Visit a park in Manchester after 11PM or before 7AM

[mvpel]

No evidence. I was being a bit sarcastic about the muffins but from personal first hand experience with the homeless in NYC there is much speculation of many people disappearing off the streets after being taken away by his goons to never ever to be seen again.

They probably decided that living in San Francisco - where it's decent weather year-round, the city government and myriad agencies worship the ground they walk on and gave them cash to support their drug habits, and a team of activist lawyers stands ready to leap to their defense at the slightest indication - was much better than dealing with the NYPD and New York winters, and I'm sure NYC was only too happy to give them a cross-country bus ticket.

[Luke S]

Dave Ridley, all I have to say is I hope you succeed in this. People like you and Lauren Canario and the Kannings, even though you are not always right, have stood up to tyranny more than any other group of people I have ever seen.

I think this is your big chance, Dave. I really do. Because the police really want to enforce this law, and you're going to be breaking the law that they're going to be right in the middle of enforcing.

[Lloyd Danforth]

What do you mean "not always right'?   Of course they are!

[Luke S]

No Lloyd, they aren't always right. But this time they are right. They are very, very right.

The cold hard truth is that "public" parks are not really public at all, they are government parks where government people have special privileges to make whatever arbitrary rules they want to. And it is up to Dave Ridley to turn them into truly public parks.

Dave, out of all the things you and those anarchists have ever done, this will be the most wonderful, pro-freedom thing that you have ever done in my opinion. This is because I am a nature lover and I constantly dream of the day in which government parks can not be government parks, but truly free parks.

Dave Ridley, parks are the most beautiful at night, they truly are. Except nobody can ever go to half of them at night because of the government.

You've just gotta stand up to this nonsense, Dave. You've just gotta. And then you need to go to other parks and stand up to the government nonsense going on in those parks.

[Lloyd Danforth]

you jus gotta!  You jus gotta, Dave!

[Porcupine_in_MA]

I was listening to Manchester area news on 95.7 this morning and they talked about Ridley and the park protest. It was cool to hear about it.

[Dave Ridley]

cool...the union leader called yesterday to do a story.   thanks for the kind words luke

[Nat F]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Free+Stater+will+invite+a+city+park+curfew+arrest&articleId=ab9d3736-ce29-4174-836e-9b3f08ec7216

Tons of comments.

-Nat

[FTL_Ian]

Wow, people are really angry about this.

I hope they either get a clue or move away, cause it's only going to keep happening and more often.

[Porcupine_in_MA]

I'm not surprised by the comments showing up. Typical authoritarian attitudes that are taught in government schools. "If you don't like the law don't disobey it, try to get it changed. Whether it is a good law or not." Also, "If you don't like how things are you can leave".  It's all rooted in the same authoritarian statist thinking.

[Luke S]

I've never even heard of any other state or anything that has called for somebody to be arrested for picking up trash at 6AM in the city park.

And what in the hell is a "quality of life issue", and why are these people saying something is a crime if it affects "quality of life issues"?

Anyway, I left them the following comment. I don't know if it'll be published.

This is absolutely unbelievable. I am not even from New Hampshire. I am from Michigan. And Michigan doesn't even have any special status as a "Live Free or Die" state like your state does, but even then if somebody picked up trash here at 6AM at the city park or a state park and the police got nasty with them over it, then most people would be on the side of the person who was picking up the trash, not on the side of the police.

And now you people are calling for him to be arrested for the "crime" of picking up trash?

I don't know much about Free Staters, but it sounds like from some of your attitudes that your state was the one that needed to be freed because I have never heard this attitude in any other state I have been to in my life toward somebody who wanted to go to a city park and pick up trash. The attitude I hear from all those other states is "sure, go right ahead". The attitude I'm hearing right now from your state is "throw the guy in jail". So it's obvious that Free Staters needed to come to your state in order to free it.

[Pat McCotter]

The crime is not "picking up trash" but breaking curfew by being in the park before 7:00AM.

To see what is meant by police enforcing quality of life issues read about the broken window theory.

[William]

The crime is imposing the curfew. A worse crime is enforcing it.

If you agree that they can ban you from walking in that park from 11 - 7, then you agree they can ban you from walking there from 12 - 12.

Protection from gangs? Nonsense. Everyone is responsible for their own individual safety.

Drug dealers? Thank god. What we really need are several drug dealers in every park that way the competition keeps the prices down.

As for good neighbors, I'd rather live next to a dealer than a cop any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[Porcupine_in_MA]

The police and other goverment employees are effecting my quality of life in a bad way. I guess I need to arrest and/or fine them.

[FTL_Ian]

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
- Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935