We discuss the COVID-shutdown, and welcome Will Infantine to fill us in about the most recent developments regarding the illegally formed Manchester Charter Commission.
I was asked by NH Journal to pen an opinion piece regarding the reopening of New Hampshire, which you can find here, We Are All Essential, It’s Time to Reopen NH, as well as the counterpoint by Senator Jon Morgan, I Want to Get the Hell Out of My House, Too — but We Can’t Rush Reopening.
Here’s my piece in full:
Freedom is the answer, what’s the question?
It is possible to be concerned about the virus, and the economic downturn and the destruction of our civil liberties. I am, which is why I attended the rally on Saturday. I don’t underestimate the virus, but I also don’t underestimate the cost of the shutdown or the dangers of trading liberty for a false sense of security.
Life is about tradeoffs, and when you use faulty data to implement faulty “solutions” — restricting peoples’ natural rights, instituting a lockdown to “flatten the curve,” and dividing Granite Staters into “essential” and “nonessential” groups — bad outcomes must follow.
We are all essential.
It is not the role of government to pick winners and losers. Unemployment leads to societal malaise, to increased suicides, domestic and child abuse, substance abuse, higher crime, lowered standards of living and shortened life spans.
Almost 20 percent of Granite State workers have lost their jobs already. That’s at least 125,000 people, mostly blue-collar workers and small business owners.
That’s the population equivalent of Manchester and Amherst combined. Next time you drive through Manchester, imagine, No one around me has a job anymore. Then drive past the next block, and the next, and the next.
Then consider that state employees are not being furloughed or laid off. Consider that they declared themselves “essential” and YOU, “nonessential.” Consider that union contracts with jaw-dropping benefits and above-market salaries are being ratified in emergency meetings that are not open to public scrutiny.
Consider that despite being told the hospitals would be overrun, another inaccurate prediction, more than 20 percent of N.H. hospital workers have been furloughed or laid off, effectively destroying private/elective healthcare, perhaps forever.
Then consider that your property taxes are going up… Then consider when they say “we are all in this together,” is it really true?
If we don’t have enough data to make good decisions, can we at least stop making bad ones? The original estimates were overstated by more than 30x. That’s soothsaying. What consequences do these unelected “experts” face for being wrong?
Different countries tried different approaches but the fatality rates look similar globally. Ironically, Sweden and South Korea both took less draconian approaches, and their curves look similar to ours, “the land of the freelockdowns.”
What kind of society do we live in when the government can suspend its own rules based on the inaccurate opinions of unelected officials? The First Amendment guarantees our right to peacefully assemble.
“Congress shall make no law” does not include “except when” or “unless this scary thing happens” or even, “under emergency circumstances.” If the government no longer follows the Constitution meant to constrain it, why should we remain law-abiding?
We can always protect our most vulnerable without losing our freedoms. We can ask people to stay at home voluntarily. We can accept that individuals have different appetites for risk, as is the case in a free society. We can remember that free people move freely, and that the government does not own you.
But alas, we are giving in to fear over freedom, we are walking away from our founding principles, and because of this, we will suffer under a government-manufactured economic crisis, and New Hampshire will never be the same.
About the Author
Carla Gericke
Carla Gericke is the Republican candidate for State Senate in District 20. Learn more at CarlaGericke.com. She wrote this for NHJournal.
Coverage of the anti-lockdown rally at the State House on April 18, 2020 from the Concord Patch. From the article:
“Carla Gericke, a Republican state Senate candidate from Manchester, noted that the 125,000 people out of work was the same amount of people who live in Amherst and the Queen City. She said, while driving around in Manchester, imagine everyone you see is out of work. That is what it was like in the state today.
‘We are all essential,’ Gericke said. ‘It is not the role of government to decide who are winners and losers. It is not the role of government to tell some of us, we are not essential — while making sure every single one of them is still getting paid.'”
Read more here…
Wake up, New Hampshire! 124,000–ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR THOUSAND!!!–Granite Staters have lost their jobs–that’s the equivalent of ALL of Manchester and Amherst! This is ?% UNACCEPTABLE!
It is NOT the government’s job to pick winners or losers in the economy. It is NOT the government’s job to lockdown free people. It is NOT the government’s job to destroy the economy. It is NOT the government’s job to tell us who is essential and who is NOT.
