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Lifelong marriage is an act of defiance against all of the difficulties of life, from the catastrophic to the mundane. In marriage, men and women promise themselves to one another, and tell fate to go to hell. The traditional promises that solemnize a marriage are some of the greatest assertions of human agency, and therefore of human dignity, possible. Our freedom is not realized in the possibility that we might do anything, but in doing what we have said we will do. Human freedom is consummated in the voluntary self-limitation of the promise made and fulfilled. In the making and keeping of promises, we assert ourselves against the world and the future as acting agents, not mere reactive beings responding to circumstance. The power of oaths in legend, literature, and law is due to their assertion of free human choice and will within the cosmos.

As Hannah Arendt observed, it is the making and keeping of promises, along with forgiveness, that put an end to reaction and allow us to begin something new. Seen from this perspective, marriage vows are not an ending that establishes a static state, but a beginning that allows something new to flourish. In keeping our marriage vows, we renew our freedom and dignity as acting agents while uniting the two halves of the human race in a union that continues it.

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That’s what I overheard a few years ago at our town’s Deliberative Session between two teachers who I later found out were union leaders.  OK, so they didn’t say that parenthetical phrase but as I have written before, the costs of our schools (all over the state) are far outstripping the growth in students.  Sure, some districts do have some population increases but most are not.  The upward costs are not being driven by those items that go directly to student – it is for ever-increasing teacher salaries.

I’ll ask: have you ever heard a union say “hey, we’ll take less because the kids need more paper, pens, pencils, art supplies, science supplies” and the like because it’s “for the children”?  I will say that I never have but certainly I’ve heard the kvetching from taxpayers (unless they or a family member are drawing a paycheck from said districts) lamenting that while THEIR take-home pay goes down (generally healthcare, taxes, et al) it always seems they have to pay more to make the teachers “whole”.  Fairness?  Nope – that’s what unions do – rent-seek from others beyond what they otherwise could do.

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(Reformatted, emphasis mine):

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) rose on the Senate floor on Tuesday and gave a speech admonishing Republicans in Congress for not acting on what he presented as their constitutional duty to stand up to the president. “A congressional party that is wholly subservient to the political interests of the president is failing fundamentally to fulfill its constitutional obligation,” Schumer said. “Congress is supposed to be a separate, equal branch of government,” he said.

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Of COURSE you must remember Sandra Fluke – we wrote about her often enough (Steve: ‘Sandra ““I can’t afford my own 9$/month birth control pills” Fluke) who turned the word “access” (it is available and I can buy it) into meaning “I want it – you have to buy it for me; if it ain’t free for me, I have no access to it” never understanding or acknowledging that she believes she should have a free ride on the backs of others for her “fun”.

Enter in Sherry Frost.

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We had a Special Meeting of the BudComm tonite to rectify a huge problem that I found this year by reading through the NH RSAs that govern the budgetary process that must be followed by towns that have adopted SB2 and implemented official Budget Committees.  Since the beginning of our town using SB2, the BudComm was only active during the budget season in crafting the Town and the School Board budgets to be presented to the townfolk for explanation, modification, and finally, approval.

But that was all.  Never had the BudComm carried out its other responsibility – continual budget oversight.  So tonite, we passed a resolution, 8 to 1, to start doing it so as to be in compliance with the RSAs.  Simple housekeeping, you might think?  Not so much but here’s the resolution – the authorizing Statutes first and then the actual resolution:

RESOLUTION
[Emphasis added in Bold]

WHEREAS New Hampshire RSA 32:4 provides, in part, that “All municipal officers, administrative officials and department heads, including officers of such self-sustaining departments as water, sewer, and electric departments, shall prepare statements of estimated expenditures and revenues for the ensuing fiscal year, and shall submit such statements to their respective governing bodies, at such times and in such detail as the governing body may require.”

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The last of the quick interviews from the Women’s Defense League of NH was with Jilletta Jarvis who is the Libertarian candidate for NH Government.

In real life, she seems to be a nice lady; I may not share her issues in toto and I do think she needs to work on her “quick stump speech” but like all candidates not wearing boots on their head (Vermin Supreme – heh!), she should be taken serious and not merely dismissed because she’s at an opposite end.

