You've got to watch out for the Bavarian child catchers and their unlicensed puppet shows.

It just starts with nails and puppet shows.

/unavailable for comment.

Important point about the guy, he was filming inside the public area of the courthouse, not in a courtroom.

"You tend to find people [in the Free State Project] who are happy to live in cities and towns"

"The Keene Free Staters tend toward the far end of the Free State Project spectrum, believing that government should not just be limited, but eradicated."



They want to live in cities and towns they just don't want to pay taxes to support them.

Ah New Hampshire the Wild West of New England.

You can abolish your government just leave the State Liquor stores.

As long as they stay out of Dixville Notch. That could throw the whole election process into chaos.

//Oh, and I live in NH, getting a kick, etc.

Mighty Taternuts: Ah New Hampshire the Wild West of New England.

You can abolish your government just leave the State Liquor stores.

He we've got the third largest legislative body in the world. Don't mess with us.

/Seriously?
//Seriously.
///And the first majority female body, too.

AWWWW, New Hampshire, Canada's dingleberry.


/thanks.

More proof that New Hampshire is being ruined by all the tax evading Massholes.

That's the problem with hardcore libertarians. They tend to be smug, in-your-face, obstreperous assholes.

/just like hardcore leftists
//or fundamentalists
///or WoW players

Carth:
They want to live in cities and towns they just don't want to pay taxes to support them.

They want government to be privatized. Their issue with taxes is that they aren't voluntary, and by privatizing you can choose to participate or not. Business would provide the services that government currently does.

You should read The Unincorporated Man by Kollin. Its a Heinlein-esque book based on the idea of absolutely minimalist government.

To be an anarchist in Salt Lake City New Hampshire was certainly no easy task, especially in 1985 2009. And having no money, no job, no plans for the future, the true anarchist position was in itself a strenuous job.

StrikitRich: More proof that New Hampshire is being ruined by all the tax evading Massholes.


Tough shiat...they're your problem now. : )

/Masshole

Carth:
They want to live in cities and towns they just don't want to pay taxes to support them.

Taxes are a necessary evil of having any form of government, but excessive taxes just to promote bureaucracy is criminal and needs to be stopped.

Unlicensed puppet shows? I wonder how Jim Henson would have felt about that issue...

When puppets are outlawed, only outlaws will have puppets! Free Kermit!

FrancoFile: ...obstreperous...

Whoa.
/Keanu

FTA: "But unfortunately what happens is that when [Free Staters] take the radical approach, that invites people to get angry."

When they filed and clipped each other's nails without a manicures license I was ABSOLUTELY FIT TO BE TIED LIVID!

I was just enjoying the day walking down the sidewalk with a nice hot cup of NH medium roast double Moosedung coffee and had no idea how drastically everything was about to change.

It was like everything was in slow motion, my world snapped to a crawl when I glanced to my right and witnessed it all.

I could see it clear as day. (actually it was clear as day. there was not a cloud in the sky, middle of June, bright, sunny and about 12:30 in the afternoon) The sun light beaming off of the shiny finger nail clippers, the little ball chain thing swaying to and fro, the mans thumb pushing down on the finger nail clipper lever while encasing the index nail of another man.

I heard the 'click' as it severed the finger nail. I saw that finger nail clipping burst into the air in a gentle arc, then, for what seemed like minutes, it ever so slowly descended to the ground like, well like a finger nail clipping.

It hit the cement sidewalk and bounced ever so gently to right about one inch and that was it, I snapped. I could no longer tolerate these radical actions. My blood began to boil, my eyes shot flames and I began crapping thunder.

obzerver: FTA: "But unfortunately what happens is that when [Free Staters] take the radical approach, that invites people to get angry."

When they filed and clipped each other's nails without a manicures license I was ABSOLUTELY FIT TO BE TIED LIVID!

I was just enjoying the day walking down the sidewalk with a nice hot cup of NH medium roast double Moosedung coffee and had no idea how drastically everything was about to change.

It was like everything was in slow motion, my world snapped to a crawl when I glanced to my right and witnessed it all.

