do themselves).
Civil Disobedience NEEDS to happen in public places. It needs to happen in absurdist and symbolic ways in order to show that liberty needs to be consistently applied. Most law enforcement agents are smart enough not to be baited into enforcing the letter of the law when it can be thrown back in their face for being ridiculous. Unfortunately, many "liberty minded" people seem to be advocating that people act slightly more free(i.e. smoking pot in their front yards) as opposed to totally free by doing these things in public.
Law enforcement officials need to be pressed into action to uphold absurd laws if those laws are to be overturned. The point of CD is to show that it is NOT a case by case basis, that it is NOT up to their discretion as to when certain peaceful acts are appropriate. Once they agree that THEY do not get to choose, people won't have to smoke pot in huge groups in public. Until then, I applaud the bravery of people willing to face the force of these criminals in the name of liberty.
And by the way, I'd not likely consider moving to NH without the FreeKeene folks…and I find their actions a great jumping off point for liberty based discussions in my own personal life.
So there you have it: Just here to say "thanks" and want you to know that to a pure outsider - the FreeKeene movement strikes me as the best thing going as far as things that might actually expedite our cause of a truly free world…and liberty-minded folks with their "poisoning the well" attitude toward CD strike me as nervous hang wringers.
Good points, James. Thanx for your input.
[quote author=James D. link=topic=5005.msg51815#msg51815 date=1302492234]
Civil Disobedience NEEDS to happen in public places. It needs to happen in absurdist and symbolic ways in order to show that liberty needs to be consistently applied. Most law enforcement agents are smart enough not to be baited into enforcing the letter of the law when it can be thrown back in their face for being ridiculous. Unfortunately, many "liberty minded" people seem to be advocating that people act slightly more free(i.e. smoking pot in their front yards) as opposed to totally free by doing these things in public.
[/quote]
YES!
[quote author=James D. link=topic=5005.msg51815#msg51815 date=1302492234]
Hello,
I found FreeKeene after hearing about it through the School Sucks Podcast. I wasn't sure how I felt about a lot of the activism in FK, and took a long while to reflect on it myself. I didn't plan on joining the forum until I felt I had something to say, but I've finally figured out what I think about the sorts of civil disobedience I've read about here. What really helped me was reading the Free State Project thread about FK activism, and how much it stank of slave on slave violence. I wrote this response there, which pretty much encapsulates my opinion of FK and its activism.
I am a new father and happily married man(as opposed to a shiftless loser). I don't do drugs, or walk around naked etc. I think the attitude displayed here(on FSP forum) toward the FK movement is depressing. The point of the civil disobedience and protests on public property is not so that these folks are going to continue to do these things once the oppressive laws are terminated.
Many of us have probably run on the good side of law enforcement favoritism a number of times(getting away with speeding tickets, open containers, whatever). Civil Disobedience is necessary because law enforcement picks and chooses when to enforce their laws in order to mask their tyranny. By inconsistently applying their tyranny, law enforcement encourages slave on slave violence. Certain slaves find the level of tyranny reasonable, while the other slaves sit around in cages. A pecking order is established, where slaves arbitrarily set benchmarks of what is reasonable(usually just below what they are willing to do themselves).
Civil Disobedience NEEDS to happen in public places. It needs to happen in absurdist and symbolic ways in order to show that liberty needs to be consistently applied. Most law enforcement agents are smart enough not to be baited into enforcing the letter of the law when it can be thrown back in their face for being ridiculous. Unfortunately, many "liberty minded" people seem to be advocating that people act slightly more free(i.e. smoking pot in their front yards) as opposed to totally free by doing these things in public.
Law enforcement officials need to be pressed into action to uphold absurd laws if those laws are to be overturned. The point of CD is to show that it is NOT a case by case basis, that it is NOT up to their discretion as to when certain peaceful acts are appropriate. Once they agree that THEY do not get to choose, people won't have to smoke pot in huge groups in public. Until then, I applaud the bravery of people willing to face the force of these criminals in the name of liberty.
And by the way, I'd not likely consider moving to NH without the FreeKeene folks…and I find their actions a great jumping off point for liberty based discussions in my own personal life.
