This was originally part of my previous post on pull quotes I found amusing but turned into something else that would have distracted from the previous post being purposefully short and the other quotes getting a shot a some discussion.
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In the Union Leader article, “Free State Movement Not Embraced by All Granite Stater’s” once you get past the “No Sh**” moment presented by the title of the article, or the fact that this is written like some kind of hit-piece on Republican Mark Warden, and the Second amendment, and Liberty, we can focus on a quote from Democrat Aaron Gill, who having lost to “Free Stater” Mark Warden in an election where state Democrats were winning seats as if Obama could just give them away…
“I’m gay, and I didn’t want the government telling me I couldn’t get married,” Gill said. “But after a while I learned that the world doesn’t function that way. I guess I was really a Democrat all along but just didn’t realize it.”
There are Free Stater’s who are Democrats, or didn’t you know that?
There are Libertarians who are also Democrats, and Free Staters, oh my! But that’s not exactly my point. It is quite clear that Gill was never anything but a Democrat.
On the question of voter ID (for example) he managed to repeat verbatim the lefts talking point du jour on the subject when he commented that voter ID was like a poll tax.
Trying to make it harder to vote, or instituting a new poll tax by requiring someone to pay for a photo ID, is not American.
This is the left’s fall back answer even if it makes no sense. When Clair Ebel of the NH ACLU made the same claim, in the more accurate context…
Claire Ebel, director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union, compared the new law to an unconstitutional poll tax, saying it would discriminate against students who couldn’t afford to register their cars and pay driver’s license fees.
Um. Claire? If it is a poll tax to require students to register their cars or pay drivers license fees like every other person who lives in New Hampshire, then it must also be a poll tax for everyone else who lives in New Hampshire who can’t walk to where they vote. We all have to register our cars and pay for a drivers license. We all have to buy gas to put in our cars. But just for you Claire, I’ll ask.
Show of hands. Who in New Hampshire can walk to where they vote? Not too many. Holy crap Claire, time for a class action lawsuit. And not just New Hampshire. Every frikking state in the nation is discriminating against a super super majority of voters by requiring them to register their cars and pay for a drivers license, just so they can get to a polling place. What’s next, cab fare, bus fare, and subway tokens—poll taxes!!
Claire? You there? Hello? Claire? Guess what would solve your so-called presumption that such costs are a poll tax? Voting absentee ballot in their own home town would solve that Claire, which these college students have not been prevented from doing. Wait. Cost of postage…a poll tax!
Aaron’s also never responded to this issue, but having lost his race certainly shouldn’t absolve him of it. because I suspect he’ll try to run again. The whole out of state influence meme, where he takes money from out of state, thorough an out of state Internet fundraising portal, while pontificating on the value of local influence. Read it, it’s touching.
My second point, or perhaps my first if you are unclear what my first point was (as I am), is that the same article, “Free State Movement Not Embraced by All Granite Stater’s” (see also it’s companion article, “not everyone embraced the New Hampshire Democrat party”–which does not exist), is that the people interviewed for this piece (of work) are a RINO and two big government leeches, one of them who was less confused about his sexuality (he’s gay) than he was about whether or not he was a libertarian…he wasn’t.
I grant you it is an attack on the Free Staters, but it is just a weeeeeee…bit one-sided. There is nothing in it to denote how they eliminated the Democrats self admitted 800 million dollar deficit without raising taxes during the worst recession in history. Or is it the slowest recovery in history, I forget? There is nothing about the Free State’s influence on reducing the size of state government and there-by reapportioning that authority to local voters who may or may not want or even need to pay for things the state might have previously demanded of them.
It just assumes that if free staters are not Democrats, what good are they? Have you met a New Hampshire Democrat? Free Staters, at least a few of whom don’t even like my views all that much, are a political pleasure in comparison.
They are just Libertarians who are essentially Conservatives with a varying grasp on the need or degree to which we require institutions; and what the size and role of those institutions should be to arrive at the ideal balance between a minimum amount of necessary government to protect rights and property and the goal of maximizing personal responsibility without chaos.
