Having reclaimed control of the NH House, Democrats set about remaking the body's rules in their own image. The NH House Rules Committee meets to hammer out recommendations to the full House on their proposed dictates, 12/20/2012. Specifically of interest here, on the dissolution of the Redress of Grievances Committee and the Constitutional Review Committee, and -- since "gun-free zones" are empirically such a nettlesome hindrance to budding mass murderers -- the return to a more criminal-friendly "victim disarmament zone" in their area of the State House. I feel safer already... You can follow along with your own copy of the proposed rule changes. The full House will consider the committee's recommendations on January 2, 2013.
A few points to chew on. Can these provisions of Constitution and law be simply ignored by the legislature?
[Meetings of Legislature, for What Purposes.] The legislature shall assemble for the redress of public grievances and for making such laws as the public good may require.
June 2, 1784
Amended 1792 generally rewording sentence and omitting "for correcting, strengthening and confirming the laws."
[Rights of Assembly, Instruction, and Petition.] The people have a right, in an orderly and peaceable manner, to assemble and consult upon the common good, give instructions to their representatives, and to request of the legislative body, by way of petition or remonstrance, redress of the wrongs done them, and of the grievances they suffer. June 2, 1784
Firearms, Ammunition, and Knives; Authority of the State. –
I. To the extent consistent with federal law, the state of New Hampshire shall have authority and jurisdiction over the sale, purchase, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing, permitting, taxation, or other matter pertaining to firearms, firearms components, ammunition, firearms supplies, or knives in the state. Except as otherwise specifically provided by statute, no ordinance or regulation of a political subdivision may regulate the sale, purchase, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing, permitting, taxation, or other matter pertaining to firearms, firearms components, ammunition, or firearms supplies in the state. Nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting a political subdivision's right to adopt zoning ordinances for the purpose of regulating firearms or knives businesses in the same manner as other businesses or to take any action allowed under RSA 207:59.
II. Upon the effective date of this section, all municipal ordinances and regulations not authorized under paragraph I relative to the sale, purchase, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing, permitting, taxation, or other matter pertaining to firearms, firearm components, ammunition, firearms supplies, or knives shall be null and void.
Source. 2003, 283:2, eff. July 18, 2003. 2011, 139:1, eff. Aug. 6, 2011.
Also, we'll hear from Rep. Dan Itse, a driving force behind the changes 2 years ago -- changes that directly empowered citizens (but I guess there's my answer, eh?) -- that have evidently proven so horrendous that they must now be rolled back. For the children, of course...
Hot on the heels of this week's miscarriage-of-justice-on-multiple-levels jury verdict in the case of Ademo Freeman (to which even the judge opined, "I don’t accept the state’s reasoning"), the subcommittee of the NH House Criminal Justice Committee that's addressing HB553, "relative to the law on wiretapping and eavesdropping," and if and how the full committee should recommend reworking it into an "acceptable" bill for the next legislative session (having been relegated to "interim study" this session), held a work session, 8/15/2012.
Subcommittee work sessions, by their nature, are substantially less formal than committee hearings -- examples of which perhaps over-populate this blog (but your humble chronicler finds them, like train wrecks, difficult from which to avert his eyes). But chaired by my own Representative Mark "Don't Call Me Kevin, Boston.com" Warden, this body was perhaps particularly and refreshingly receptive to input from its employers, the people -- that's you, faithful reader. Here's to hoping the individual members are equally cognizant and respectful of that relationship. The bottom line: they represent you, not the Executive Branch and its operatives in uniform with the monopoly on force.
Hopeful, too, as this work session was, however, this nevertheless empirically pressing issue in NH is still, sadly, a long, long, long way from finally getting resolved legislatively -- and so, sadly, too, there will likely be plenty more opportunities for "judicial branch activism" (often mischaracterized, IMHO, as "outside-the-system activism").
For the record, this is how I responded to the NHPR piece linked above:
"New Hampshire is one of twelve states that requires all parties to consent to being recorded over the phone."
That blanket assertion is not an accurate statement, as a careful reading of the relevant statute would have exposed -- rather than obediently taking government's word for it. What does this, from the RSA definitions, mean to you?
570-A:1 Definitions. – As used in this chapter: ... II. "Oral communication" means any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation.
Do public officials have such an expectation that their official duties are private from their employers, the people? According to the 'Glik' decision out of the First Circuit Court, and the 'Alleman' decision out of Goffstown District Court, they do not. Nor, pointedly, according to the NH Constitution, Part 1st, Article 8. That public school employees and government prosecutors and cops don't understand that they are, in fact, public officials renders them no less so simply on their own assertions.
Further, and even if we DISREGARD the above definition,
570-A:2 Interception and Disclosure of Telecommunication or Oral Communications Prohibited. – ... I-a. A person is guilty of a misdemeanor if, except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter or without consent of all parties to the communication, the person knowingly intercepts a telecommunication or oral communication when the person is a party to the communication or with the prior consent of one of the parties to the communication, but without the approval required by RSA 570-A:2, II(d).