So there you have it: Just here to say "thanks" and want you to know that to a pure outsider - the FreeKeene movement strikes me as the best thing going as far as things that might actually expedite our cause of a truly free world…and liberty-minded folks with their "poisoning the well" attitude toward CD strike me as nervous hang wringers.
[/quote]
You are why I do it - thank you! Now come on up here! 
Well, I just moved to upstate NY with my wife and young son, and our plan for now is to stay here for about 2 years…but Keene is rapidly moving up my list of places to live. We plan on homeschooling our son, and it seems like the homeschooling folks up there have a nice thing going. I know it'd be great for my wife to be able to meet up with other liberty minded people who were homeschooling, instead of having to settle for whomever happens to be around where we live now. I suspect we'll re-evaluate things once our son gets to be a little bit older and we want to be even more intentional about the types of things he is exposed to. The opportunity to expose him to all of the real learning opportunities going on in Keene seem like they might be too much to pass up, but moving would certainly have to be a joint decision between my wife and me.
We'll certainly take a trip out at some point, and be sure to look some FKers up then!
Cool - meantime you can meet some of those families online via the Monadnock Families for Liberty facebook group!
http://families.freekeene.com
Welcome to the forum! It's pretty cool that part of your initial intro to the image that FreeKeene works on, is an anti-freekeene thread in a different forum. It can be unnerving to see an intro by someone who's not in the area, and only saturated themselves in the media that is put out by freekeenery itself, because there's a more diverse view of it all. You and your family will most likely really enjoy yourselves when y'all get a chance to visit.
As to the rest of the stuff, I disagree that consistency is the same as universality (re doing something on your porch vs central square), and that the cops are less slaves than non-cops. But still, basing your living situation around simply the ideology and agreement stats of people around you isn't all it's cracked up to be, so such disagreements aren't that important.
I would say cops are certainly less slaves than non-cops, considering all of the extra rights they get…but that are only less slaves to the point where they are the favored slaves who get to work in the house. But I mean, if a cop and I both shot someone to death because we thought they a gun was being pulled on us when it was actually a wallet, I am pretty sure we'd see very quickly who was less of a slave.
I'm not totally sure what you mean when you say consistency isn't the same as universality. I am a little new to the language of these debates. I have an idea of what you are saying, but don't want to rush to defend something you may or may not be saying!
Thanks,
James
a house slave wasn't less a slave than one in the field or the one not raped by their owner. a woman who has five kids isn't more pregnant than a woman who has one. I guess I just kinda have a problem with the idea of freedom being this black and white thing, and the secular soul of state workers and agents also being black and white (call em up all day long and ask them the same questions over and over)…but the status of the non-government agents…that has shades of gray in it. It seems inconsistent. Perhaps the poe-leece and the landed gentry are something else…favored slaves, while I or someone like me, am not a favored or noticed slave at all.
As to the other point, I'm not sure if having a demonstration in the central square is supposed to be a fight for the right to do those things in central square, and not simply a demonstration in and of itself. But then that's an argument about the 420s themselves, and I'd only get into that if I thought it'd change the minds of any of those actors.
But most importantly…are you used to mosquitoes where you are and are from? This area gets a bitch-ton of 'em when it's not freezing.
You have it right Prae, its slave on slave violence that is the problem. And it is a absence of color and equal parts of the three primary colors type of issue.
It is the realization that you have a cognitive dissonant thought process that makes you feel that freedom isn't just absence of color and equal parts of the three primary colors. Freedom is the state of being free and absence of confinement or restraint. If you apply confinement or restraint to someone in the state of being free, then you have to exclude that they are no longer free. It matters not what level of freedom exists, because you are not longer in the state of being free, but in the state of confinement or restraint.
Once you have mulled it over awhile and accepted that freedom is and only is the state of being free and that anything that confines or restrains your freedom is not freedom at all, that you will fully understand that all people are treated as slaves, even those who are not slaves. It matters not the level of slavery, such as those who are agents of the State who are granted privileges that you or I don't have within their framework, we are still slaves within their framework and as such are subject to their will until we are no longer willing to submit.
Its inconstant because it is illogical, but that is the purpose. They say you are free till you aren't and then you aren't until they say you are. In reality, you always aren't free. They are just liars trying to control you.
Oh, I'm used to mosquitos. I ran a summer camp for a while and slowly but surely built up a pretty good tolerance for em!