This week, Tammy and I cover a lot of ground! We discuss the elections, police body cams, Qualified Immunity, how much state funerals cost, and more (and more about you know what!). This one might get banned so get it while it’s hot!
The following post is from 6 years ago. I cannot think of a better time to re-share my thoughts on banning books and censoring information, especially in light of YouTube’s announcement yesterday [see pic] that they will be removing ALL “anti-vaccine” content from its platform. I just saw a Tweet from Dr. Ron Paul saying,
Very shocked that @YouTube has completely removed the Channel of my Ron Paul Institute: no warning, no strikes, no evidence. Only explanation was “severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines.” Channel is rarely used. The appeal was automatically rejected. Help?
Ron Paul
Carla Gericke
September 30, 2015 · Shared with Public
Censorship has always fascinated me–who gets to decide what someone else can read? Why? By what authority can one person tell another what they are “permitted” to know? I reject the legitimacy of censorship out of hand. No one has such authority, and history proves those who wish to control what others consume, are, without exception, eventually exposed as the bad guys.
Growing up in South Africa, many things–music, literature, art–were outright banned and censored, from ANC symbols, to most international music, to the movie “Black Beauty” solely because of its title, to certain words in newspapers, yes, literally blacked out on the page like you see in dystopian movies (and, say, in the 9-11 Commission Report), words like “Casspir” (the South African equivalent of “BEARCAT,” the armored trucks now being seeded by the Federales into peaceful communities across America, including more than 20 in New Hampshire) because if you banned the mentioning of the vehicles being used to fight illegal border wars, well then, reporting becomes problematic and difficult to do, and therefore, perhaps, journalists will stop writing about such pesky things, neh?
Under apartheid, South Africa had the “Jacobsen’s Index of Objectionable Literature” which contained a “Complete List of All Publications in Alphabetical Order, Together with Authors, Prohibited from Importation Into the Republic of South Africa, and All Other Banned Literature.” The list is long, and difficult to find online. I have ordered a hard copy of “A Culture of Censorship: Secrecy and Intellectual Repression in South Africa,” secondhand for $0.02 plus shipping from Amazon, which reminds me of two things: 1. How soon we forget our histories; and 2. Thank god for the free market. If only said book could be delivered by an aerobot drone to my door, but alas, the FAA has been spending its time on such important issues as licensing paper airplanes for flight.
South African author, Nadine Gordimer wrote in 1968, republished in The New York Times Books section in 1998: “All the work, past, present and future, of an individual writer can be erased by a ban on his spoken and written word. The ban not only restricts his political activity, which is its avowed intention, but negates his creativity–he becomes a non-person, since his form of communion and communication with the society in which he lives is cut…. And so long as our society remains compartmentalized, our literature will be stretched on the rack between propaganda, on the one side, and, on the other, art as an embellishment of leisure.”
Some people wonder why I take issue with so many things I see happening in my adopted country, and, frankly, why I refuse to shut up about it, to give up, to cave in, to just say, Nah, this crap is too hard to change, the difference we can make too infinitesimal, so why try? It’s because I have *lived through a police state* before, and America is lock-step marching there.
This is not hyperbole. I will grant you: America is doing its police state right, “better,” more subtle, more comfortable, of course, it’s what America does, after all. This police state is hidden behind both the “propaganda” arm, and mostly, the “embellishment of leisure”: The sports, the reality TV, the Christmas carol commercials to consumers in September, the debates, the joke of it all.
The bread and circuses, the tinny music piping from the organ grinder while the monkeys dance, while MILLIONS of peaceful people rot in prisons for voluntarily inhaling a plant, while MILLIONS are peaceful people in far away lands are being murdered under the cloak of the Stars and Stripes, while MILLIONS of people are being displaced by state-funded terror raining down from the skies.
Why does #BannedBooksWeek matter? It matters because it creates an opportunity to talk about the bad guys. And, I am afraid to inform you, the US government is a bad, bad guy, he’s the boyfriend who beats you then tells you he can’t live without you–or you can’t live without him?–and you go back.
Me? I decided a decade ago that I wasn’t taking the Fed Gov back, that I would take my chances with a smaller wife beater (the state of NH), and see what kind of difference I can make on a local level.