Mr. Mueller a) was a party to the conversation, and also b) certainly had his own prior consent. So where did the felony charge come from? How has the state managed to liberate him from his ostensibly unalienable right to self-defense for not breaking any law claiming the authority to do so?
Further still, for good measure, as for "being recorded over the phone,"
570-A:1 Definitions. – As used in this chapter: ... IV. "Electronic, mechanical, or other device" means any device or apparatus which can be used to intercept a telecommunication or oral communication OTHER THAN: (a) Any telephone or telegraph instrument, equipment, facility or any component thereof: (1) Furnished to the subscriber or user by a communication carrier in the ordinary course of its business and being used by the subscriber or user in the ordinary course of its business or furnished by such subscriber or user for connection to the facilities of such service and used in the ordinary course of its business in accordance with applicable provisions of telephone and telegraph company rules and regulations, as approved by the public utilities commission;
Funny the problems one can find with government behavior just by reading its own statutes, rather than simply accepting its own assertions.
A lawless government is not capable of doing a "good job." By definition.
On July 29, 2008, a violent gang, looking for malum prohibitum drugs, invaded the Berwyn Heights, Maryland, home of Cheye (pronounced "Shy") Calvo. Needless to say, violent gangs have utterly no regard for the safety or well-being or property of their victims. They want what they want, consequences and accountability and rights be damned.
This particular gang terrorized this entirely innocent family for 4 hours. They killed the family's 2 Labrador Retrievers, one while he was retreating in (particularly in hindsight, entirely) justifiable terror. Ultimately unsatisfied, they left the violated and shell-shocked family to put their lives back together. And clean up the blood. And the government sworn to protect this family's rights found nothing wrong with the physical and emotional carnage.
To be fair, though, that's because this gang, these criminals, was a SWAT team sent by government. Starting to see the motivation? Yep, collateral damage in yet still even more prohibition-related crime. In the "War on People Who Use (Some) Drugs."™ Or in this case, only on unsuspecting people, just living their lives, whom the gang thought were using "some" drugs. Although, truthfully, the more one learns about the case, the clearer it becomes that there wasn't much thinking going on at all.
Yet according to Wikipedia, over 2 years after the costly and embarrassing raid, then-Sheriff Michael A. Jackson defiantly defended his department's indefensible-in-a-free-society aggression, stating, “we'd do it again. Tonight.”
You may be next, citizen, 'cause they don't work for you. They're not accountable to you. They want what they want, consequences and accountability and rights be damned. You have the right to remain terrified. And in NH, too, your government's reaction is less than comforting.
Cheye Calvo graced the NH Liberty Alliance's 2012 Liberty Dinner as the keynote speaker, 7/15/2012, on the jarringly and increasingly mundane nature of state violence. Not merely state-sanctioned. State-perpetrated. Radley Balko has done extensive reporting on this incident. The NHLA 2012 Liberty Rating should be available presently here.
Yes, barbaric. Democratic NH Governor John Lynch, demonstrating an ongoing breathtaking degree of callousness and abject inhumanity, is again threatening to veto access to pain medicine, despite medicinal marijuana legislation being passed -- again -- by a Republican-dominated NH House and even Senate.
The House could almost comfortably override his veto twice, but the Senate is still struggling with how much compassion is as much as they really ought to have to show, how much of the doctor-patient relationship they really need to respect, how much ownership of your own pain-riven body they should "allow" you to exert. How much you... work for them.
This 5/24/2012 evening, activists gathered in front of the NH State House for a candlelight vigil in an effort to exhort the final push to secure (only marginally, really) unmolested-by-their-servants relief for people in pain, in the form of SB409,"relative to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes."
Now would be an excellent time to make your Senator aware that medical decisions should be a private matter between patient and doctor, not between patient and bureaucrat.
And do keep Lynch's insistent, inhumane deference to the perverse desires of an ever-increasingly unconstitutional Mordor-On-The-Potomac over your own in mind, dear taxpayer, should you ever discover he has arrogant designs on "representing" you again in some capacity. Truly, who does he think he is...?
You may have heard mention of a little-known federal medical marijuana program called the Compassionate Investigative New Drug (IND) Program. The program was closed to new applicants in 1992, but four patients have continued to receive shipments of medical marijuana from the federal government since that time.
The most outspoken of these four patients is a successful stockbroker, Irvin Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld will be visiting Concord Tuesday (5/8) for a 9:30 a.m. press conference and meetings with elected officials.
For nearly 30 years and counting, he has received approximately nine ounces per month of marijuana from the U.S. government.
Patients and supporters of SB 409 are welcome to attend and observe the press conference.
Herewith, that press conference, 5/8/2012. One mainstream media outlet eventually showed up, after formal festivities wrapped up. Better late than never, I suppose. (The legislative history to date of SB409, this year's NH medicinal marijuana bill, can be found here.)
