IN RESPONSE to Nancy Martland’s guest column titled “The New Hampshire we love” (Tuesday, December 14, 2021), I was expecting her to break out into a joyful “Kumbaya” rendition about everyone working happily together — until she showed her true partisan colors.
She blasted Republicans for everything happening in New Hampshire and the country today.
Is this her example of unity?
I commend Martland for standing up for something she believed in as a Democrat working alongside lifelong Republicans and independents on the Northern Pass project. Good for her. However, she made it sound like this was the first and only time of harmonious cooperation between political parties. Now, she thinks that time has gone and she mourns its passing.
She “struggles to make sense of what is (now) happening” and complains bitterly that everything is politicized. Then she starts her own tirade of politicization of people who don’t think like she does. She claims (without evidence) that Republicans are in cahoots with the “Free Staters” to create an extremist utopia in our state. For some strange reason she even thinks that Governor Chris Sununu must agree with them or he’s afraid of them! I’m a Republican and have been involved in state politics for what seems like a million years and I don’t know of any Republican who identifies with Free Staters.
Martland talked about a group of Republicans who want to secede from the United States, but what she didn’t mention was N.H. House Speaker Sherm Packard and many other Republican legislators condemning the secession tactics. It is unfair to lump everyone in the same boat. That is analogous to saying every Democrat loves Joe Biden.
Next on her agenda was Education Freedom Accounts. She tries to blow smoke in the reader’s face by claiming that Republicans designed this to drain funds from our public schools intending to undermine them and eliminate them. I’m sure that is typically how a teacher or former teacher would react. In reality, parents have lost confidence in the dismal record of public-school teaching and these accounts give parents an alternative choice to use for their children. What a concept: parents taking control of what their children are being taught in school.
Wait…there’s more.
Next, she seems to believe that Republicans are mindless, enraged individuals who are more interested in our medical freedoms and who refuse to work together to protect our loved ones, friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens in the fight against the COVID pandemic.
No, this is just nonsense.
Martland thinks it is just Republicans who “see no reason to pull together to protect each other” by not wearing masks and so exposing children and the vulnerable to serious illness. This is madness.
First, where is the science that says a mask actually protects so well they warrant a mandate? Anthony Fauci has flip-flopped every step of the way — “wear a mask”, “No need to wear a mask” etc. etc. Should we believe the hype of “news” presenters, none of whom are professional medical experts as far as I know?
Martland is free to walk in fear but don’t expect me to think the same way. I am not anti-mask or anti-vax. I am anti-mandate. If you want to wear a mask I’m not stopping you. But if I’m not masked, don’t tell me I’m trying to kill you. That is an unreasonable emotional response.
For every Dr. Fauci, there is another medical doctor or scientist who refutes their claims of what this virus can do. Two years into it, whether it remains permanently in our lives or just temporary, I prefer to be optimistic that it will pass when the next so-called crisis arrives.
Finally, Martland once again exerts her politicization into the abortion issue and berates Republican legislators for seeking to “control” what we do and think. Again, not everyone thinks the way Nancy does, who tries to control the narrative by only giving rights to the mother and not to the baby. God forbid the poor girl or woman has to go through the ordeal of an invasive medical examination, what about the invasive tearing apart of little limbs of the aborted? I personally think life is precious and babies have feelings and a right to be born.
What we need, Martland should understand, are more realistic Republican policies and fewer leftists living in bubbles, destroying families, and forcing people to believe they are extremist or supremacist for disagreeing.
Di Lothrop is a long-time conservative activist in New Hampshire and lives in Nashua.