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Well, TMEW, the Grandson, and I took the trip off the mountain to go vote this morning.  Not early, like 7 or 8am as I had wanted to and have done previous Voting Days – the 2 year old hasn’t quite grasped that he has to turn his timing around to fit everyone else – he was still asleep at 9:45am which was really just after 8:30am his time which is his normal wake-up time.  Thus, there were already a coupla few inches of snow on the road, no snow plow had gone by, and the only road outta here possesses quite the hairpin turn at the bottom of a ravine with a brook at the bottom and a sheer side on the left that only a few years ago was christened with steel guards.  Yes, I have seen a few cars go into the brook and over the side.  One winter, a minivan flipped upside down on the downslope due to the icing on the road before the plow / sand trucks came through. But I digress…

We made it although the F-150, even in 4 wheel drive, slipped and skidded going to the polls.  Turnout was active to the point of being “heavy”; the polling place’s parking lot was full and after dropping off TMEW and the Grandson, I had to park next door at the Library. The lines to register (WITH ID!  YAY!) were rather short but the total pages for the Town and the School District was five full pages. I blew through them having covered them during the BudComm season; TMEW took a bit of time longer.  That was fine – I got to yak with the Selectmen Chair and a number of the ladies stopped by to oogle and ooh-and-ah over the Grandson.

So, how will it turn out? 

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One of the first folks I ran into at the rally was loyal reader and commenter was Allen and his better half – just wanted to say “Hi” again!

I also ran into Steve Negron who announced a while ago that he was going to be running in the Republican Primary to become that Party’s nominee to challenge Democrat Ann Kuster.

Anyways, just a quick ‘Grok interview – I’m sure we’ll be seeing him in the future.

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So let me see if I get this straight – you’re asking for a big hike in your budget:

Budget proposal: $1,964,745, up $150,151, or about 8.3 percent, from the $1,814,594 operating budget voters approved last year.

But you didn’t spend all of LAST year’s budget:

Hot topics: The district is projecting a $100,000 surplus in this year’s budget. Officials hope to use most of that money to add to existing capital reserve funds and to pave the parking lot and driveway at Nelson Elementary School. The remaining surplus would be returned to voters. In previous years, voters rejected some proposed projects, electing to receive a larger portion of the surplus back.

And instead of returning that money back to those that earned it, you want to spend it AND:

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Well, I screwed up royally yesterday. For some reason, I thought the rally started at 2 pm and so, following my normal protocol of “arriving early” to help with setup, I drove down to the State House in Concord NH and arrived a few minutes before 1 pm. Turning onto the street next to the State House, my first thought was “WHY are so many cars here already?” and then saw the crowd and thought to myself “what, there’s another rally before the WLDNH one?” as there were a LOT of people already standing in front of the building.  Then I saw what everyone was carrying (what would you expect at a gun rally??) and the flags.  Sigh….just smack me around.

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“We have really lax firearms regulations,” says Zandra Rice Hawkins, executive director of Granite State Progress and a coordinator at the NH Gun Violence Coalition. “

No, we have Constitutional Rights there, Zandra.  You know, that pesky thing that keeps getting in your way. Oh, but it’s for the children, it’s for safety, it’s for….oh, never mind – sh’s simply promoting Progressivism (which demands complete civilian disarmament by the death of a 1,000 cuts) and Zandra Rice-Hawkins is all about Progressivism.  And so is:

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That was my response to this:

I guess the GTC mailing must have hit a nerve!!

because of this (reformatted, emphasis mine):

To The Daily Sun,

The town has received several inquiries about a recent mailing by the Gilford Taxpayers Coalition.  Please be advised the information being distributed IS NOT AFFILIATED with the Town of Gilford or the Board of Selectmen or the Office of the Town Clerk-Tax Collector. Accordingly, the town neither endorses nor condones the content of the mailing. The official recommendations of the Board of Selectmen, Planning Board and the Budget Committee are set forth in several warrant articles as noted on the ballot. No other positions have been expressed and no mailings have been sent by any Town of Gilford government officials.

Scott Dunn
Town Administrator, Gilford

It was also sent out by the Town’s e-blast system (after the jump).

This is hysterical! This takes a special kind of stupid to associate that name, Gilford Taxpayers Coalition, with the Town of Gilford. Now, there could be one of two reasons for this – or a special kind of stupid person (or group of people) – that would require a Town Administrator to denounce and deny that the Town has any affiliation with such a group:

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Yep, Chairman Mao Buckles Ray Buckley of the NH Dems wouldn’t know what gun safety is even if it bit him in the arse.  He’s just all out of sorts that people actually believe ALL of the US Constitution and the NH one as well:

Noted: If you’re a responsible supporter of the Second Amendment, @NHGOP has nothing but contempt for you. They label the vast majority of Americans as "gun grabbers" b/c they support gun safety. It’s not only dishonest, it’s outright shameful. #nhpolitics https://t.co/C0LCP16tTn

— Raymond Buckley ????????????️‍???? (@ChairmanBuckley) March 10, 2018

Let’s review Buckles’ history, shall we?

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