Articles tagged as

Choice

Janus vs. AFSCME – a personal take

John_Stark_statue,_Concord_NHUPDATE: As the Supreme court just decided for Janus and against the unions, this post is appropriate.  Best news? SCOTUS rules that public sector union MUST be opt-in for payments.   Essentially, this returns freedom to individuals over the unions; no more paycheck protection for unions.

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“Live Free or Die” – that’s our state motto and unlike many on the Left that find that absolutely abhorrent, it’s one of the reasons why I’ve stayed in the Granite State for over three decades (yep, came for a job, stayed for the motto).  The rest of the motto is not one that is repeated too often, that saying from General John Stark to his former soldiers: “Death is not the worst of all evils“. The Progressives here shudder every time it is stated.

For them, life is not to be free in the traditional sense of the word.  Freedom is the Collective.  Freedom is belonging to such a collective.  It also isn’t about remembering history because much of their philosophy regresses back to the mistakes and catastrophes of the 20th and 19th Centuries when Collectivism tried to overwhelm that most radical of American ideals – the idea that the Individual is sovereign and happens to have a government instead of what most of the world’s history and actions show to be the opposite – a country with subjects.

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I was at a meeting this afternoon…and let me add this

Stop

SHOT: but what about all the bad stuff we stopped? Doesn’t that mean anything to the “base”?

CHASER: Of course it does – but don’t tout your horn over it over and over.

Why?  We EXPECT that to be done – it should go almost without question. If those bad things were outside of the Platform or Constitutional bounds, it should be an automatic “You shall not pass” (H/T: Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail). It is a measure of quality against your Standard.  We know what that is – both are easily found.  We expect that you know them, that they guide you, and such elected politicians, when you swear your oath to defend it or campaign under that banner that they would be uppermost in your mind when contemplating whether to sign or veto.

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FB Doodlings – “Scott Metzger: Some of property-tax burden should be shifted to vehicle registrations” – Part 2

tax policiesWell, I do have to admit, the Concord Monitor does get a large diversity of commenters on posts sometimes.  No, not the skin-color-deep-facial-features kind of diversity where only looks count.  I mean the only diversity that really counts – intellectual and philosophical differences.  Dick Lemiuex  riled up frequent Progressive CM and Grok commenter, Bruce Currie who wrote (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Mr. Metzger believes, “(New) Hampshire citizens know at a gut level that a property tax is not an equitable way to tax people.” But somehow, he seems to believe we will accept the notion that a car tax IS an equitable way to spread the cost of schools. If equity is the objective, how about “if towns were freed to set their own” head tax? Then, at least a family of 4, with 2 kids in school, would be paying twice as much as a retired couple without kids. That would create at least some link between costs and benefits. Maybe THAT would have more of a “gut level” appeal. Of course that idea wouldn’t appeal to heads of large families. Similarly, Metzger’s idea wouldn’t appeal to owners of high end cars.

The question is, who’s ox is going to be gored? Every tax creates winners and losers.

And Bruce wrote back:

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Isn’t it just absolutely wonderful that…

…Progressives have this crazy idea of what real choice is? This is supposed to be the height of intellectual honesty? And how crazier is it that we let them get away with it? (H/T: Powerline)

The constitutionality of education savings accounts

By NH State Rep Glenn Cordelli

Recently two of my colleagues in the New Hampshire House wrote that Senate Bill 193, the “school voucher” bill, is unconstitutional (Monitor Forum, March 24). I believe that my friends are incorrect, and the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with me.

Let me start out by correcting the repeated line about a voucher bill. SB 193 has nothing to do with vouchers. SB 193 established education savings accounts, which are similar to health savings accounts. The state money that would have gone to the school district to educate the child would instead go to parents so they could find the best education opportunity for their child. That is what this bill is all about – the best education for every New Hampshire child.

The repeating of ACLU talking points on constitutionality does not stand up to the facts. 

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Notable Quote – Common Core

Common Core is just the secular-humanist-educational equivalent of Shari’a Law, implemented by controlling, secular-humanist, anti-religious socialist, personal-choice-bigots who insist we spend billions more every year because every child learns differently but then can’t seem to see the hypocrisy of wanting every state, county, and School district across the fruited plain to follow a one-size-fits-all nation-wide curriculum, implemented by statist fatwa, advanced through an organized campaign based on guilt and intimidation, … Read more

Government: wanna a dog? Criminal background check and dog class for YOU!

Best comment over at the News Observer:

When are we going to close the dog show loophole? 

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up as yet another politician has decided that “he’s gotta do something” and ends up with a law that says “Subject Citizen, you must again ask for permission to do that”!

Rodney Moore, a Democrat from Mecklenburg County…introduced a bill [House Bill 956] Tuesday that would require anyone taking ownership of the much-maligned dogs [pit bulls] to submit to a criminal background check. The proposal also targets Rottweilers, mastiffs, chows, Perro de Presa Canarios and any “wolf hybrids.”

“I did this for a constituent,” Moore said Thursday. “It was not to vilify a breed. The reason I put background checks in was I didn’t want irresponsible people to use these types of animals illegally.”

So, what was he (and the Republican who was the co-sponsor) ?

