I’m confident when I say, there must be an email that went out to Democrats quoting the State Constitution. Years ago. Use “this” to justify your creeping tyranny. Or, in the case of Alderman (and NH House Rep) Jan Schmidt, it may be the only part of the document she needs to know.
Related: A guy asks a woman if she’d sleep with him for $1 million
This is why I voted for masks
NH Constitution
[Art.] 3. When men enter into a state of society, they surrender up some of their natural rights to that society, in order to ensure the protection of others; and, without such an equivalent, the surrender is void.
June 2, 1784I wear a mask for you, and you wear one for me, but only when you enter buildings, stores, restaurants for your take out order, public buildings, and when you will be face to face with others.
It’s a tiny thing – #MaskUpNH
“in order to ensure the protection of others”
According to this reporting, Jan used the same article to justify empowering any public official (especially herself) to use the threat of lawsuits to silence political speech she does not like.
What are the odds that an examination of Jan’s excuses for supporting tyrannical edicts would uncover a common thread? That she can take away any right she chooses if she can somehow convince herself it serves some public good. Translation: if Jan wants it, Article 3 of the NH constitution can deliver.
As Stephen Scaer pointed out here,
Apparently, Rep. Schmidt believes that gives her and her comrades the power to remove any right she finds embarrassing or inconvenient.
If Rep. Schmidt could find someone to read her the rest of our constitution, she might notice that Article 2 states that “All men have certain natural, essential, and inherent rights” that she can’t take away.
Ian Underwood adds elsewhere, responding to a separate Article 3 claim by a different Democrat, that Article 4 (more or less) undoes everything Jan and her peers think Article three permits.
[Art.] 4. [Rights of Conscience Unalienable.] Among the natural rights, some are, in their very nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them. Of this kind are the Rights of Conscience.
He then proceeds to the matter of what might constitute a right of conscience, landing on the most crucial point of all, that where “rights are surrendered up, the terms of surrender are specified in constitutions. This is one of the things that constitutions are for.”
So, Art. 3 notes that in some extreme circumstances, the government may need to ask favors of you. The rest of the document identifies the things that are out of bounds. For those with the authoritarian tick, the word you are looking for is verboten. These things may not be legislated or ordered away under any circumstance: Free Speech, Religion, Assembly, the right to self-defense, and the rest.
And just so we are clear, Jan has every right to wear a mask for whatever reason strikes her fancy. I think she should wear one all the time, and forever, for her own safety. Maybe with a nice pair of dark sunglasses and one of Bella Abzug’s hats. But Art. 3 does not give her the power to make you do it too, especially on the matter of public health.
As I noted here on Twitter, when asked about balancing articles 2 and 3, public health is not a natural right, but if it we’re what would stop the state from using that to deny any rights, whether enumerated or not, in whatever arbitrary manner it saw fit? Nothing.
And so we resist. Not because we don’t care about our health or anyone else’s but because liberty for ourselves and our posterity is more critical for the health of America and future generations than letting authoritarians use the flu to take that away now or again when the urge strikes.
Public Health is not a Natural Right (nor is personal health) but if it were what would stop the state from using that to deny any and all rights whether enumerated or not in whatever arbitrary manner it saw fit? https://t.co/hOrz8qfGya
— Steve Mac Donald (@nhstevemacd) April 29, 2020