On Saturday, I will stand with my fellow Granite Staters against the destruction of our lives and livelihoods through this outrageous government overreach.
Free people move freely! We are ALL essential!
Fwiw, I will be wearing a mask and gloves and open carrying because you can CRITICIZE THE GOVERNMENT’S AUTHORITARIAN RESPONSE and still take reasonable precautions based on YOUR OWN RISK PROFILE AS A FREE HUMAN BEING. If you are scared of getting sick, please stay home.
FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY: People have asked whether the police will arrest us. I doubt it, but that is a lawsuit I am willing to fight all the way to the Supreme Court, baby! Based on my past experience protesting at the State House, law enforcement will likely send an unmarked drone to take photos (although people will be masked, so good luck with your “we don’t use facial recognition software”). Based on my reading of the AG’s memo to law enforcement, the police are only authorized to issue verbal warnings. If they’re feeling particularly Big Bro and dick-ish, they might try to escalate the situation by telling the First Amendment protected assembly to disperse, and then issue misdemeanor citations, followed by trying to arrest people who do not leave. I have already decided I will not disperse and will peacefully submit to being arrested if it comes to that–but again, it probably won’t. You should decide beforehand what your appetite for risk is, and act accordingly–but don’t be afraid! I am confident you will be given an opportunity to leave first. My intent is to be courteous and peaceful at all times, and I encourage you to be the same.
Sign the petition to #ReOpenNH, HERE.
Event link for the rally on Saturday to #ReOpenNH at High Noon. RSVP HERE if you like being on lists, or just SHOW UP, pretty please!
Petition:
To Gov. Christopher Sununu and the N.H. Legislature
We the undersigned, understand that SARS-Cov-2 (Covid-19) is a highly contagious and potentially dangerous virus;
We understand that N.H. Gov. Christopher Sununu declared a state of emergency on March 13, 2020 in response to the outbreak of Covid-19 in New Hampshire and renewed that order on April 3, 2020 until April 24, 2020, as authorized under RSA 4:45;
We also understand that prior to March 17, New Hampshire had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, and since March 17, at least one in seven New Hampshire workers have lost their jobs and many businesses have shut their doors, perhaps permanently;
We understand that the People of New Hampshire are guaranteed certain Natural Rights, such as the freedom to assemble, the freedom to associate, the freedom to engage in commerce, the freedom to worship, and the freedom to freely travel, among many others, and that a state of emergency does not suspend these Natural Rights;
We believe free adults should be able to make their own decisions and assume the consequences of their actions, and people who are at risk or fear they are at risk have the right to isolate and protect themselves;
We believe the emergency orders issued by Gov. Sununu are arbitrary and unbalanced, particularly in determining “essential” and “non essential” organizations and allowing people to assemble in the supermarket but not in their place of work or community, which are equally susceptible to transmission of the virus;
We believe that the occasion of this virus does not warrant the suspension of liberty that has been attempted, and that many citizens of New Hampshire are suffering undue hardships from loss of livelihood, purpose and community, and that such suspension of liberty is unwarranted, and now, the “public liberty is manifestly endangered;”
Now therefore, we the undersigned hereby petition Gov. Sununu to end his declared State of Emergency on April 24, 2020 or prior, and allow free adults to make their own decisions about whether they want to open their businesses or other organizations, seek gainful employment, or patronize businesses and other organizations, as is their right.
Today is General John Stark Day, supposedly celebrating the Revolutionary War hero who coined New Hampshire’s state motto back in 1809, “Live Free or Die.” People often forget the rest of that quote: “Death is not the worst of evils.”
But, ackshually, these days, according to our Lockdown Overlords, guess it is.
I’m pretty sure General Stark would be turning in his grave today–you know, that place we will all end up. If YOU are suddenly so scared about dying… how are YOU living? You can read more about the history of General Stark Day here, and here, and I wrote this piece back in 2016 about yesterday’s Pine Tree Riots, when a bunch of “uppity slaves” rose against government overreach as testament to the spirit of independence, freedom, and the New Hampshire way of life. If you want to know what I will be doing to observe General Stark Day in my own truly defiant style, click HERE.