Some of us disagree on social issues at every or any level but that is mostly an internal debate about definitions. Arron Gill brings up the effort by ‘Free-Staters” to remove the state from marriage altogether, as a reason why he realized he’s a Democrat. I think that’s a waste of time. Without getting off on a long tangent, marriage is a religious ceremony with property rights implications which the state does exists to protect. In fact, that is one of the states few reasons for even being–to protect personal property rights. A civil union is the same thing as a marriage but without religion. The state should see them the same way, and “the people” are free to meddle with the civil service details all they want, but the religious service if off limits. The state has an interest in knowing who is married or ‘unioned’ so it can protect those property rights. Anything more than that, in my opinion, probably exceeds its mandate.
Where was I…?
Libertarians and Conservatives also agree that in most if not all cases these are decisions (civil services, abortion, etc) the Constitution left to the states and the people, and that these are where those discussions and the definitions themselves should be defined. By extension, we also believe (as previously noted) that the state should, whenever possible, defer decisions to local governments, which is what they and the Tea Party Republicans tried to do. Remove the excessive cost burden of state government while giving local towns more control over that money and the power that goes with it.
You don’t exactly pull that off overnight but the past two years saw improvements in personal responsibility and local control, which the Democrats will now do their best to undo while smearing those who gave you more freedom and a more efficient, less expensive government.
So I am a bit perturbed at the tone of this article, which appears to be just another hit piece against the Free Staters, most of whom are not anarchists, and who should not be labeled as Republican Party infiltrators with a hidden agenda or as threats to New Hampshire’s pre ‘Free State’ way of life.
I would argue that most of the Republicans who are whining are simply the typical Scott Brown “Northeast variety” who have become more interested in drifting to the center to attract moderate voters (Brown has no choice in Mass by the way)–making it harder to separate them from Democrats–rather than to take a stand on the values and principles of hard work, small government and personal responsibility; principles of their own Republican party.
Many Granite State Republicans have embraced the libertarian influence as a life-line that helps them hew to their conservative principles in an increasingly hostile environment. These GOPers are summarily shunned by the moderates as fringe radicals, TEA Partiers or Free Staters. And seeing as we are in New England, maybe small, responsible, affordable, un-intrusive government is a fringe idea. But ask yourself if their alternative (and the Democrats) is better for you, or for them? Who does a bloated, intrusive government serve? You? Or connected politicians?
Free Staters put more faith in you than any New Hampshire Democrat every would. They believe you know better how and where to spend your wages or profits (if you own a business) than greedy political hacks. They know you’d do it more efficiently as well. And they know that you are more able to respond in a timely manner, with necessary force, to unlawful attacks on your person or property. Democrats think you should run, or hide, and wait for someone from the government to arrive to confront the attackers, or more likely to fill out a report or draw a chalk outline around your corpse. How is that better than law abiding freedoms?
But that is not the message the RINO’s and leftists want you to hear, which is probably why the sources used in this article are–the Democrat who agreed with some libertarians on one issue (Aaron Gill, this Democrat), (r)epublican Tony Soltani – one of those ‘northeast moderate (r)epublicans’ who is also a solid ‘c’ student when voting on issues relevant to his own state party platform, and Victoria Parmele, who sits on a regional planning commission (see Granite State Futures etc), who is an environmentalist, likes RGGI and taxes that make electricity and heating your home cost you more, loves pricey and pointless commuter rail, and who seems to prefer the benevolent state over small efficient government.
None of these folks would like much of anything in the center, forget right of center, so I’m wondering if Kathy Sullivan and Ray Buckley just were not available for comment?
We saw a lot of this “anti-free state” noise during the last cycle, and it looks like the left is unwilling to drop the narrative with a less successful mid term on the horizon. Might as well salt the fields from here to 2014, yes?
Well we think you also deserve to hear about the intolerant, self-serving, New Hampshire Democrats, and how they advance an agenda they never run on; or their habit of back-benching and intimidating their own caucus, many of whom they strong armed on gay marriage. Did you know that Aaron Gill? Gay Marriage originally failed in a New Hampshire House with a Democrat Majority. Failed to pass. The Democrat leadership had to beat on their own to advance their agenda to pass it later. They made some no votes not vote or walk away. And they intimidated others to flip. Not the civil Democrat party you were sold on in 2012? They wont be any more civil this time.
So guess what? It’s not the Free Stater’s. It is not Bill O’Brien. It is not the Tea Party. It is just politics. And if you choose to ignore the same tactics being used by Democrats and the establishment Republicans, and pay attention to who wants to spend your money on their agenda, you’ll discover that Free Stater’s don’t want your damn money, but Democrats do. And the Democrats will use the police state to take it, even if they have to spend it first before they come looking for it.
