A brief response to Josh Erickson (petty and Keene-centric)

Published by Skeptikos on Aug 11, 2014

This is a response to Josh Erickson’s post here, which, in turn, is a response to my letter to the editor here. (I love how Josh refuses to link to my original piece. I must be truly despicable!) Anyway, the main points:

You know nothing [about Free Keene/Stop Free Keene], Will May.

Actually, I lived in Keene from 2008 to 2013, and was heavily involved in the libertarian activist scene for the entire duration. From about 2009 onward, after I got annoyed at the 420 protests — you know, like normal Keeniacs did — I strongly opposed a lot of Free Keene activism. In fact, I started blogging at Free Keene in an attempt to redirect activism in a better direction. (Spoiler: I failed.)

I then moved to Hinsdale for a year, and now I live in Albany, but I still have libertarian friends in the area and I keep a close eye on what Free Keene is doing. How do you think I heard about Stop Free Keene?

I even did some network analysis of Free Keene facebook data last year. They’re an interesting group, and they inspired an ongoing interest in extremist group dynamics on my part.

So, while the rest of you are trying to fill in the gaps based on scattered newspaper articles, blogs, and maybe a few personal interactions, this has been my life for 6 years! That’s a whole lot of nothing!

There is nothing conspiratorial about speculating about how deep the [Koch brothers] connections are and your reticence to discuss them or even acknowledge them was ridiculous in light of the mountain of evidence.

Really? Well let’s review my reticence and this “mountain of evidence”:

What long-winded reticence! And that mountain at the end — two paragraphs from Susan Bruce, who surprisingly thanked me for taking the time.

(Link to the facebook discussion)

You were kicked out for jumping on the “SFK is a hategroup” bandwagon [...]

Accusing SFK of being a hate group — a group that I myself was a member of — or pointing out the obvious and defending a guy from inaccurate accusations?

It seems pretty clear what I had in mind here, and it also seems pretty reasonable. (Facebook link)

[...] because some of us disagree with the FSP and it’s goals.

I’m a liberal economics student who idolizes Paul Krugman and Janet Yellen.

You think I 1) called my own group a hate group because 2) I, along with other people, disagree with the FSP?

*shrug* That’s one theory, I guess.

you just wanted SFK to stop tying the giant liability that is the cult of Ian Bernard to the FSP.

Well look. Here’s the deal. I’ve been watching this closely for 6 years.

Who are the people who are most opposed to Free Keene? Free Staters who hate being associated with them. There was a serious schism in the FSP back around 2008-09, pitting gung-ho Keene activists against straight-laced statehouse activists. Keene residents didn’t even form an opposition group until years later.

Who are the people in the best position to influence Free Keene? Other people in the Free State Project who are on friendly terms with Free Keene members. (Technically, they’re second, after local law enforcement. But close enough.)

I very nearly led a moderate coup of Free Keene in 2012. Who was behind that? Not “Free Keene from the Free Staters”, or whatever group was around at the time, but a bunch of libertarians. Makes you think.

The schism has quieted down since 2009, and I decided throwing coups of crackpot activist groups wasn't what I wanted to do with my life, but there are still a lot of Free Staters around who oppose Free Keene. It's an obvious alliance.

Maybe SFK could somehow stop Free Keene while also lobbing lots of insults at the FSP. But they’d have to be ridiculously smart about it. If SFK really was smart enough to pull this off, they would do the smart thing to begin with and reach out to Free Staters.

Plus, believe it or not, SFK actually includes a good number of libertarians. By attacking the FSP as a whole — when Free Staters are just libertarians who moved from out of state — you alienate some of your own group members. Much better to start a separate group if you want to do both. And didn’t Susan Bruce and Cynthia Chase already start an anti-FSP group anyway? What do we need another one for?

Suggesting the average citizen open a dialogue with Free Keene “activists” is just as laughable as suggesting a Marxist should call into Free Talk Live.

You’ve already demonstrated the problem with the alternative. If you don’t talk to people, then you don’t know what you’re talking about, your criticisms fly way off the mark, you descend into dumbass conspiracy theories about the Koch brothers, and basically make a big fool of yourself in public.

But if you don’t like listening to me, take it from Sun Tzu:

“if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”

I feel like I should add some final note about SFK down here. I'm not sure what to say. I've got a bad case of SFK fatigue. Maybe they'll get somewhere, in spite of themselves, even if it's not pretty.