I could see it clear as day. (actually it was clear as day. there was not a cloud in the sky, middle of June, bright, sunny and about 12:30 in the afternoon) The sun light beaming off of the shiny finger nail clippers, the little ball chain thing swaying to and fro, the mans thumb pushing down on the finger nail clipper lever while encasing the index nail of another man.

I heard the 'click' as it severed the finger nail. I saw that finger nail clipping burst into the air in a gentle arc, then, for what seemed like minutes, it ever so slowly descended to the ground like, well like a finger nail clipping.

It hit the cement sidewalk and bounced ever so gently to right about one inch and that was it, I snapped. I could no longer tolerate these radical actions. My blood began to boil, my eyes shot flames and I began crapping thunder.

+1 internets for you

CHOMSKY: I was attracted to anarchism as a young teenager, as soon as I began to think about the world beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven't seen much reason to revise those early attitudes since. I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom. That includes political power, ownership and management, relations among men and women, parents and children, our control over the fate of future generations (the basic moral imperative behind the environmental movement, in my view), and much else. Naturally this means a challenge to the huge institutions of coercion and control: the state, the unaccountable private tyrannies that control most of the domestic and international economy, and so on. But not only these. That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met. Sometimes the burden can be met. If I'm taking a walk with my grandchildren and they dart out into a busy street, I will use not only authority but also physical coercion to stop them. The act should be challenged, but I think it can readily meet the challenge. And there are other cases; life is a complex affair, we understand very little about humans and society, and grand pronouncements are generally more a source of harm than of benefit. But the perspective is a valid one, I think, and can lead us quite a long way.

Beyond such generalities, we begin to look at cases, which is where the questions of human interest and concern arise.

I'm camping here, waiting for all the FSP farkers to out themselves.

I joined.
I moved.
I haven't been as active politically as I could be, I have however been raising the next generation of Porcupines.



Interested? (new window)

no one takes my public protest seriously

For example, a Free Stater elected to a planning board in a town near Keene, which he would not identify, swayed the board to vote against a zoning ordinance restricting new big box stores, a measure the Free State member said unfairly restricted property rights.

Ah yes, replace government power with corporate power. Walmart will make you free!

Capitalist anarchism is as much of a contradiction as state socialism. Both are antithetical to freedom.

These guys have no idea how ugly their corporate "utopia" would be.

Bad_Seed: For example, a Free Stater elected to a planning board in a town near Keene, which he would not identify, swayed the board to vote against a zoning ordinance restricting new big box stores, a measure the Free State member said unfairly restricted property rights.

Ah yes, replace government power with corporate power. Walmart will make you free!

Capitalist anarchism is as much of a contradiction as state socialism. Both are antithetical to freedom.

These guys have no idea how ugly their corporate "utopia" would be.

THIS!

Bad_Seed: For example, a Free Stater elected to a planning board in a town near Keene, which he would not identify, swayed the board to vote against a zoning ordinance restricting new big box stores, a measure the Free State member said unfairly restricted property rights.

Ah yes, replace government power with corporate power. Walmart will make you free!

Capitalist anarchism is as much of a contradiction as state socialism. Both are antithetical to freedom.

These guys have no idea how ugly their corporate "utopia" would be.

Ha, guess what, not all of us believe in corporatism. Anarchists in general and Free Staters in particular make it very difficult to characterize others. I'm anti-corporation and Pro-property rights. The corporation is a fictive entity, which enjoys mainly the removal of individuals from responsibility (ie for employee/customer safety and corporate debt). If you can see where this is going, without the government to protect them the corporations would then have the CEO or the immediate manager be held accountable for the actions of the corporation.

Mayhem of the Black Underclass: Ha, guess what, not all of us believe in corporatism. Anarchists in general and Free Staters in particular make it very difficult to characterize others. I'm anti-corporation and Pro-property rights. The corporation is a fictive entity, which enjoys mainly the removal of individuals from responsibility (ie for employee/customer safety and corporate debt). If you can see where this is going, without the government to protect them the corporations would then have the CEO or the immediate manager be held accountable for the actions of the corporation.