By special request, from the NH Senate Health and Human Services Committee's 3/8/2012 public hearing on SB409, "relative to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes," Committee Chair Senator Jeb Bradley responds to testimony by Enfield Police Chief Richard Crate. Despite the recalcitrant Chief Crate's refusal to compromise with reality, or Constitutionality, the committee subsequently voted 5-0 to recommend the bill's passage. The Senate agreed. As, following this hearing, has the House.
Here's what the prohibitionists keep avoiding with regard to the "broccoli vs cauliflower," "we can't tell them apart!" appearance issue of industrial hemp: it's crap. They must be high.
If you want to grow quality hemp, then your plants will be tall stalks with tiny flowers and therefore very low THC -- ideally all stalk/no bud. If you're growing pot, they'll be squat plants with large flowers and (presumably) high THC -- ideally all bud/no stalk (and let's not lose sight of the unavoidable fact that THC levels have increased directly due to the "War on People Who Use (Some) Drugs"™, for the same reason that higher-alcohol-content liquor became the bootlegger's product of choice: more bang in a smaller, more easily handled and concealable and transportable package). Anyone intent on entering either market has a considerable economic vested interest in maximizing the preferred characteristic exclusively, because the non-preferred characteristic detracts from the preferred characteristic.
The objectives of the two crops are very different. The plant-spacing of the two crops are very different. And if you were to cross-breed them (as would unavoidably happen if you tried to hide one amongst the other) in an attempt to circumvent arbitrary THC level restrictions (and also presumably attempt to split the difference in spacing requirements, as well, in your attempt to deceive), then your crop would be market-competitive -- and therefore profitable -- neither in the hemp market nor in the pot market. Your product would be rejected by your intended customers. Marketable THC and marketable fiber are incompatible and mutually exclusive -- indeed, mutually destructive. For a profitable crop, you need to pick one and actively avoid the other. The autocrats have made no attempt to debate these points. Why might that be?
Even most cops ought to be trainable to tell the difference. And even government used to understand.
Seriously. Why the hell are we still talking about this...?
Anyway, herewith, the NH Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on HB1615, "relative to industrial hemp," 4/19/2012. In toto -- it simply wasn't worth my time to excise the lone tripping opponent. (The House hearing can be found here, their Executive Session here.)
Even when it's at least implemented compliant with the rule of law, as with the tragic and doomed 18th Amendment. There are myriad economic, social, philosophical and moral reasons for anyone willing to investigate. The drug war -- or rather, "The War on People Who Use (Some) Drugs"™ -- really has to end. Sooner rather than later.
Your ever-humble chronicler has decided he needs to cease constantly dignifying the opposition with a platform for their delusions and fetishes. Unless they say something really stupid, of course... Sometimes there simply aren't "2 sides" to an issue. Flat-earthers don't get equal time. Irrational autocratic marijuana prohibitionists don't get equal time.
That said, I'm making room here for a "startling" indictment of the systemic self-serving indoctrination perpetrated by government schools. You knew they had an agenda, right? Violence, or the threat thereof, is the only tool government has, and it's teaching the children that fear of government is the source of "society."
A wise man once said
"When the government fears the people there is liberty; when the people fear the government there is tyranny."
-Thomas Jefferson-
More recently -- perhaps even within this submissive's own young life experience -- it was restated thusly:
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
-V-
The government that you pay for has informed this budding citizen that that's nonsense. Is it? Should it be...?
So herewith, just some of the most compelling and informative of the NH Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on HB1526, "relative to possession of less than one-half ounce of marijuana," 4/19/2012, from NHCLU Executive Director, Claire Ebel, Marijuana Policy Project Legislative Analyst Matt Simon, taxpayer Willie Brown, and Rep. Seth Cohn.
Are we witnessing the nevertheless-still-malevolent death throes of a violent predator? The hysterical yet vicious last gasp? "I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom (or 'round the Moons of Nibia, and round the Antares Maelstrom,' if you prefer), and round perdition's flames before I give him up." The lash of the plummeting Balrog? Or perhaps 'Come back here you coward! It's only a flesh wound...!'
There's a growing palpable desperation emitting among the vile, venal, arrogant, obsessive-compulsive, micromanaging, collectivist authoritarians. Blatantly self-referential "appeals to authority." An unmistakable stench of fear that they're finally losing control over their neighbors' peaceful lives. One relatively tiny corner of their oppressive domain, to be sure, but a critical one, I believe. And they seem to agree. It permeates their very words. Clearly, the drubbing they finally took at the hands of the Senate scared the shit out of them.
They're increasingly strident and grasping, if that's even possible anymore. Incomprehensible as it may be to lovers of liberty, these people -- yes, these barbarians -- will never concede -- ever -- in what must prove an inevitably fruitless effort to hold back the tide in what is ostensibly a free country (what the hell is their definition, anyway?). The rule of law -- beginning with the letter and spirit of the Constitutions -- must win out. Self-ownership must win out. Compassion, in this particular case, must win out. A government that fundamentally understands in no uncertain terms who's running this show must win out.