This morning, hundreds of protesters showed up at St. Anslem in Goffstown, NH, to raise our voices against the un-Constitutional mandates coming from DC. We reject DC’s authoritarianism, mandates, and madness.
The NH Executive Council is set to vote on whether to accept federal funds to create a vaccine registry in NH, which was the last state to create such a registry. Because we value privacy (see this NH Constitutional Amendment that passed in 2018: [Art.] 2-b. [Right of Privacy.] An individual’s right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent), there are ways to opt-out, but now, seems this “opt-out” list IS a list, and this needs to be addressed.
Honestly, I have not paid a huge amount of attention to this issue in the past. I vaguely knew “other activists” were working on health freedom/vaccine issues, and I have had my hands full with a myriad of other “loss of liberty” issues (police accountability and militarization, open/transparent government and Right-To-Know, 1A, 2A, 4A, 10A, etc), but now I will get to work to get up to speed so I can help answer questions Granite Staters have going forward.
Watch my quick take live video from the rally HERE.
See how big the crowd was HERE, and hear me say, “We are NOT sheep on your Pharm.”
See photos HERE.
What can YOU do to help? Come to Concord on Saturday, 10/2 from Noon to 3PM. March starts at the State Library and then heads over to the State House. Pack a picnic, bring the whole family, and come celebrate freedom and camaraderie!
Eight years ago today: press conference to decry the government’s militarization of our local police. They now also have encrypted secret communications, making law abiding citizens less safe, and have added drones to their arsenal. They used BEARCATS and ramming rods and drones to attack peaceful activists in Keene earlier this year… As our freedoms are crushed under the boot of the emerging police state, and as they lay claim to your body and say they can force you to do things against your will, remember the people who have been warning you for more than a decade AND offering solutions: Free Staters like me!
Below is my response to a dear friend who posted this on FB: “here’s what I don’t understand about the anti mask stance. It’s not just *your* body and your choice. People who don’t wear masks actually are putting others at risk, according to science. Which I believe in. If you don’t, that’s where this all falls apart. Why do you not believe the science, tho? How about all the proof of people winding up in the ER, dying, etc? I have personally known people who have died or almost died from it. And at its height, I laid my own eyes on big rig freezer trucks to store the bodies of the dead in NYC bc they couldn’t bury them fast enough. I’m all about freedom and rights too. But that stops when a particular freedom infringes on my or my unvaccinated nephew’s (because he is too young) rights. Like, you want restaurant employees to wash their hands after they take a shit, right? Or does that infringe on their rights? I’m truthfully not trying to start an angry debate – if anyone wants to, go ahead, but I won’t engage w anger – I’m just trying to understand your side of it.”
PART 1:
You’re free to believe “the science” you have been fed. I have delved deeper into the actual statistical data to make my own informed decisions, FOR ME.
“Science,” by its very nature, changes all the time. The more information we have, the better decisions we can make. When the government claims, as they now do, that there is only ONE TRUE SCIENCE, they are lying to you, and they are wrong. The censorship of any counterpoint to THE ONE TRUE SCIENCE is a “tell” that indicates something fishy is going on.
Did you know if you compare countries with or without mask mandates, it makes no statistical difference to the infection rates for a virus that has a 99.7% survival rate? I.e. regardless of what you have been told, masks don’t matter. If you feel better wearing a mask, more power to you. I don’t.
I understand you may be scared. I hope you also understand that you have actively and purposely bamboozled into thinking a certain way about this virus, and, unless you are willing to, say, champion AIDS or herpes or other communicable disease Passports next, you have to understand that arguing, as you do, that “*I* am in some way responsible for whether you get sick when you leave your house” is a terrible way for us to start interacting as a society…
Did you know the U.S. excess death rate was higher in 2017 than 2020? I.e., “In 2017, excess deaths and years of life lost in the United States represent a larger annual loss of life than that associated with the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020.” [SOURCE: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/16/e2024850118].
