http://freekeene.com/…

I’m writing in response to Keene Sentinel columnist Michael Schuman’s story titled “Will the Free Staters Please Sit Down?” I must admit, a couple of years ago, before coming to understand the message of liberty, I would have agreed with Schuman’s opinions.

Schuman’s views are consistent with what many would describe as main stream America. Unfortunately many of his ideas are based in ignorance and misunderstanding that stems from a lack of critical thinking. Like most of us, Schuman probably attended government indoctrination centers where school children are taught to stand on their X, respect authority, and do as you’re told without question.

Take a look at the pledge of allegiance. How many other countries have one? How many of you know it was written by Fancis Bellamy, a National Socialist (Nazi) flag salesman, to “instill a strong belief in the state.” Dont believe me? Look it up on the internet. You’re likely to find the same picture I did of school children doing a Roman salute – the same one Hitler’s army used – before that was changed after WWII.

Schuman’s description of a classical libertarian is severely flawed and his examples display an ignorance of private property vs. individual rights.
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Dale Everett, Richard Onley, Ian Freeman, Keith Carlsen, and Patrick Shields (from left) discussed efforts yesterday to obtain the release of fellow Free Stater Sam A. Miller from jail. They were not successful. (Cheryl Senter for The Boston Globe)

By Sarah Schweitzer
Globe Staff / May 29, 2009

KEENE, N.H. – From a jail cell in this rural corner of New Hampshire, Sam A. Miller waged a philosophical battle, one milk carton at a time.

The soft-spoken electrical engineer declined food for nearly a month, save for swigs of milk. To eat, he said, would be caving to the tyrannical government powers that placed him here for illegally filming in a courthouse and refusing to reveal his legal name to jail officials. (He says it’s private; jail officials obtained it from a fingerprint trace.)

His resistance has made him a folk hero among antigovernment types who have been making their way to New Hampshire from points across the country since their leaders put out a clarion call six years ago.

The Free Staters, as they are known, hope to lure thousands of like-minded souls to the state, with the goal of paring government to a bare minimum by eliminating things like taxes, speed limits, and zoning laws.

Thus far, just 427 Free Staters have relocated. Yet, here in Keene and in pockets across New Hampshire, Free Staters are making their case in increasingly provocative ways.

“Like Ghandi, like Martin Luther King, we need to educate and enlighten the public,” said Miller, who joined the Free State movement after breaking up with his fiancée.

The actions have ranged from the odd, such as when Free Staters filed another person’s fingernails without a manicurist’s license on a public sidewalk or held an unlicensed puppet show, to the irksome, as when they tried to dig a garden in a downtown Keene park, to the instigative, such as the day they stood on a street corner with a marijuana bud held aloft. 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.

When arrests have followed, Free Staters have sought to film the criminal proceedings from beginning to end, including scenes from courthouse lobbies, where filming is not allowed in some cases, such as in Keene District Court. The lobby filming has yielded more arrests (often, with Free Staters going limp as officers approach) and more footage that Free Staters post on websites such as FreeKeene.com, which has proved an effective recruiting tool.

The so-called liberty actions have been met with some bemusement by residents of this gently tolerant city, population 22,800, home to Keene State College, near the border of Vermont. 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.

“When they first came to town, there was a welcoming spirit. A lot of people were like, ‘OK,’ ” said Richard Van Wickler, a Keene resident and superintendent of the Cheshire County Department of Corrections. “But unfortunately what happens is that when [Free Staters] take the radical approach, that invites people to get angry.”
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http://www.keenesentinel.com/…

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

WESTMORELAND — A battle of wills is playing out within the cinder block walls of the Cheshire

Sam Miller talks about his experience in the local court system during a visit at the Cheshire County jail in Westmoreland.

County jail in Westmoreland, where an activist has spent more than a month protesting a judge’s order that he identify himself to police.