SB409, "relative to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes," now before the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee, 4/10/2012. I think I'm finally all "shocked out" by the utterly shameless sycophantic control freaks' wild assertions, misplaced loyalties, and general contempt for peaceful self-determination and the limited servant government of expressly enumerated delegated powers authorized to defend it. See if they've rendered you as jaded.
EDIT: Keep this in mind while enduring law enforcement's testimony...
"It’s now settled that state law enforcement officers cannot arrest medical marijuana patients or seize their medicine simply because they prefer the contrary federal law," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the medical marijuana advocacy organization that represented the defendant Felix Kha in a case that the City of Garden Grove appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. "Perhaps, in the future local government will think twice about expending significant time and resources to defy a law that is overwhelmingly supported by the people of our state."
Anastasia McNeil delivers some lyrical "home-grown" wisdom -- which as it happens (could there have been method to Chair Jeb Bradley's madness?) stands in stark temporal and philosophical contrast to the continued insanity championed by your "servant," Chief Crate -- to the NH Senate Health and Human Services Committee regarding SB409, "relative to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes," 3/8/2012. With a hat tip to Ted Geisel...
I would not like pain here or there.
I would not like pain anywhere.
Would you like pain in your house?
Would you like to watch your dying spouse?
I do not like pain in a house.
I do not like to watch my dying spouse.
I do not like pain
here or there.
I'd like to stop it
everywhere.
I do not like suff'ring and pain.
I do not like them, but they remain.
Would you solve them with a plant?
Why sit there and say you can't?
Do you want to say:
Not with a note.
From the man in white coat.
Not if you're sick.
I don't care one lick.
You may not use it here or there.
You may not use it anywhere.
You may not use a plant for pain.
I prefer more suffering.
Would you? Could you?
take that pain?
Then Suffer! Suffer!
You'll remain.
But I would not ,
could not,
give you pain.
That a plant could solve
Grown with dirt and rain
You may like choice.
You will see.
You may like choice
just like me.
I do not like pain in a house
I do not like to watch a dying spouse.
When a little plant grown with dirt and rain.
Can take away that suffering.
March 22, the committee held their "Executive Session" on the bill, where they vote on what they'll recommend to the entire body. Committee recommendations are overwhelmingly accepted (with some remarkably notable exceptions), so they're important. Herewith, that session.
I'll save you some suspense. Four Republicans (including former Congressman, Senate Majority Leader and Chair Jeb Bradley) and one Democrat recommended unanimously that this bill -- sponsored by 3 GOP Senators, just btw -- ought to pass. Of course, we shouldn't have to be here at all if one particular Democrat -- the one sitting in the governor's office -- hadn't vetoed a similar bill in 2009 -- one, in fact, he essentially wrote. But he's not running again, so he no longer feels compelled to pander to his ostensible "non-base," right? We'll see...
This, too, is on the heels of the super-majority GOP House killing the gay-marriage repeal bill on Wednesday. And earlier this term, they passed marijuana decriminalization and hemp legalization. However much I still disagree with swathes of their agenda, Republicans really are a different, better breed in NH. Better, in fact, than the Democrats on some of the Dems' own traditional issues...
By special request, Richard Crate, Enfield Police Chief, addresses the NH Senate Health and Human Services Committee on behalf of the NH Chiefs of Police, regarding SB409, "relative to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes," 3/8/2012. Delivering legislative testimony on a regular basis for that organization, this is the first time on any marijuana bill, to my knowledge, that he doesn't receive, at worst, polite silence.
Finally! Some pushback from our ostensible "representatives"! Seriously, I can't recall anything like this kind of pressure put on the forces of evil by a NH legislative committee in the years I've been following this issue. Or any statist-friendly issue, for that matter. Wow...
Once again, medical marijuana rears its fearsomely compassionate head in the NH legislature. This time, starting in the Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. Perhaps needless to say, SB409, "relative to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes," yet again exposes the barbaric tendencies of the vicious autocrats of the state (can you believe Chief Crate's professed faith in D.C. ...?!?) for what they are. Doesn't seem to deter 'em, though, does it? No self-awareness...
Simply stated (as, to be sure, I have before in these chronicles), presuming the authority to somehow deny natural pain relief to peaceful people who are suffering is barbaric. There is simply no accurate yet appropriately genteel euphemism. Deal with it. Government has no justification for making peaceful lives more difficult. Ever. The time of the authoritarian drug warrior must end. Now. He doesn't own you, he works for you. We must start with the atrocities committed daily against those who are suffering. Civil liberties, human rights and self-ownership must be restored. Government as servant, not master. Legislature as representatives of the People rather than of the vested interests of the (equally servant, just btw) Executive Branch.
If we hope to make any claim to being a civilized -- let alone free -- society, we must stop forcing our fellows to live in misery for our (well, someone's) own ostensibly yet nevertheless deeply disturbed "high ideals." "Misguided" doesn't remotely begin to cover it.