All that is irrelevant. You could have a corporation, a partnership, whatever. The problem happens when capital becomes concentrated in the hands of a few individuals. Those individuals begin to wield huge amounts of power - far more than most governments. Your cherished "property rights" will simply lead to oppression for the benefit of the rich. Getting rid of government simply cuts out the middleman.

Bad_Seed: Mayhem of the Black Underclass: Ha, guess what, not all of us believe in corporatism. Anarchists in general and Free Staters in particular make it very difficult to characterize others. I'm anti-corporation and Pro-property rights. The corporation is a fictive entity, which enjoys mainly the removal of individuals from responsibility (ie for employee/customer safety and corporate debt). If you can see where this is going, without the government to protect them the corporations would then have the CEO or the immediate manager be held accountable for the actions of the corporation.

All that is irrelevant. You could have a corporation, a partnership, whatever. The problem happens when capital becomes concentrated in the hands of a few individuals. Those individuals begin to wield huge amounts of power - far more than most governments. Your cherished "property rights" will simply lead to oppression for the benefit of the rich. Getting rid of government simply cuts out the middleman.

And how will those people be concentrating money in their hands? I think you have thought the Gov't as middleman proposition 1/2 way through. You just need to see that they are forcibly removing your money to enrich the senators and representatives, while the same thing might happen without a government, I can assure you that when they came to my door to forcibly remove my money from me, they would meet the business end of a baseball bat.

See, you call them "anarchists" because they make less than $50,000 a year.

If they made more, they'd be "libertarians".

The problem is the idea of social responsibility. Not just paying taxes on services like police, education, and military but the idea that the government and your fellow citizens have a responsibility to protect you from yourself.

As annoying as the phrase is, "Nanny State" is what comes to mind. We have to protect people from their own stupidity at your expense. You can't smoke, have to wear your seatbelt, must not offend anybody.

We freed ourselves from real chains of bigotry and slavery just to bind them back up with thread and red tape.

Yet another series of atrocities perpetrated by the council of days!

Mayhem of the Black Underclass: And how will those people be concentrating money in their hands?

Well, it already is at the moment. The question is how we can deconcentrate it, how we can "redistribute" it in a moral way and in a way which leads to a future society that works (I don't know the answer).

I think you have thought the Gov't as middleman proposition 1/2 way through. You just need to see that they are forcibly removing your money to enrich the senators and representatives, while the same thing might happen without a government, I can assure you that when they came to my door to forcibly remove my money from me, they would meet the business end of a baseball bat.

You're missing the forest for the trees. The government only takes it's cut after the capitalist has taken his. And he doesn't have to come to your house, you come to his. You come to him and tell him "please give me a job so that you may get rich off of my labour".

Now you could say "I'm self-employer, I am my own boss and nobody takes my surplus production". That could very well be true, and good for you, but that's not a universalisable position. If capital is concentrated then most people will end up working for the capitalists as wage-slaves. Only the lucky few can scrape out a living working for themselves, and they their margins are constantly squeezed by the power of the rich capitalists.

FrancoFile 2009-05-29 02:55:03 PM
That's the problem with hardcore libertarians. They tend to be smug, in-your-face, obstreperous assholes.

/just like hardcore leftists
//or fundamentalists (ANY RELIGION but especially Islam)
///or WoW players

Yup.
And it's these people that stop me from becoming a
libertarian.

obzerver: FTA: "But unfortunately what happens is that when [Free Staters] take the radical approach, that invites people to get angry."

When they filed and clipped each other's nails without a manicures license I was ABSOLUTELY FIT TO BE TIED LIVID!

I was just enjoying the day walking down the sidewalk with a nice hot cup of NH medium roast double Moosedung coffee and had no idea how drastically everything was about to change.

It was like everything was in slow motion, my world snapped to a crawl when I glanced to my right and witnessed it all.

I could see it clear as day. (actually it was clear as day. there was not a cloud in the sky, middle of June, bright, sunny and about 12:30 in the afternoon) The sun light beaming off of the shiny finger nail clippers, the little ball chain thing swaying to and fro, the mans thumb pushing down on the finger nail clipper lever while encasing the index nail of another man.

