This just in from the Mercatus Center: NH keeps the lead at #1 in Overall Freedom!
Thank you to all those that work tirelessly to increase the Free State’s lead. If you are a hard working, liberty minded doer, move to NH, roll up your sleeves and get involved! A lot has been accomplished, but there’s much more to still do!
Delve into the NH data 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:
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.
As many of you know, the ACLU-NH has been fighting on my behalf to try to stop permanent police surveillance cameras from being installed in downtown Manchester. Yesterday, I received a court order denying our request for declaratory and injunctive relief, which in plain English means: the City won this round, the police will likely put up their cameras, our rights will continue to be eroded and disregarded with the full authorization of the Courts, and, apparently, we should just accept the stripping away of more and more of our 4th Amendment rights.
The Court said:
It could be argued that the City’s planned use will enable the government to violate the statute. However, simply because footage generated by the cameras could be used to violate the law does not mean the installation or use of the cameras itself violated the law…
The Court cannot find as a matter of law that the planned use of the surveillance cameras will violate RSA 236:130 [Highway Surveillance Prohibited]. Instead, the Court can only speculate that, once the cameras are installed, a government employee reviewing the footage will be capable of engaging in additional conduct that will violate the statute. Accordingly, plaintiff’s motion for summary judgement is denied.
Neal Kurk, et al vs. City of Manchester Docket No. 216-2019-CV-00501
By the Court’s logic, every single current pre-crime statute should be invalidated. You know, the ones where they say you MIGHT do something bad in the future, like crash your car if you’ve been drinking, so we will punish you right NOW, even though you didn’t actually do the thing we’re trying to prevent… Yet. (Or at all.)
The Court also failed to fully consider the legislative history, which you may recall, included this testimony from Dpt. of Safety Assistant Commissioner, Earl Sweeney in 2006, that the law would ban a police department from “setting up cameras to monitor, for example, the downtown business district to detect or deter burglaries, vandalism, drug dealing,” and, “Some police departments set up cameras to monitor downtown businesses… we do not believe that this usage would be allowed in NH without specific legislation at a future time legalizing it.”
Given this, it is safe to say we should no longer rely on the truthfulness of testimony given by government agents during the legislative process. Along the same vein, we should also not trust the MPD’s contention that they will not use facial recognition software or license plate scanners. I am willing to bet any comers they will secretly start using this technology in the future, and if the cameras go up, I encourage anyone who is in a vehicle and issued a citation or arrested in the vicinity of the cameras on Elm Street, to contact me.
While this case revolved around a narrow point of law relating to a specific statute, 82% of Granite Staters voted last year to increase our privacy rights, which tells me this matter isn’t over by a long shot.
Right of Privacy: An individual’s right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent.
Article 2-b, New Hampshire Constitution, December 5, 2018
I’ll conclude with the following: If you believe government can solve problems by restricting more and more of our rights and making us less free in the name of “security,” why do all stories set in the future revolve around people fighting their dystopian overlords? If the future is so bright in this Brave New World, where are the depictions of their promised land? Where is this awesome future society where, by “giving up liberty for security,” things turn out to be oh-so great for us plebs?
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: When you watch futuristic movies, who are you rooting for? In the Matrix, are you rooting for Neo or Agent Smith? In the Hunger Games, Team Katniss, or District 1 of the Capitol? Because, right now, if you aren’t on my side, you are rooting for tyranny, and it is NOT going to end well. Free people move freely. Free people certainly move freely without being surveilled by a group of people who claim to work for us while also keeping a secret list of their worst people from us.
Want to learn more? Read the backstory here, here, here, and here. Listen to my podcasts on this topic, Living with Lockdowns, Big Brother is Watching, and You Don’t Need to See This List of Bad Cops, Citizen.
Was looking for something on the Tubes and ran across this Dave Ridley interview at Taproom Tuesday in 2008, soon after we moved to NH . My favorite parts are… too many to mention! D’aaaaw, Younger Me Who Is Still Figuring Stuff Out. You go, Queenie!
LISTEN NOW… “Lockdowns” have become a part of everyday life across America – but where did it all start, and what can we do to stop this? From the birth of the concept in prisons to events right here in Manchester, dive into the history and reality of school and neighborhood lockdowns with your hosts on this week’s episode of Told You So!
BONUS CONTENT! I was invited by State Representative Werner Horn to attend a discussion last night at a Republican meet-up in Franklin.
We had a fruitful discussion about “Lockdowns in NH,” delving into the history of these in our state, including details about past lockdown, like the recent Hillsborough County fiasco in which 300,000 Granite Staters were wrongly informed they’d been place under a “lockdown advisory,” and the 2016 West Manchester Lockdown where 30,000 residents of Manchester were place under a “lockdown” for more than 7 hours AFTER the subject had been apprehended. I explained how government-run schools are now routinely placed in lockdown, for example more than 10 have taken place in Manchester and surrounding areas since February 2018.
We discussed the legal basis for lockdowns. My position is there is none since “free people move freely.” One participant mentioned the “imminent danger exception,” and another said according to the Office of Legislative Services, they could not find any RSAs or laws authorizing “lockdowns” for civilian populations. We discussed the use of National Guard in Watertown, MA after the Boston Marathon Bombing, and how this appears to be a clear violation the Posse Comitatus Act.
We chatted about possible solutions for this emerging danger to our civil liberties as free people. Some ideas that were bandied about: making sure people are better informed about their rights; better training for police officers to understand that people can assume the risk of moving around freely, even in possibly volatile situations and that is NEVER OK to order people back into their homes at gunpoint; better communication between police and citizens, including decrypting their scanners so that law abiding citizens can know what is happening when an incident is occurring; and parents need to be made aware of the dangers of school lockdowns, and the traumatizing realistic “training” scenarios their children are being subjected to.