You. Mind your own goddamn business, and "allow" your neighbor to mind his. In return, he'll do the same for you. Liberty. What a concept, huh? You wanna restore some sanity? Start here.
But first, Anastasia McNeil delivers some lyrical "home-grown" wisdom (cleaned-up version here), which as it happens (could there have been method to Chair Jeb Bradley's madness?) stands in stark temporal and philosophical contrast to the continued insanity championed by your "servant," Chief Crate.
Usual House Suspects Still Need Remedial Tutoring...
The mystifyingly convoluted journey of the seemingly self-evident concept of HB145, "permitting the audio and video recording of a public official while in the course of his or her official duties" -- that your servants are, as NH Constitution Part 1st Article 8 makes crystal clear, "at all times accountable" -- continues. Last we left it, the NH Senate Judiciary Committee was poised -- surprisingly -- to amend it back to something approximating its original form before the House Criminal Justice Committee had finished diluting it almost beyond recognition (certainly beyond sense).
Well, the Senate did a pretty good job with it, indeed. And so here it is, back before the House CJ Committee, 3/6/2012. Let's try, yet again, to make a few things perfectly clear. Even to politicians.
Number one: "non-public meetings" are called that for a reason. A private meeting with a welfare client is not "generally accessible" to the public. That's a straw man.
Number two: there is a distinction in NH law between the aural component and the visual component. There are no current laws against the visual component. These legislative efforts, therefore, are endeavoring only to clarify the right to record audio. Visual images at, say, "a fatal crash scene" aren't prohibited now. And again, crossing a crime scene tape, interfering with an investigation, is not an area "generally accessible" to the public, now is it? Can you be there without a camera now? No. This bill doesn't change that. That there is a straw man and a red herring.
Number three: the issue is already largely resolved judicially, as the 'Glik' decision by the 1st Circuit Court made clear. That decision was subsequently the deciding factor in your humble chronicler's own criminal case against Weare PD in Goffstown District Court. As for the current law being good enough, there are at least 4 civil actions now pending against Weare PD with regard to them "interpreting" current 'wiretapping' law. Which, given the resolution of my criminal case, is going to cost Weare taxpayers. Reportedly, Weare PD's liability insurance premiums already reflect the coming carnage. The current law is an expensive violation of civil rights. The law needs to respect established rights.
Number four: lose (3) "This subparagraph shall not be construed to permit a person to audio or videotape either in a courtroom or any other place within a court facility without prior approval of the presiding justice," which continues to allow the judicial branch to place itself above the rule of law.
At this point, the House (starting with the committee's recommendation) has several options. It can simply concur with the changes the Senate made, and off it goes to the governor; it can reject the changes and drop the matter entirely; it can reject the changes and request a "Committee of Conference" where a subcommittee from the respective committee of each chamber will meet to attempt to hammer out their differences. The latter option appears to be the direction in which the CJ Committee is leaning. And to make the bill even better, to boot. Golly...
So who limits government's claimed power to limit your rights...?
The NH House Criminal Justice Committee has so far this session heard testimony on 4 marijuana-related bills: HB1526, "decriminalizing possession of less than one ounce of marijuana;" and HB1527, "exempting cultivation of marijuana from manufacturing under the controlled drug act" (at 25:50 in the accompanying video), HB1615, "relative to industrial hemp" (41:35); and HB1705-FN-A, "allowing purchase and use of marijuana by adults, regulating the purchase and use of marijuana, and imposing taxes on the wholesale and retail sale of marijuana (55:00). Video from those hearings can be found, respectively, here, here, and here.
This past Tuesday, 2/21/2012, and this day, 2/23, the committee "exec'd" those bills (and dozens of others -- is society really still that chaotic that we need dozens of new criminal "justice" laws every... single... year...?), meaning they voted in "executive session" on what shall be their recommendation to the full House.The primary options are "OTP," or "Ought to Pass;" "OTP/A," or "Ought to Pass with Amendment;" "ITL," or the curiously artful "Inexpedient to Legislate;" or "re-refer for interim study."
Hey, here's some "inconvenient truth" they could start with. Or here. Or here. But remember, this is the same CJ Committee whose marijuana hearings I began recording four years ago. Yet the word "cannabis" had to be defined for them as recently as last month (in the hearing videos referenced above -- can't recall which one just now: look for educator Bob Constantine). So it would seem rational that even they ought to acknowledge that they're not gonna learn anything new with further study, wouldn't it?
The transparent, disdainful disrespect for basic guaranteed liberty and for purposefully limited government consistently exhibited by this committee never ceases to amaze, confound and sicken your humble chronicler. Why do obsequious police-state authoritarians like Rep. Berube or Rep. Pantelakos have more control over your body than you do? Are you comfortable with that? Just something to think about...
