“I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts, is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy, and Liberals at bay. And the nation free.”
– William Buckley, Conservative activist, author, founder of National Review
(emphasis mine). In the case of the NH Senate, they are 1/3 of the branches of government that can take power from the Individuals. There has been no government in history that has not, over its entire time in existence, decided to gather more and more power into self. The Founders knew that and tried to create a system and a philosophy that extolled individual liberties over that of “The State”. They knew, I bet, that with any system, there would be those that would come along and disagree with that, probably vehemently. After all, there are those that cannot resist the urge to obtain, and then wield, power over their co-citizens.
We call them Progressives, Big Governmenters, or Statists and they exist on both sides of the aisle (under the guise of being “pragmatists”). Of late history, there has only been one political leader that tried (and had some success) here in NH that has tried to roll back that accumulation of power into Concord (versus merely keeping the status quo), and that was Bill O’Brien. Now, with Peter Bragdon deciding to heed the calls to step down from being Senate President, a new one must be chosen. Certainly, I believe that the “Establishment” would want someone like Senators Chuck Morse or Sharon Carson chosen. I disagree, totally.
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