There they go again- On Wednesday, the NH Superior Court issued their latest edict: the present method by which the state of New Hampshire funds its public education system is unconstitutional. In the latest "deja-vu all over again" ruling in favor of those who harbor broad-based taxation desires here in NH, a small band of lifetime-appointed unelected lawyers with black robes have once again trampled upon the votes and decisions of the state legislature- the duly elected representatives of the people. Reports the September 6th Union Leader:
Concord – A superior court judge handed a victory yesterday to Londonderry, Nashua and 16 other school districts, ruling the state’s latest school funding plan is unconstitutional..Justice William Groff ruled that past New Hampshire Supreme Court rulings in Claremont cases make it clear the new law, contained in House Bill 616, fails to clear even the first of four hurdles the courts set for the Legislature..“The Legislature has completely failed to fulfill its constitutional duty,” to define a constitutionally adequate education, Groff ruled. As for determining the cost of an adequate education, he said, the Legislature, “has abdicated its duty.”
Really? I would contend that if the legislature obeys an order given to it by a co-equal branch of government it is "abdicating its duty." The legislature is "the people" of our state.
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The online dictionary www.thefreedictionary.com defines an oligarchy:
Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.
This is not the first time that NH has found itself under the thumb of the unelected few. The so-called "Claremont 1" & "Claremont 2" decisions were the two previous "biggies" when it comes to overruling the representatives of the NH citizenry.
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With this latest ruling, however, the "oligarchs" have thrown a new wrench into the works: they threaten "seizure" if they deem the system in non-compliance with this week’s edict. "You vill open zis door at vonce! Achtung!" Senior Political Reporter John Distaso (always on the hot stories in our state) writes in the September 9th Union Leader:
Concord – For the first time in 25 years of New Hampshire education funding battles, the state Supreme Court yesterday threatened to take over the system and impose its own solution..Ruling on a suit by a coalition of school districts led by Londonderry and Merrimack, the five-member court unanimously agreed the current system is unconstitutional because it fails to give an understandable, practical definition of an adequate education. That makes it impossible to determine whether the state is paying the full cost of adequacy, as it is required to do under the state constitution, the court said..A three-member majority said if the state fails to fix the system by June 30, 2007, it will then "be required to take further action to enforce" the constitutional mandates itself, possibly by appointing a special court master to "aid" in creating an acceptable definition of educational adequacy.
The online dictionary defines a despot as
A ruler with absolute power…a dictator- a ruler who is unconstrained by law
When you re-write the law and remake it, as the courts are doing here in our once-great state, you become in effect "unconstrained" by it.
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The only way for these "rulings" to become the "law" of the land is if our so-called "leaders" do what they’ve been doing all along: nothing. Letting it happen by default. Kinda like with Caesar- the Senate handed him absolute power. They never got it back.
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Other than us letting them, how exactly will the despotic oligarchs, our modern day "Caesars", seize our schools, taxable properties, and our wallets? After all, as Plato wrote in The Republic
they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule.