The NH House Criminal Justice Committee this day, 2/21/2012, "exec'd" a couple dozen bills (falling a dozen short of their goal). These "executive sessions" are where committees vote on what shall be their recommendation to the full House on the respective bills they're assigned, after holding pubic hearings.
Here, CJ "tackles," with pillow-fight seriousness, HB1531, "relative to prosecution for victimless crimes" -- that's "no victim, no crime" (unfortunately, the concept of "crime" requiring an actual "victim" still eludes your "representatives") -- and HB1651, "requiring the division of state police to equip special weapons and tactics (SWAT) units or teams with tactical cameras" -- or, "the force-monopoly state being cleared by its own internal investigations is, well, not sufficient."
Video of the respective public hearings (available to you, faithful reader, because public servants are "at all times accountable," of course) can be found here and here. But I'll save you the suspense. The only relevant option is "ITL," or "Inexpedient to Legislate" (how's that for a politically driven euphemism?). Well, knock me over with a pillow feather...
Why can your servants exempt themselves from your oversight, while simultaneously criminalizing offending them? Just something to think about...
Whom do you serve? Whom do you represent? The Forgotten Mission.
The incessant, oppressive parade of law enforcement and "justice" department officials testifying, ever in full regalia and ostensibly with the self-important imprimatur of their agency, against the expressly stated wishes of their bosses the People (what percentage of the People, say, is now against the never-authorized "War on People Who Use [Some] Drugs"™, just for one example? and yet...), in committee hearings of the legislatures, both state and federal, and the obsequious, sycophantic, cloying, unquestioning, uncritical deference and respect invariably paid them and their desires for control (and their so-often tired "Reefer Madness"- style arguments) -- "professional courtesy" among tyrants, among thieves of liberty, among servants who have forgotten their place and their purpose, examples of which are far too rife in the videos under this banner -- must begin to be directly challenged if the People are ever to regain any semblance of mastery over their servants, all branches, or over their intended liberty, to have been protected by said branches.
Long a substantial peeve of your humble chronicler, here, William Kostric fires the first pithy volley on the field of battle. It's time that this pointed inquiry became equally as incessant any time the uniforms and state-bestowed titles show up in committee. Make their ears ring with it. Every... Single... Hearing.
Do you represent the Executive Branch, or do you represent the People?
"The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost when the legislative power is dominated by the executive."
-Edward Gibbon-
(1737-1794) English historian and Member of Parliament
1776
It would seem a simple concept: That which does no harm to another shouldn't be the purview of a servant government -- established expressly to secure our natural rights -- to criminalize. Not in a free society, anyway. Not even under this Constitutional Republic, really. If there's no aggrieved party, then it's none of the state's damned business.
So here we have HB1531, "relative to prosecution for victimless crimes" -- or, the "No Victim, No Crime" bill -- before the NH House Criminal Justice Committee, 2/9/2012. A bill restating the intended relationship between master and servant, and establishing that the lack of an actual victim is a positive legal defense against laws that thus overstep government's expressly limited delegated authority to interfere in peaceful lives. An explicit "jury nullification" opportunity. No victim? No crime. Here's MSM's take.
But somehow, that government fails to see the logic. So tell me: Who should win that argument, the government or the People who authorized it, whose consent is required? Will arrogant government finally read its charter and agree to replace its chains and get back in its box?
You know what's comin', don't ya? For the jaw-dropper, head for the 5-minute mark, where bill sponsor Rep. George Lambert is stepping the Committee through NH Constitution (a document they've all sworn to uphold) Part First, Articles 18, 2, 3 and 15 (as well as Part Second, Article 5) -- you know, only the entire basis for the committee's claimed authority:
18. [Penalties to be Proportioned to Offenses; True Design of Punishment.] All penalties ought to be proportioned to the nature of the offense. No wise legislature will affix the same punishment to the crimes of theft, forgery , and the like, which they do to those of murder and treason. Where the same undistinguishing severity is exerted against all offenses, the people are led to forget the real distinction in the crimes themselves, and to commit the most flagrant with as little compunction as they do the lightest offenses. For the same reason a multitude of sanguinary laws is both impolitic and unjust. The true design of all punishments being to reform, not to exterminate mankind.
2. [Natural Rights.] All men have certain natural, essential, and inherent rights - among which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting, property; and, in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by this state on account of race, creed, color, sex or national origin.
3. [Society, its Organization and Purposes.] When men enter into a state of society, they surrender up some of their natural rights to that society, in order to ensure the protection of others; and, without such an equivalent, the surrender is void.
15. [Right of Accused.] No subject shall be held to answer for any crime, or offense, until the same is fully and plainly, substantially and formally, described to him; or be compelled to accuse or furnish evidence against himself. Every subject shall have a right to produce all proofs that may be favorable to himself; to meet the witnesses against him face to face, and to be fully heard in his defense, by himself, and counsel. ...