A friend asked for more details about my transformation and weight loss journey that started in December 2017, and to date, March 7, 2020, I have lost and kept off 65 pounds following an Ancestral/Keto lifestyle, meaning: I eat low carb, medium protein, and high good fats; I move daily (walking the dog for 45 minutes counts!); and I sleep enough to recharge my brain for optimal living.
3 Tips for Success When Starting on Keto
1. Eliminating alcohol: I quit drinking in December 2017, and for me, this was a huge part of my success story, but mostly because I was drinking a lot of wine daily, and those calories added up… Also, I wasn’t making the best food/life choices when I was sauced up.
2. Eating out: I don’t eat out much anymore, and when I do, I usually just get a salad with some kind of protein. Not eating out is mostly because my home cooked meals are better than 99% of local restaurants, and I’ve gotten REALLY fussy about where my food, especially meat, is sourced. So, that’s mostly a personal choice, but I know people who can balance restaurant meals and Keto quite successfully, but you have to be willing to be particular when you place your order (and that’s OK).
3. What’s in your house? My husband and I did a serious pantry purge when we switched to Ancestral living. We threw out or donated any foods that were not supposed to cross our lips. This was an important step that I recommend you not skip. Trust me… My parents came to visit for Thanksgiving 2018, and my dad bought some Pringles and left them in the pantry when they went home, and for me, those chips were like having crack in the house–and even after 4-pages of journaling about why I shouldn’t, I ended up eating the whole damn thang! I chalked up my relapse to a learning experience, and used it to remind myself that I can’t have stuff like that around… So, instead, my pantry contains a million types of delicious, nutritious nuts that arrive on scheduled orders so I never run out.
The crux of my journey–everyone’s is different–but mine was about getting unhealthy ADDICTIONS out of my life. Ones I wasn’t even willing to admit to myself were addictions: Sugar, carbs, alcohol, negative/nihilistic people–I’m working on digital minimalism and less screen time now.
So to answer your question about “a normal life,” you have to ask yourself what is “normal”? Is society’s definition of “normal” what YOU want, or is what society accepts as “OK” really unhealthy/less than optimal/possibly not what you want or need to be your best YOU?
I no longer take my cues from what’s “normal” but rather from: What do **I** want? I want to be healthy long-term and have an excellent quality of living, which means **I** have to WORK AT IT BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT FOR ME. I want to look my best for my age. I want to EMBODY a life free of as much statism as I can muster, which means eliminating the toxic stuff that is regarded as “normal” in our lives, but that isn’t normal, acceptable, or good for us… Like the Standard American Diet (SAD!) and the entire middle part of a grocery store…
The other major change I made is getting enough sleep–we read in bed and are asleep by 10pm, and up around 5am.
Three books I found inspiring when I started this journey:
This Naked Mind by Annie Grace;
Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis; and
Bright Line Eating by Susan Peirce Thompson.
I’ll tell you the secret of my success: STICKING TO THE PROGRAM. When I stopped making exceptions, and stopped “negotiating” with myself (which created a lot of cyclical/negative mind-talk) and just DID THE RIGHT THINGS, it became EASY. THAT’S how you form new and better habits. (I even stopped biting my nails–after 45 years!)
Now, getting to a place where you can do that, isn’t so easy, but those three books will lead you in the right direction. The other thing is once you get your hormones/sugar levels in balance and are eating right, you genuinely don’t get hungry/cravings anymore, and it all gets pretty awesome, easy, and ends up simply being how you live and are.
In other words: *YOU* CONTROL HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE AND IT IS A DAILY CHOICE, SO CHOOSE WISELY. ?
Keep me posted and GOOD LUCK! I’m proof positive it works!
[EDIT: This post first appeared on Facebook on February 6, 2019.]
Know where you can now find lockdowns and para-military police squads that go around shooting and killing people at night? In the “Live Not So Free” state of New Hampshire.
On Sunday, according to the Union Leader, the police shot not one, but two people under questionable circumstances. A 22-year old Windsor man was shot in Concord during a confrontation in White Park after a burglary at the skate house (“Pursuant to protocol, the name(s) of the officer(s) involved in the incident is being withheld pending the conclusion of the formal interview. No additional information is expected to be released until the conclusion of the formal interview(s), and in Manchester, the police shot a man on Lake Shore Road, possibly related to an arson at another address. [UPDATE: SHOT AND KILLED]. [UPDATE 04/07/20: AUTOPSY, DEATH RULED HOMICIDE.]
