When was it? I’d like to know. When did the populous decide that the beliefs of one side of a political spectrum became the “science.” In what universe did the Democrats become the arbiter of what should be considered reasonable?
We want to thank NH State Rep Glen Aldrich for this Op-Ed. If you have an Op-Ed or LTE
you would like us to consider, please submit it to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
There is nothing reasonable about the leftist political action committee known as Citizens for Belknap. With stated goals of returning “reasonable” people to office, their real agenda was to get rid of the most ardent and solid republican State Representatives.
Mission Accomplished. They started out by putting out hilariously bad signage, mostly populist garbage haranguing some so-called “extremists” and purporting that voting for one over another would “save Gunstock.” Insisting that those who moved here as part of the Free State Project were some underhanded cabal looking to sell Gunstock to the highest bidder. I’ve heard all kinds of accusations made.
They bandied about arguments saying that this group of extremist Republicans were looking to build an environment gutting mountain top Hotel. Odd argument, considering that was more in line with what the former Gunstock Area Commissioners such as Brian Gallagher and Rusty McLear (and his handlers) were looking to push through with next to nothing for accountability. I’ve also heard rumors that Republicans would close the trails, stop the skiing and strip mine the mountain.
All of this was a bit more than I had even thought about. I did have some thoughts and publicly stated that regardless of how “extreme” I may have been branded, I was actually for spending funds to make the mountain even better and more attractive to those who would like to use it. It was, after all, a county asset. I did, however, oppose such decisions that would lead to cutting into the natural habitat, and further I oppose the lining of pockets that would come with a grand hotel on the mountainside. Pockets, mind you, that almost always seem to end up being owned by the same old people who jump at the chance to accept State funds and slap their name all over multi-million dollar projects.
Just so happens that the delegation came in and stifled what the Commissioners wanted. And much like the toddler who does not get what they want, they devised and carried out a plan to smear all of the delegation as “unreasonable,” “extremist,” “Free Staters,” and “radicals.” The average voter doesn’t show up to our County meetings, and when they did, a litany of some of the most unreasonable accusations, speechifying, and showing complete ignorance of the situation was the lead story of the day.
The newspapers smeared us. Signs started popping up everywhere. For all the talk about misinformation and attempting to lead a violent charge, there’s that group that sure does seem to have a lot of backing to be given the opportunity to publicly lie, make incorrect or exaggerated statements that could see people physically harmed. Not to mention, I have a hard time imagining a more cruel world than one that has a street team of people who regularly oppose “freedom” and “liberty” and act like using individual liberty as a focus, an orientation, is somehow bad or evil. I would look twice at someone asking for my support but who also thinks that “freedom” isn’t something that’s important.
For Citizens for Belknap, the issue wasn’t the Mountain. It wasn’t the Gunstock Area Commission. Wasn’t the management team who vacated their positions when faced with an audit that cut into their workday.
This group wasn’t looking to protect anything. They were looking to destroy, and they had and continue to have an appetite for destruction. Preying upon the uninformed voter, who themselves jump at the chance to “make a difference” and “do something” by handing out their “voter guides” that slandered not only good and responsible Representatives but also were heavily weighted to ensure that the least electable people were those who were left standing to face their socialist progressives in the main event.
These uninformed voters showed up to polls they hadn’t bothered with in previous years, working to undermine the Republican Party that they had no intention of being a part of. That’s not only underhanded, but it’s also immoral and which is why I support moving to closed primaries like my friend Representative Gregg Hough wrote about so well in these pages on The Bastion.
Sidenote: reposted with permission from NH State Rep Glen Aldridge
Keeping Democrats and independents out of our primary will do much more to help heal the divide we see in our party. How can we heal, if there are toxic individuals who choose to remain and cause chaos, and how can we heal if we are impotent to do anything about it?
(click to enlarge)
The strategy put out by Citizens for Belknap PAC worked. Help people who show up to the polls with zero clue get a cheat sheet to fill in some ovals and ensure that the strongest candidates for office are left behind. No matter to those folks that for the better part of eight years, I had worked to maintain those American values which profess to allow those of us who earn to keep our earnings and the understanding that your earnings in your pocket do much more to increase personal freedom than any amount of handouts from government. The people spoke, and it was mostly people who couldn’t pick me out of a lineup.
I will likely be replaced by the same folks who were rejected all those years ago, tax and spend liberals. Democrats will use this method over and over in other parts of the state to further remove even more good representatives:
- Create a scandal out of nothing
- Build enough populist angst
- Create division
- Beat the drum of lies so long and so hard that it’d be hard for anyone to try and overcome them all.
- Then you target their strongest candidates, helping them to be ejected after the primary,
- Leave the weakest candidates to fend for themselves.
While I don’t think, certainly, that Representatives Dawn Johnson and Richard Littlefield are weak candidates, the Left most certainly does. Some Republicans are just about untouchable, like the Honorable Harry Bean who is a stalwart for Gilford, so it was smart of them to include him in a list of acceptable candidates. Oddly enough, the voting records of Representative Bean and others who didn’t make it through the primary are very similar. What exactly was the cause for a Republican to choose Representative Bean over other individuals with the same or similar beliefs and voting records? The answer is, because those “independents” are not really very independent at all. They’re absolutely dependent upon their Democrat party. They’re dependent on getting folks into office in Belknap County who will be a rubber stamp.
Need more funding, you got it. Want this mountain top hotel, break ground tomorrow. The crony capitalists who consider themselves to be Republican, throwing good Republicans to the wayside, do so to line their pockets at the cost of the regular people out there who are having a hard time even filling up their gas tank or ensuring they can heat their homes this winter. Money over people. Corruption over freedom.
There’s still a chance to pull something together and leave this election season without a total loss. Suck it up, and vote for Republicans up and down the ballot. Perhaps you were angered by a certain representative’s votes on things like Right to Work, or Parental Rights. It’s time to put it aside and vote for them. Maybe some of these representatives took to cuddling up with the Leftist Citizens for Belknap PAC. Maybe they lambasted you publicly, lied about you, threw you to the wolves, dishonored your integrity. You’re still going to need to vote for them. The alternative is, that the Citizens for Belknap PAC model will completely win, and all of us will completely lose. Not just in the election, but in life.
Democrats at the County Delegation table will be nothing if not an instrument to enact more of Sleepy Joe Biden’s agenda. Higher taxes, more handouts, less individual rights, a reduction in our liberties.
You lost some great State Representatives in the primary, but there’s no need to sink our ship. Let’s cease the infighting. Let’s look ahead to a world where we, as Republicans, are going to have to work together after this election is over. If we lose together and can’t come back from it, after two years of anguish under Biden, we will be asking for that misery to come your local doorstep. I personally shudder to think about the Democrats taking control, and the absolute despair to come from it not for myself but for my neighbors and friends subject to their whims.
I urge Republicans of all flavors to come together and vote the party line. I urge you to reject the Citizens for Belknap PAC Democrat agenda. I ask you to stand with your brothers and sisters and have the courage to elect people that you don’t 100% agree with. I’m asking for you to vote for the guy you agree with 30% or 40%, the alternative is someone you agree with less than 10% getting in. What those people will do to you and your wallet will be making you wish you had.
Representative Glen Aldrich
