What is the difference between FSP and Free Keene?

General Discussion
#1

I’ll be arriving to Keene in about a week and have been reading about both FSP and Free Keene as much as possible. I’m still confused about the differences between the two groups. It seems Free Keene is some kind of fork of FSP? Is there bad blood? I got a little of the history from the NHPR article but I still feel like I’m missing the current state of how the two organizations interact.

I’m also interested in the differences between how the two groups operate. Free Keene is way more accessible. I’ve found Discord, Mastadon, and this forum. FSP didn’t even know what Discord was when I asked. Perhaps FSP is more in-person style?

Both have been extremely welcoming and I’m very much looking forward to meeting our new communities.

#2

Good question! Free Keene is a blog that has had both FSP participants and NH natives as its bloggers over a decade. The Free State Project is a much larger group of people and as such will contain people who don’t agree on a whole lot. There are a group of FSPers who are very hostile to anyone who blogs at Free Keene or even anyone who lives in Keene.

This hostility generally comes from their dislike for some of the activism that has happened here over the last 15 years. Each of them has something they typically didn’t like and believe that we’ve somehow hurt or destroyed “the movement”. Much of this activism they don’t like is the direct action, civil disobedience style for which Keene became famous.

Sadly their disdain for a certain type of activism has turned into a disdain for anyone who would dare live here and/or associate with us. You will likely be discriminated against by some people simply because of where you have chosen to live.

There is no bad blood between the FSP as an organization and Free Keene. I’m not upset over how some people have behaved towards us - it’s just the nature of groups to splinter. I accept and embrace schisms. They can’t be avoided.

If some of them want to be angry and hateful, that burden is with them. I wish them the best and we’ll continue doing our thing here.

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#3

Clamoring,

I’ve volunteered for the FSP, but I first considered moving here because of Free Talk Live which is broadcast from Keene and closely linked to Free Keene. FTL and Free Keene are better at outreach, I couldn’t get ahold of anyone from the FSP from the West Coast. But once you get here, there is good activity with the FSP, namely Porcfest and Liberty Forum. It really depends on where you are though too, Portsmouth has a lot of their own activities.

I think the schism began when Ian mentioned his opinion on age-of-consent on FTL, that is a polarizing subject, but regardless, I also think diversity in the Liberty movement is a good thing. So is cooperation, which is why I started a book exchange organization to introduce people to the Objectivist liberty movement and a language club to introduce people to the Esperanto international peace movement.

There is more than one path to liberty, as long as we continue to not initiate force on one another, we will move forward together…or at least side by side. :smile:

#4

No, they knew of my views on age-of-consent for years prior to the breakup. That was the excuse they used, but there have been many schisms prior to that breakup. Search Free Keene for “schism” for a few examples.