The point he's in the midst of making being that to require you to surrender up your right to, say, peacefully put whatever (or whoever) you want into your own body (without harming anyone, without creating a "victim") -- the purpose, the necessity of such surrender being "to ensure the protection of other" rights (on this particular point, Rep. Lambert and I disagree) -- the state must provide you with "an equivalent" in protective services -- protection of other rights -- for the loss of that right. If the state, your servant, provides you no such equivalent benefit, then you don't have to consent to the surrender. "The surrender is void." It's right there in the state government's founding charter.
And in as much as a victimless "crime," by definition, harms no one, and therefore no one's rights need "protecting," there is no equivalent of "the protection of other" rights to be provided by the state to citizens in exchange for surrendering, for example, their natural right to consume whatever they damn well please.
One might be excused for presuming this to be mere basic review within the halls of the institution charged with understanding and upholding the document. But sadly, one would presume in error, nevertheless.
Still listening?
This bill does not say "a Constitutional lesson." It says "victimless crimes." You're reciting the Constitution to us. I wanna know what you're gonna do in the bill.
Yeah, you heard that right: Rep. Pantelakos of the "justice" committee is confused as to the pertinent relationship between the Constitution(s) authorizing the very existence of her committee and defining its purpose and lawful boundaries, and the administration of justice; between the People and the government they established to protect their rights. Committee Chair Rep. Swinford shares her confusion:
How much more do you have?
In my best 'indignant royal highness,' "You are trying our patience, young man, and we are not amused...!" Apparently the NH Constitution is considered only tangentially relevant to the NH government that it authorizes.
And if you suffer through long enough, you'll hear the committee chair, after she closes the hearing, pontificate on the impropriety of new(er) residents participating in the NH political process. Nasty, troublesome people incessantly demanding the rule of law an' such, cramping government's "creativity." Can't they all just submit...? What was that classic from our own "King George?" "A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier...so long as I'm the dictator...heh...hehe.heh"
Opening testimony on HB1251, "permitting off-premises licensees to sell liquor," before the NH House Commerce Committee, 2/7/2012. The intent of the bill is to open up the NH state liquor stores to competition by "allowing" stores that currently sell beer and wine to pay an additional tribute to the state in order to also offer their customers spirits. In other words, opening up nominally free-market competition against the state -- a state that would still maintain a monopoly as the sole (self-)authorized wholesaler, oh just by the way.
I shall not torment you, gentle reader, with the remainder of the hearing. Suffice it to say that the majority of it -- over a half-hour's worth, in an environment where testimony is highly recommended to be limited to no more than 3~5 minutes -- was dominated by the gaseous monopolist liquor commissioners droning -- in 4-part harmony, no less -- the praises of government monopolies. Why you're inherently better off when government makes your decisions for you. The Executive Branch lobbying, as is their wont, the Legislative Branch in opposition to the People. They do it all for you, y'know. Besides, they don't like nasty competition. Just ask 'em...
Police-state authoritarians and their enablers prefer operating in the dark, free of external oversight. Even in volatile, potentially deadly, even occasionally unnecessarily (hey, maybe there's a clue in there) intentionally precipitated situations.
Case in point: the entirely predictable law enforcement opposition to HB1651-FN, "requiring the division of state police to equip special weapons and tactics (SWAT) units or teams with tactical cameras," before the NH House Criminal Justice Committee, 2/7/2012. Why is it, exactly, that when government opposes my wishes, I'm the one who's expected to submit?
Just a couple things to consider. First, no, police are not "para-military" units. Not now, not ever. Not in a free country.
Second, if, as asserted, SWAT team members aren't sufficiently competent to learn how to turn on a camera -- and this presupposes that this process wouldn't be automated or automatic or externally controlled, anyway -- how can we possibly expect them to be competent with an arguably much more complex -- not to mention, y'know, deadly -- weapon system? Is the assertion that they are, in actuality, idiot savants...?
Fourth, if pausing 2 or 3 seconds -- and this presupposes that in a very stressful situation, cops are obsessing over a tiny camera (and another example of which could well be pointing at them from across the street, or even closer, regardless) -- could cost them their life, all decked out in body armor as they are, then couldn't not pausing 2 or 3 seconds cost a vulnerable innocent her life? Which of them is in that circumstance willingly?
Let me state this unequivocally. I do not trust "my" government. I demand accountability. This is not negotiable. Not even a little bit.
Jenn Hall and Greg Pawlowski testify before the NH House Criminal Justice Committee on HB1615, "relative to industrial hemp," 2/7/2012.
Rep Fields sure does sound intrigued at the idea of starting a hemp processing plant, doesn't he? Since, y'know, what business are private start-up costs to government...?