But who knows? Few details are available for either incident because when law enforcement shoots someone, you better not want to know what really happened, because, unlike any other investigation in which one human being is shot by another human being, these “officer-involved shootings” are “special,” with special kid-glove rules designed to protect the officer when an investigation is started by the Attorney General’s office.
The pristine, trustworthy New Hampshire Attorney General’s office, the same AG’s office that is actively fighting to keep a list of about 260 dirty cops secret from you even though a judge ordered last April (a year ago) that the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule or Laurie’s List is NOT confidential, is NOT subject to any exception of the Right-to-Know law, and should be made public. Instead of doing the right thing, the AG appealed this decision, meaning they’re now seeking a New Hampshire Supreme Court judge just shady enough to rule that keeping a list of rotten cops secret from the people they purport to work for is A-OK. Does this sound like open and transparent and accountable government to you?
That same Attorney General’s office that has never once ruled that an “officer-involved shooting” is unjustified, even when a fleeing man was shot in the back and killed, or when TWENTY FIVE PERCENT (25%) of all firearm deaths in 2017 were people shot and killed by New Hampshire law enforcement (the national average is 6%), or when LEOs tear-gassed two twenty-something drugs users to death in a hotel room last year, and even now, a full year later, not a peep… THAT Attorney-General’s office is going to bring us independent, trustworthy investigative reports about what is going down while Granite Staters are “ordered” by “decree” to “stay-at-home.” Umm, m’kay…
Let me make it simple for you to understand. Here’s exactly how this will go:
- The officers involved will have at least a week to get their stories straight before meeting with an “investigator,” who will be someone they know and who definitely works for the same boss. No conflict of interest here, right?
- Somewhere along the line, someone will say they thought they saw a gun. Whether there was an actual gun or not at the scene of the crime does not matter. Your active imagination, if you are a law enforcement officer, is all you need to get out of jail free! (Think I am exaggerating? When I was arrested back in 2010 in Weare, NH for filming police officers from behind a white picket-fence, more than 30 feet away, and after telling them I was audio and video recording, when they arrested me and chained me to a pole for several hours with a handcuff that they painfully tightened when I complained about how I was being treated, the officers paraded through the holding area and several told me ‘we’re going to say we thought the camera was a gun!’ They even wrote it into the police report, saying my camera’s red light looked like a laser on a gun… except, we proved there weren’t any lights on the camera at all. Huh, go figure.)
- The officers may or may not be put on administrative leave, but my guess is the officers involved (see? we don’t even know their names, how accountable!) won’t be put on administrative leave. I am, however, 100% confident that they will still get paid their full $80,000-100,000+ salaries, they will still accrue vacation time and all their really, really enviable bennies, and if they are placed on administrative leave, that time will still count towards their lifetime pensions. When you wonder what’s happening in America, remember, you will probably never be able to retire because you will have to continue to work in order to pay the pension of someone who will have stopped working when they were fifty-years old. Sure sounds like “we’re all in this together,” eh?
- In about a year, after everyone has forgotten, a report will quietly be issued by the AG’s office that will exonerate the officers involved. If any action is taken, it will be something lateral, like transferring the officer off the streets and placing them in a government-run school instead, like Officer Joshua English who shot and killed someone in 2010 and who last year attacked a 15 year-old from behind and threw him on his head on a school floor at Keene High School. The officer was not reprimanded, but the child who was thrown to the ground and the student who took the video of the incident were suspended. Sounds about right!?!
While you are ordered by the “State of New Hampshire” to sit at home, while you lose your business or job or salary (but don’t worry–local government employees are getting raises and it was announced last week your property taxes will be going up!), maybe now is a good time for a crash course in what the government agents who literally have a license to kill you have been up to the past decade. I hate to break it to you, but it ain’t pretty. Go ahead, Google “police brutality” on YouTube, or actually, just go read the NH Attorney General’s own reports online, and let me know what you think.
From Trump fundraising letters to an exploration of the externalities created by illness, there’s something for everyone in this week’s episode of Told You So! Listen to the podcast or catch the video below!