So, yet another post in this now long-running series chronicling what seems to be a coup d’etat over the Gunstock Area Commission but one that goes to the heart of the demagoguery used by Commissioners Doug Lambert (of DGF Industrial) and Jade Wood (NH GOP Area 5 Vice-Chair). Ever since the two of them went rogue and “switched sides” (supporting the monied oligarchs that are ticked over losing their “playtoy”), they have constantly used a rhetorical trick to perfection – accusing former Commissioner Peter Ness and STILL Commissioner Dr. David Strang of violating their oath of office. Well, here is that oath (here, page 9):
It’s rather simple and very much modeled after the actual Oath for public office that is mandated in the NH Constitution (Part Second, Oaths and Subscriptions Exclusion from Offices, Etc.). However, Lambert and Wood have used it, not as a verifying tool but as a political cudgel about the figurative head and shoulders of Ness (in which it worked) and Strang (who has brushed it off thus far). Over, and over, and over, and over again, in utilizing Saul Alinsky tactics, Lambert and Wood have said, and at times, screamed “YOU HAVE VIOLATED YOUR OATH” and/or told the crowd “They/<insert name here> violated their Oaths!”.
It hit me yesterday as I finally got around to processing the video from the July 31, 2020, GAC special meeting:
Really?
No, not so much. They’ve said it over and over and over again. Constantly whining about it and over it. Yet I realized that they NEVER ONCE said what was wrong! Just pounding that “you violated it!!”. Not ONCE did they state to anyone (that I know of, certainly in no public meeting) HOW, WHEN, or WHERE they did “violate their oaths”. Instead, they POLITICIZED that oath (above) in using Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (Pick the target, freeze it, politicize it) and used it to browbeat and demagogued it to death
So, Commissioners Lambert and Wood, let me ask these really simple questions (like elementary school level):
- WHEN did they violate their oaths?
- WHERE did they violate their oaths?
- HOW did they violate their oaths?
- What LAW (NH RSA) did they break?
- What REGULATION did they disregard?
- Name the RULE that they mangled?
- Which GAC BYLAW did they torture?
and most importantly, WHICH ARTICLE, in either the NH or US Constitution did they violate?
Nope, not even a wisp of an answer has been forthcoming. You see, that would be telling the truth, that would be acknowledging that they turned it into a talking point – with no substance behind it. Great to hurl at someone and if done repeatedly with anger in one’s voice, you can get away with it…
…for a while. Until somebody like that little boy in the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes pointed out that the Emperor’s new clothes are just a figment of one’s imagination without any real substance to it.
So, too, in this real world example; what Lambert and Wood have used as epithet holds just as much substance as that “magic” cloth.