I heard the 'click' as it severed the finger nail. I saw that finger nail clipping burst into the air in a gentle arc, then, for what seemed like minutes, it ever so slowly descended to the ground like, well like a finger nail clipping.

It hit the cement sidewalk and bounced ever so gently to right about one inch and that was it, I snapped. I could no longer tolerate these radical actions. My blood began to boil, my eyes shot flames and I began crapping thunder.

Also FTA (from the paragraph just prior to your quoted bit of text, in fact): "But some say the tactics have taken on a menacing hue, such as when Free Staters have gathered on the streets of downtown Keene with holstered guns on their waists, visible on their waists."

Somehow, I think the article was refering to this incident rather than the unsanctioned finger nail clipping...still, the term "radical" does seem a touch hyperbolic.

please: FrancoFile: ...obstreperous...

Whoa.
/Keanu

This made me laugh...

Welcome to New Hampshire. Feel free to die.


As a NH citizen, and having lived in quite a few parts of the country, I think that we are probably the least tolerant state for idiots. So these people should have a good time.

These guys have no idea how ugly their corporate "utopia" would be.

It would be like Glen Burnie.

To The Escape Zeppelin!: You can't smoke, have to wear your seatbelt, must not offend anybody.

You're a primary example of what happens when what was meant to be a blowjob winds up in the wrong orifice.

.
.
.
.
.

Well, lookit that. No cops at my door.

These aren't Anarchists, they're morans. Anarchists are against hierarchy in all forms, which means being against Capitalism because it leads to concentration of power.

NittLion78: no one takes my public protest seriously

is he knitting with his lips?

Hideously Gigantic Smurf: To The Escape Zeppelin!: You can't smoke, have to wear your seatbelt, must not offend anybody.

You're a primary example of what happens when what was meant to be a blowjob winds up in the wrong orifice.
Well, lookit that. No cops at my door.

Free speech zones and FCC regulation

Mayhem of the Black Underclass
And how will those people be concentrating money in their hands?

Investment. At first it works to expand the factors of production, but as the resources reach their limit and as markets become saturated, opportunities for investment become scarcer, causing capitalists to look for new resources and markets.

"Resources" are land, labor, technology, and raw materials. All the land has been taken. Labor costs are reduced by pitting workers against each other (racism, nationalism) and making workplaces more like factories: repetition, specialization, mechanization.
Technology is apparently reaching its limits; also consider the vast amount of resources needed to maintain a high level of technological sophistication. And as we all know raw materials, especially oil, are not infinite.

By reducing these costs, a capitalist hopes to increase his/her profit. But they still need to sell products to make money. So when people aren't buying, Capitalism figures out knew ways to sell. This was a major goal of imperialism: crack open markets in foreign lands, flood them with cheap goods, get rich. It worked so well that the so-called "Third World" hasn't even started to recover yet.

The other way capitalism gets you to buy more crap is marketing. It's literally psychological manipulation. For some good primers, watch the movies "The Corporation" and the PBS Frontline documentary "The Persuaders".

Capitalism doesn't work without investment, but there's no investment without a growth opportunity, and there's no such thing as infinite growth. So capitalism fails.

notq: CHOMSKY: I was attracted to anarchism as a young teenager, as soon as I began to think about the world beyond a pretty narrow range, and haven't seen much reason to revise those early attitudes since.

Anarchism as advocated by Chomsky isn't like the "no government" position of the colloquial use of the term. He advocates something closer to direct Democracy. (Which has its own host of problems IMO.)

RanDomino: Mayhem of the Black Underclass
And how will those people be concentrating money in their hands?

Investment. At first it works to expand the factors of production, but as the resources reach their limit and as markets become saturated, opportunities for investment become scarcer, causing capitalists to look for new resources and markets.

"Resources" are land, labor, technology, and raw materials. All the land has been taken. Labor costs are reduced by pitting workers against each other (racism, nationalism) and making workplaces more like factories: repetition, specialization, mechanization.
Technology is apparently reaching its limits; also consider the vast amount of resources needed to maintain a high level of technological sophistication. And as we all know raw materials, especially oil, are not infinite.