  • submit to a criminal background check
  • mandatory enrollment in a four-hour course provided by the Humane Society or another rescue organization approved by the state Department of Insurance to learn “responsible” dog management of these breeds and be “good” owners
  • tell your insurance company “Hey, I have a new Fido” (and accept the rate increase (I assume that word “quietly” is in there somewhere in “signing the check”)
  • your Police Chief “may” issue you a permit to own “Fido”
  • pay for a special state permit

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Tyranny – you WILL save for retirement and yet again, continue the incremental transformation of employers into being part of Government

Once again, a mandate that will cost you whether you like it or not, but Obama has pre-determined “how much you need”.  “From Obama’s 2014 indentured servitude and Budget (here, page 24, emphasis mine) we see the “benevolent hand” of Tyranny Our Betters Our Rulers our Government  with the socialist glove forcing paternalistic nudging yet another behavior simply because they do not approve of current sovereign citizen behavior:

Encourage Retirement Savings with Automatic Individual Retirement Accounts and Support for Small Employers Who Offer Retirement Plans.

About half of American workers have no workplace retirement plan. Yet fewer than 1 out of 10 workers who are eligible to make tax-favored contributions to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) actually do so, while nearly 9 out of 10 workers automatically enrolled in a 401(k) plan continue to make contributions. The Budget would automatically enroll workers without employer-based retirement plans in IRAs through payroll deposit contributions at their workplace. The contributions would be voluntary—employees would be free to opt out—and matched by the Saver’s Tax Credit for eligible families. Small employers would be eligible for tax credits to defray the administrative costs of setting up these savings plans. The Budget would also double the existing tax credit for small employers that start up new qualifying employer plans.

So, not only must the working contribute to Social Security, we all will be forced contribute even more to our own retirement.

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Freedom depends on who gets to choose and make the decisions

How Liberals Define Choice

The abridged definition of “Freedom” is how many choices one can make, unforced and unfettered.  I get to make the choice – not you and not Government.  When you and Government starting making those decisions for me, that by definition, is less Freedom.

The Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, was written solely because it was felt at the beginning of our Constitutional Republic, that the innate Liberties and Freedoms that were assumed to part and parcel of the Constitution of a limited Government needed to be specifically enumerated to PREVENT an attempt down the line for Government to override them.

And now we see this happening, as the Obama Administration is working overtime to rewrite the the meaning of the First Amendment containing our first and most important Right – that of the free expression of religion (vs Obama’s “freedom to worship within a set of 4 walls”).  Rooted deeply with that free expression is the Right not to be forced to violate that – and in this case, the Right to not be involved in the killing of the unborn.  But Obama believes that there is an unwritten and unemumerated Right to Government to tell people “this is the way you will think – and it will be what we tell you to think and to behave”.

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New Hampshire Democrats Want Their JackBoot Back on The Necks of Poor Kids

schooL_choiceBack in April of 2012 we reported on how 71% of New Hampshire’s public schools failed to meet their adequate yearly progress in math and reading.  (Not very ‘progressive’ of them.)  We later debated the potential benefits to local New Hampshire school districts who could ‘potentially’ collect a tax windfall per student with the program–more than they would lose if the new voucher legislation was passed.  (It passed.)  We made fun of left wing criticism (narrative) against the scholarship program and even showed how it had saved other states money.  We even reminded Liberals that they have been known to argue against overturing settled law (which the school voucher program is), the same Democrats who were now focusing on the budget as promised trying to overturn every law Republicans passed that they could–as quickly as possible.

Well, New Hampshire Democrats are still Democrats and the scholarship program passed by House Republicans is a threat to their union monopoly on education.  So a scholarship program that is specifically designed to direct private money to help the most vulnerable, low income families in our state, gain access to schools with the potential to deliver better outcomes, must be repealed.

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“I did not run for this office just to get back to where we were. I ran for this office to get us to where we need to be.”

That was a line from one of Obama’s recent campaign speeches.  Now if you took it at face value, it sounds like what any politician would be.  Further, most Americans, steeped in the traditional values of Americana would do the “fill in the blank” – and this is exactly how that phrase was supposed to be taken.  But how come the Media never asks  “”and where is ‘where’?”

“I ran for this office to get us to where we need to be.”

What’s the context?  This:  “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”  But we know where he is going – he’s told us.  “We Can’t Wait”…if Congress won’t act…his use of Executive Orders….his agencies and departments choosing to make rulings, regulations, and statutes that far exceed their authorizing legislation.  Add to that an almost complete regard to rulings of the court system. Obama rails on the outside, but with a smile on the inside.  You see, it is an inside job.  Added by Harry Reid and the other Progressive and Democrat Socialists in the Senate and the House, they are making Congress irrelevant (what is it, 1200 days since the Senate passed an operating budget?).   Government has grown larger, has inserted itself into almost every aspect of our lives because of the actions of past and present Democrats – and Republicans.  Under the guise of “helping” and “we have DO something!”, bit by bit,  Govt ended up doing more and more.

Expectations are being set.  If you know no different, then what is the loss?  We still are the Land of the Free, right?  Er….sigh….is the water boiling yet?

I think that the most succinct definition of Obama’s “where we need to be” was here:

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The Anointing Ones

I continue to be amused by the Lefts obsession with the so-called GOP anointing of Kelly Ayotte.  Disregarding their anointing of Paul Hodes, we have Hodes anointing Ayotte with television buys to attack her.  We have Hodes paying for a push poll on Ayotte.  They can’t seem to stop talking about her or bringing up … Read more

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