http://www.keenesentinel.com/…

Seeing the trenchant prose of Friedrich Nietzsche disrespectfully spray-painted on a church building, coupled with anarchy symbols and cliched atheist mantras, left this particular Nietzschean anarchist with a bad taste in his mouth.

With no actual knowledge of Nietzschean or anarchist philosophy to stop them – and plenty of angst to aid them – the vandals have made nothing but fools of themselves, even amongst fellow anarchists, atheists and Nietzsche fans.

The famous, and usually misunderstood, quote “God is dead” is not, as our vandals seem to think, a criticism of the concept of God and any ethics derived therefrom, as much as it is a challenge to the atheists of the world, to the godless, whose value system is inherently nihilistic.

This nihilism is something that Nietzsche believes must be overcome (and he died trying to do it). He believed the atheist must struggle, in a world without God, to create his own values and find his own meaning.

Thus Zarathustra, the character who speaks the famous quote, goes on to say that we, after killing God as a source of value, must “become Gods ourselves…”

In other words, we must become the source of our own values.

That is the true meaning of the death of God: the birth of the Overman (in German: Ubermensch). I doubt our vandals ever actually read the original source of the statement, or understood it.

Instead, in typical pseudo-philosophical fashion, they ripped the quote out of context, lost the meaning, and spray-painted it on the side of a church: an act which ironically shows our vandals’ utter lack of values.

Next, the vandals went on to spray-paint anarchy symbols. As an anarchist, I take offense to this as well. Most anarchists I have ever met have nothing but complete respect for private property, and nothing but tolerance for different belief systems – which is why we are anarchists. The State represents, to me, homogenization, rather than diversity; control, rather than cooperation; theft, rather than respect for ownership; and violence, rather than peace.

The vandals represent all of the State’s values, and none of its antithesis – so how can they really call themselves anarchists?

Not only that, but the vandals are clearly ignorant of the many, many Christian anarchists – most notably, Leo Tolstoy. Even our founding fathers, who were religious, had strains of anarchist thought, which is why they never wanted the State to get involved with religion (or much else), so that religion would flourish in all its forms and people would be free to worship God in their own way.

So to spray-paint anarchy symbols on a church represents a complete lack of understanding of anarchist and Christian philosophy.

Finally, the vandals did something so ridiculous, something so incredibly indicative of their ignorance, that! one can not help but laugh:

They spelled Nietzsche wrong (yes, check out the video: they forgot the “c” every time).

How can we take such immaturity and hypocrisy seriously – especially when contrasted with the calm patience and caring forgiveness of the church members?

Seems to me that the members of Hope Chapel know where their values lie, and they take opportunities like this – where pain is forced upon them by an immoral act – to grow stronger in their faith. Nietzsche was right all along:

“That which does not kill you makes you stronger.”

Let’s hope the vandals can grow a little from this, too.

ANDREW CARROLL
176 Church St.
Keene

I disagree that their actions show the “vandals’ utter lack of values.” It shows that they have destructive and anti-social values. Otherwise he’s pretty spot on.

• 9:00AM Peymon Mottahedeh’s Live Free off the IRS Lies and Abuse. Not a real lecture. It was really an advertisement for his scam. I’ve read plenty of the arguments from the tax protesters. I’ve read the IRS’s responses to many of them. It’s all bogus. The safest and quickest way to end the federal income tax is to assume it’s all legit and get rid of it by lowering spending, getting rid of the federal income tax and IRS and amending out the 16th Amendment. It disappoints me that those in charge of getting speakers for this Liberty Forum got this guy. I wanted presentations not adverts for possible scams.
• 10:30AM Jim Lark’s Knee-Jerk Libertarianism: A Cure for a Common Disease. It was a well spoken discussion on a common problem in the freedom movement and many other belief systems: poor messenger skills. He was very well spoken and very serious in getting freedom fighters to be better at getting libertarian ideas across. Try not to insult, be empathetic and try to not to convince people your right but give them the info to think about why you are right. Here is the audio from the speech: Jim Lark: Knee-jerk libertarianism
• 1:00PM Barry Cooper of Never Get Busted. He has a bit of that sleazy salesman feel but not like Peymon Mottahedeh. He’s not a full libertarian (though he’s running on the Libertarian ticket in Texas District 31) but he has some good practical instructions on how to deal with traffic cops as a user of marijuana and his new movie Never Get Raided goes further including concealing the growing of marijuana and catalogs police tactics. Sounds interesting but I’m not motivated enough to purchase either movie.
• 2:30PM Jim Babka from Downsize DC. Not sure why I attended this one. I already had met him in the elevator earlier that day. I’m subscribed to the Downsize Dispatch, I very regularly use their services to send messages to my representatives and I donate to them monthly. It was interesting none the less (he’s a good speaker so hearing things over again didn’t feel repetitive) and I got myself a bumper sticker. He presented The Onion’s Bullshit is Most Important Issue for 2008 Voters.
• Glen Jacobs was in attendance at Babka’s presentation. After it was over xyz and I got a photo with him. I briefly talked with him about his contributions to the movement. Acknowledging that given his situation I understood why he was unable to publicly participate in the movement but appreciated his work under his pseudonym and that someone in his position (not to say that professional wrestler is widely looked up to but surely more than I, and he’s got more connections) was very valuable. He seemed genuinely thankful. While I have a guess as to who in the community he is I’ll leave it to you to find out.
• 4:00PM F. Paul Wilson’s Awful Lonely at Times: Being a Libertarian from the 60’s On. Those who know me know I’m not much on reading fiction. I’ve never read any of his books nor did I know who he was till just a few months ago when I started listening to Gardner Goldsmith’s radio show. Gardner is a big fan and was ecstatic to be able to hear him speak and hang out. Mr. Wilson was very well spoken and unfortunately didn’t spend much time on his dealings with libertarianism in the 60’s and 70’s. Many there knew of his work and were fans so it’s understandable that he would also talk about his works and how he integrated libertarian ideas into them. Here is the audio of his speech: F. Paul Wilson
• The dinner was alright. I actually preferred the buffet. xyz and I sat with Mike and Sayh(sp?) from the Manhattan Ron Paul Meetup group and a young freelance writer, Sam, who was at the Liberty Forum to get information on private currencies. He originally just wanted to talk with Bernard von NotHaus but decided that if he was going to make the long trip up from Brooklin he may as well check out the whole Liberty Forum. He’s not a libertarian but was very interested in what he was hearing. If I run across him tomorrow I’ll have to give him a copy of the latest Serf City. The keynote speaker was New Hampshire US Senator John Sununu. A good number of people were not all that thrilled that the Saturday keynote was a federal Republican politician. He was booed when he said we need taxes to pay for needed government. He was called out for voting for the original PATRIOT Act He was heckled to do a Q&A when he finished. Which he didn’t… he grabbed his things and left immediately after his speech was over.