By reducing these costs, a capitalist hopes to increase his/her profit. But they still need to sell products to make money. So when people aren't buying, Capitalism figures out knew ways to sell. This was a major goal of imperialism: crack open markets in foreign lands, flood them with cheap goods, get rich. It worked so well that the so-called "Third World" hasn't even started to recover yet.

The other way capitalism gets you to buy more crap is marketing. It's literally psychological manipulation. For some good primers, watch the movies "The Corporation" and the PBS Frontline documentary "The Persuaders".

Capitalism doesn't work without investment, but there's no investment without a growth opportunity, and there's no such thing as infinite growth. So capitalism fails.

I would agree that capitalism, the ideal, is too big of an idea to be infinitely sustainable. But I like the idea of a free market and barter sales between private individuals. Just as all people assume Anarchist is the equivalent of a Bedlamite Saboteur (crazy bomb throwing idiot), the uninformed public also assume that an exchange of goods for money is capitalism.

Socialism works on a small scale, so does capitalism, so does communism for that matter, it's just that the idea of forcing the communists to interact with the capitalists and vice-versa is abhorrent. Forcing anybody to do anything is abhorrent. I'll leave you with this (new window) as reading material

RanDomino: Capitalism doesn't work without investment, but there's no investment without a growth opportunity, and there's no such thing as infinite growth. So capitalism fails.

Interesting position. Are you suggesting that contractions and shifts in a market are not part of capitalism? Or somehow a failure?

Sometimes, they simply veer toward obstinate, wearing hats in a courtroom after being asked to take them off or refusing to remove a couch from a lawn.

Heh, Ian's tenants' couch surfaces again...

I'm a fan and a "friend" of the FSP. I'm not a member insomuch because I already lived in NH when the project was launched.

/Good on ya, FSP'ers.

Skyrmion
Anarchism as advocated by Chomsky isn't like the "no government" position of the colloquial use of the term. He advocates something closer to direct Democracy. (Which has its own host of problems IMO.)

Yeah, we really need to undergo a rebranding. The problem is that the word "Anarchy" is so embedded in the mythology. How do you talk about Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, and Errico Malatesta without calling them Anarchists?


Mayhem of the Black Underclass
I would agree that capitalism, the ideal, is too big of an idea to be infinitely sustainable.

It's like we're talking different languages... What do you mean by "the ideal"? "free markets"? "barter"? "private individuals"? "capitalism"? "socialism"? "communism"? "forcing"? "interact"?
I think what's happening is that Libertarians are interacting with ideas they haven't encountered in capitalist economics... but Marxists have been talking about them for over 150 years.

I'll leave you with this (new window) as reading material

The idea of "non-aggression" is capitalist libertarianism's way of patching the gaping hole in its ideas with magic and wishes.

Non-aggression in a capitalist system lasts right up until it becomes profitable to kill/oppress someone and take their stuff. There's no economic incentive to not kill someone and take their stuff, unless you have laws and an enforcement mechanism- oh, right, the police! Now we're right back to where we are today! And don't expect people to defend themselves with force- whoever has the most resources wins that fight, and then establishes an enforcement mechanism to maintain their holdings...

So with Capitalism, there are only two options: Police who gradually come under control of the Bourgeoisie; or police who start under the control of the Bourgeoisie.

The other thing about non-aggression and ethics in a capitalist system is that if one guy won't do it, another one will. Thus ruthlessly evil people are empowered by capitalism... It's not that people are deciding where the money goes; it's that the money migrates to whoever is best at making it grow. It's a Superintelligence that's grown beyond the control of humanity and now controls us. Its name is Moloch (see 0:32). Its servitors feed it with blood and entropy and it rewards them.


Minsky
Interesting position.

Marx still has the best analysis of Capitalism.

Are you suggesting that contractions and shifts in a market are not part of capitalism? Or somehow a failure?

Most of those fluctuations are just games capitalists play to climb to the top of the monkey-pile; sometimes, they represent real economic bottlenecks that have, thus far, all been solved with a timely Primitive Accumulation (acquisition of new land, labor, raw materials, technology, or markets).