[Art.] 18. [Penalties to be Proportioned to Offenses; True Design of Punishment.] All penalties ought to be proportioned to the nature of the offense. No wise legislature will affix the same punishment to the crimes of theft, forgery , and the like, which they do to those of murder and treason. Where the same undistinguishing severity is exerted against all offenses, the people are led to forget the real distinction in the crimes themselves, and to commit the most flagrant with as little compunction as they do the lightest offenses. For the same reason a multitude of sanguinary laws is both impolitic and unjust. The true design of all punishments being to reform, not to exterminate mankind. June 2, 1784
Here, faithful viewer, are the remainder of an oppressive day battling our servants, and the next 2 of the previously-reported phalanx of marijuana bills submitted this session to the NH legislature: HB1526, "decriminalizing possession of less than one ounce of marijuana," and HB1527, "exempting cultivation of marijuana from manufacturing under the controlled drug act" -- the "'Farming' Isn't 'Fabricating', Duh!" bill -- before the NH House Criminal "Justice" Committee, 2/2/2012.
[Art.] 19. [Searches and Seizures Regulated.] Every subject hath a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches and seizures of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions. Therefore, all warrants to search suspected places, or arrest a person for examination or trial in prosecutions for criminal matters, are contrary to this right, if the cause or foundation of them be not previously supported by oath or affirmation; and if the order, in a warrant to a civil officer, to make search in suspected places, or to arrest one or more suspected persons or to seize their property, be not accompanied with a special designation of the persons or objects of search, arrest, or seizure; and no warrant ought to be issued; but in cases and with the formalities, prescribed by law. June 2, 1784
What an unremittingly oppressive day at the NH Legislative Office Building, spent entirely in the company of the House Criminal "Justice" Committee, primarily for 3 bills bound to make any nanny/police-state authoritarian worth his (or her) jackboots -- and they all do eventually seem to find their way to government "service," now don't they? -- recoil to bare their fangs and hiss menacingly, contempt fairly dripping from their jowls. But your humble chronicler does it all for you, gentle reader. And I swear to you I died not just a little inside this day. Proceed with caution.
A veritably endless procession of the usual suspects portending the end of civilization should the People regain the slightest semblance of their Constitutionally guaranteed liberty. Government disregard for the clear rule of law must prevail. Government's own preferred twisted interpretation of the clearly imposed limits on its authority must be, um... authoritative.
The AG's Office, the Liquor Commission, the State Police, local police, Fish & Game. Everybody wants in on protecting established "due process" and 4th Amendment eviscerations. BUT WE HAVE STATISTICS...!!! Hardly unexpected, I suppose, but gawd how depressing.
To the assembled autocrats:
Expedience is not justification for violation of "due process" and the 4th Amendment.
Statistics are not justification for violation of "due process" and the 4th Amendment.
Cost is not justification for violation of "due process" and the 4th Amendment.
"Success" is not justification for violation of "due process" and the 4th Amendment.
None of these things are justification for violation of morality and justice.
Look. Probable cause is required to impose a typical traffic stop. A reasonable, articulable suspicion that a crime has been or is about to be committed. Yet at a "sobriety checkpoint," this causal relationship is turned on its head: the stop is necessary to discover a probable cause. See the problem?
Perhaps not predictably, but certainly unsurprisingly, a reliable inside source informed your humble chronicler that the Committee got a visit from House leadership not too much later that very afternoon with instructions to officially recommend to the full body that the bill be killed (an 'ITL,' or 'Inexpedient to Legislate' recommendation, which is typically upheld -- cuz, y'know, the committee did all that hard work, an' all...).
If you object to being detained without probable cause at fishing-expedition traps -- don't believe you're being detained? crack the window and ask the nice public servant if you're free to go -- then I strongly recommend you contact your "representatives" and explain it to them.
Just remember, these people believe they're somehow entitled to control our lives. FSM help us...
I've presented my thoughts on our unconstitutional neo-prohibition (in this case of the plant known as marijuana) multiple times in the past. So just to get to it this time, following is the NH House hearing on the first of a veritable phalanx of related legislative bills this session to return some semblance of self-ownership to NH residents, HB1705-FN-A, "allowing purchase and use of marijuana by adults, regulating the purchase and use of marijuana, and imposing taxes on the wholesale and retail sale of marijuana," before the NH House Criminal Justice Committee, 1/25/2012.
With all due respect to my own wonderful Reps, bill sponsors Cal Pratt and Mark Warden, still, as you'll hear, a horror show of nitpicking state regulations and control, but -- sad commentary -- better than what NH currently endures. Personally, I'd prefer liberty, but treating pot like alcohol would be a huge improvement. And if we still can't get that, then this bill is at least a start...
But first, Richard Van Wickler, Superintendent of the Cheshire County Dept. of Corrections, and member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition speaks rational truth to power. Again. Governor Lynch, are you listening this time? Or does the fact that you're (finally) not running again obviate any obligation to respond to the demonstrated wishes of your employers? You finally find a spine, and it's to preserve barbarity? Really...?
NH state Representatives Laurence Rappaport, Carol Vita and Lucien Vita, and taxpayer Mark Rossetti, et al, deliver an affidavit to the NH Attorney General's office regarding ongoing allegations of election fraud, followed by a press conference, 1/3/2012.