John Doe walks into the jail cafeteria, a faded orange jumpsuit draped over his lanky frame and a folder of legal documents tucked under his arm. He sits at a stainless steel picnic-style table and when he smiles the tendons in his long, thin neck bulge.

Doe says he hasn’t eaten solid food since he’s been behind bars because he’s on a hunger strike. When he came to jail he weighed 180 pounds, and now he weighs 116, he says.

Court and jail officials know Doe’s real name — Sam A. Miller, a 33-year-old former telecommunications specialist from Texas who moved to Keene earlier this year to join the Free State Project. They have Miller’s Texas driver’s license.

But Keene District Court Judge Edward J. Burke has ordered Miller to remain held on $10,000 bail and will not schedule a trial until he gives the Keene police his name.
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http://news.slashdot.org/…

AdamWeeden writes “According to research done by the Boston Globe, HP has been secretly using a third-party company to sell printers to Iran. This is illegal under a ban instituted in 1995 by then US President Bill Clinton. The third-party company, Redington Gulf, operates out of Dubai and previously stated on their web site that the company began in 1997 with ‘a team of five people and the HP supplies as our first product, we started operations as the distributor for Iran,’ though now the site has been changed to remove the mention of Iran. Has HP unknowingly been supplying Iran with technology or have they been trying to secretly get by the US government’s export restrictions?”

I sure hope it’s the latter. In what way is it legitimate for the government to infringe on HP’s private property rights like this? Besides does anyone actually believe these types of restrictions actually do anything constructive? The government will still be able to smuggle in whatever they want and the rest of the residents will be forced into the black market to obtain the products and services they desire. Those who aren’t willing to go that far will be artificially kept back in the rat race leading to less productivity and bigger disparities between those within and without the country. Worse case they pick up lesser brands from China, India or Russia who have likely fewer if any trade restrictions.

Free and open trade makes for more peace and prosperity. Trade restrictions just aren’t bad foreign policy they are bad economics.

When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will. -Fredric Bastiat

Massachusetts Resident Jennifer Davis was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Nov. 18, her contractions just 3 minutes apart. Her husband, John, was trying to appear calm for his wife’s sake, driving in the breakdown lane of Route 2. They pulled up behind a State Trooper to ask whether they could continue using the lane to reach the next exit, near Alewife Station. Not only did the Trooper Michael Galluccio say no, he gave them a $100 citation for driving in the breakdown lane, made them wait for their citation while he finished writing someone else’s ticket, and even seemed to ask for proof of pregnancy, Jennifer Davis said. “He said, ‘What’s under your jacket?’ I said, ‘My belly,’ ” Davis said. “He waited and gestured with his head like, ‘OK, let’s see it.’ He waited for me to unzip my jacket. I mean, it was so clear that I was pregnant.” – Boston Globe

Perhaps he was stressed out because he didn’t get 9/11 off like some others in Massachusetts.

From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON – A new nationwide campaign is warning Americans that unless the federal government puts its financial house in order, the country could be bankrupt in a generation.

The project, organized by Peter G. Peterson, an investment banker who served as commerce secretary in the Nixon administration, and David M. Walker, the former comptroller general of the United States, aims to build grass-roots support for wholesale changes to the federal budget – though the overhaul would require middle- and upper-income Americans to give up some cherished government benefits.

Peterson and Walker said yesterday that the campaign, sponsored by the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation in New York, will kick off next week with a documentary called “I.O.U.S.A,” the first salvo in an aggressive, multimillion dollar effort that will include television advertisements and Internet outreach.

Peterson, the foundation president, and Walker, the chief executive, said the widening gap between government revenues and spending will eventually destroy the confidence in the American economy that has led international lenders to continue to finance the national debt.

“We are going to get a crisis like most Americans have never seen,” Walker said during a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.

The national debt is now more than $9 trillion.

See the link for the rest of the article. Peterson’s group also puts out a color brochure titled, The State of the Union’s Finances.