Did 2017 feel like a “pandemic” to you? (Did you know the WHO changed their definition of the word “pandemic” in order to take out “severity of illness” so that contractual obligations by nation states to buy vaccines is automatically triggered at a lower level of severity than before? Stated differently, did you know the WHO colluded with Big Pharma and said: Hey, if a virus spreads worldwide, regardless of how strong it actually is, we’ll say it’s a “super bad sounding pandemic” and guarantee to buy your stuff? Talk about perverse incentives!)
Did you spend 2017 living in fear? Did you feel the need in 2017 to protect yourself from, or judge, your friends and neighbors for their personal choices about their body autonomy? No.
Did you in 2017 think it was OK for unelected officials to ban what medicines doctors can prescribe to their patients? No.
What changed?
Hysterical propaganda from the government, aided by the legacy media and social media platforms, pushing a “product” for which there are NO long-term studies and for which no one can be held liable if it causes harm, to a population that has been literally scared out of their minds. On purpose.
Let me say that again: Scared out of their minds. On purpose.
What you have experienced this past year is basically like a WWII air-raid siren blasting nonstop in your brain, negatively affecting your amygdala and mental health. There is now a large body of work on “the science” of fear and “the science” of propaganda. I recommend you explore this area if you want to better understand what has been happening.
As a starting point, all I can advise is: Turn off the your TV, especially the news, and be careful about your screen time and innocuous seeming “push news” on your phone.
I don’t want to argue with you about this either, but I will not stand down from my position MY BODY MY CHOICE. I know it sounds harsh, but I do not have a duty to protect you from harm–YOU have a duty to protect yourself, and if you prefer to be around only masked or vaccinated people, that is your choice, but it better be in your home and not the public sphere. In public, I have as much rights as you, unless you now think you own me?
I’m unwilling to embrace the idea that I am a permanent germ vector that needs to be punished and forced to do something against my bodily wishes just for leaving my house.
Again, you do you, but you don’t own me. Not even one teensy bit, and definitely not my pie hole! 
That said, I love you, and I hope we can hang again in the future. Galt speed!
PART 2:
Also, unless you think there should be cameras in toilets watched by Big Bro Crap Police with fines, penalties and quarantine camps, that analogy falls way short. What if the person forgot to wash their hands, but there’s no shit or germs on their hands, should they still be punished even if they weren’t spreading a disease? Should we just pretend everyone is sick and diseased, or should we strive for a society where we don’t punish the healthy?
My hot yoga class has a sign from Buddha above the door: “You are what you think.” I suggest we all think about that…
CLICK HERE to watch my recent interview about The Ecstatic Pessimist (buy yours directly from me now), the Free State Project, my activism in New Hampshire, and more!
This expansive interview covers many of the essays in the book, including a 420 rally gone wrong, growing up in South Africa under apartheid, issues like police accountability, libertarianism , and more!
7 Reasons why YOU should come to Carla Gericke’s “The Ecstatic Pessimist” book roundtable at 1:10p at the Exhibitor Hall Bookstore and/or the Boomer/Zoomer debate at 3:10p on Stage 2. #ffest21
1. Author, activist, and attorney, Carla Gericke has been successfully cat-herding thousands of libertarians in the Free State of New Hampshire for more than a dozen years.
2. In 2020, despite lockdown orders to the contrary, Carla told the world that “PorcFest is a First and Second Amendment protected assembly,” and proceeded to host the then 17th Annual Porcupine Freedom Festival, the ONLY event worldwide to proceed as scheduled. More than one thousand libertarians, including folks like Tom Woods, gathered for a weeklong celebration of liberty, without any negative health consequences.
3. In 2014, Carla, after being arrested in 2010 and charged with felony wiretapping carrying a 7-year sentence for filming a routine traffic stop, fought back and won a landmark First Circuit lawsuit against the federal government that affirmed the First Amendment right to film police officers, and that qualified immunity would no longer apply. That year, Carla was named one of NH Magazine’s “Remarkable Women.” This widely-cited case is part of the reason we are now talking about police accountability and reform because for the first time in human history, ordinary citizens CAN RECORD and PROVE police malfeasance.
4. In 2020, Carla ran for NH Senate (R) on a pro-liberty platform critical of lockdowns and mask mandates. She got 44% against a now 12-term Establishment Elite (D). (Consider contributing to her 2022 race!)
5. Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine said “The Ecstatic Pessimist,” is “a fantastic package of writings that veer from fiction to autobiography and memoir to political polemics…. I highly recommend ‘The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly)’.”
6. In late 2017, at the age of 45, Carla decided to retool her life for health and longevity. She quit drinking alcohol, adopted an Ancestral lifestyle by following a Keto/Paleo diet and doing intermittent fasting (now up to 7 days), returned to her yoga and meditation practice, and lost 50+ pounds, which she has kept off. The concluding personal essay in The Ecstatic Pessimist deals with this inspirational story, and offers lessons for others seeking to improve their own lives. Live free and thrive!
7. The Ecstatic Pessimist contains award-winning, previously published short stories written while completing her MFA in Creative Writing, as well as 13 essays about the Free State Project and her activism in New Hampshire, including:
* The world’s first pro-TOR protest to save a local NH library from the Department of Homeland Security’s overreach;
* A 420 rally that went horribly wrong when undercover narcs arrested the only Black kid;
* Fighting police militarization and being called a “domestic terrorist” in 2013 in a government grant application for a BEARCAT. Frankly, this 2021 “extremist” stuff seems like a… downgrade?!?
Buy your copy of “The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly)” at the Bookstore, and then come join Carla at 1:10p for a roundtable discussion, and to get your copy signed! Can’t make it? Read this essay!
We discuss the border issue and the kids still being held in cages… what are you doing about it now? Also on the menu are the issue of NH police body cams not being subject to Right-to-Know disclosure, how and why the legacy media is playing you, and more!
The more things change the more they stay the same!?! PorcFest is happening next week in the beautiful White Mountains of the Free State of New Hampshire.
We’re SOLD OUT, and expecting more than 2,500 people, of which 2/3 are from out of state. That’s a LOT of potential movers, people seeking a better life, which is what living in liberty in NH offers!
As the rest of the world moves towards more top-down control and totalitarianism, I encourage all peaceful liberty lovers who believe in private property and self-ownership to join us!
I am doing several talks at PorcFest, including “Make America States Again”; my future vision; police accountability; and the how and why of the Free State Project. I am looking forward to talks by speakers like Naomi Wolf, Tom Woods, Jeffrey Tucker, Gene Epstein, Stephen Kinsella, Scott Horton, and more!
On Saturday at 6PM, we are again hosting SOAPBOX IDOL, which is YOUR opportunity to do a 3-minute rant about whatever you are most passionate about. Don’t miss the auditions 11A most days in the Upper Picnic Tent.
If you haven’t looked at the schedule yet, it’s bananas! On top of the main field, there are HUNDREDS of programs, from knitting to newbie shoots, being offered by individuals. Be sure to walk around the campground and enjoy each others’ company. We are all here to learn and share!
A reminder, PorcFest is about personal responsibility, i.e. how YOU are behaving and showing up in the world. We want YOU to have the time of your life, while also being considerate of others. Attendees run the gamut from singles to great-grandparents, with a lot of families with young ‘uns in-between. Quiet time is 11PM. Tomorrow is another day; pace yourself. 
Take photos, record talks, and use this PUBLIC link to upload pics: https://dropevent.com/PorcFest. Live tweet, and help us create buzz and capture memories. Use #PorcFest and #LiveFreeAndThrive. I can’t wait to meet YOU.
Come say “hi.” Plan to buy my book, The Ecstatic Pessimist for $20 and/or support my Carla Gericke for New Hampshire efforts. Liberty lives in New Hampshire! Come join the fun!
(PS: I’m pretty sure the whip was a prop. The gun and crown are real. 
)
My guest for the third episode of Liberty & Wine is Carla. Author, activist, attorney, and genuine freedom fighter, she tells me all about her diverse background and her involvement in the Free State Project.
LISTEN NOW!
The wine I am recommending this month is the 2016 Luigi Righetti Amarone della Valpolicella, a bold Italian red wine with a complex nose.
This month’s links:
Wine selection: https://www.vivino.com/CA/en/luigi-righetti-amarone-della-valpolicella/w/91761?year=2016
Free State Project: https://www.fsp.org/
Porcupine Freedom Festival: https://porcfest.com/