Thank you for being here and thank you to Jane Aitken for organizing this great event. It’s an honor to be speaking here before so many God-fearing, true American Patriots today, and to be serving the people of Derry in the State Legislature.
Our country is at great risk and our Union is in a troubling state, nearly totally devoid of the principles on which it was founded. But I want you to recognize that our country’s decline isn’t only because of President Obama or his cohorts in Congress; President George W. Bush before him, President Bill Clinton before him, and many presidents as well as many Congresses have allowed government to creep into the lives and businesses of everyday Americans for the past 100 years. But more importantly, the People have allowed this to happen, by not getting involved and by simply going through the motions to elect someone just because he or she has an “R” or a “D” next to his name, not because of his or her character, stated goals, past record and understanding of the constitution.
Now that the people have allowed this to happen, we stand here today awoken to a country that doesn’t remind us at all of the country we learned about in school—that is, if we were so lucky to have been taught about our Constitutional Republic in school like I was. My speech today, I hope, will give you some guidance concerning what I think we should do about it.
Certainly we should oppose Obamacare, the budget deficit and draconian government-centric programs, but we should also support free market health care, spending within our means without raising taxes or fees and the wholesale elimination of programs and department that run counter to the principles the nation was founded on. And in so doing this, yes, we should attempt to elect good representatives to Congress, but even if we’re successful with that goal (and we don’t have a good record of it), we only have four people in Congress and very little power to make the restorative change this country needs.
I submit to you that our power as citizens and our power as a state relies in the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Of course we know that the scope of the powers held by Congress are delegated in Article 1, Section 8. Everything else remains a power of the State of New Hampshire and the several other states as well as the People themselves, who are responsible for electing representatives like me to the State Legislature. It is the State Legislature that controls which powers are reserved to the People and which will be leveraged by the state. Also inherent in a State Legislature is the power to stand up to the federal government when the federal government has taken authority it doesn’t have, or to preempt federal overreaches with Legislation that defines how New Hampshire will handle possible federal government intrusions.
We have done some of this in the last year: For instance, I’ve been personally involved with several efforts to stop Obamacare with State Legislation. Last year, we created an oversight committee that controls whether state officials can or cannot advance any part of Obamacare in the state. We also made it illegal for state officials to help enforce Obamacare’s mandate that individuals buy insurance. Finally, in a bill I sponsored this year that hasn’t passed yet (It’s alive in the Senate), we would be telling state officials that they cannot set up a state health insurance exchange, which is the prime mechanism that Obamacare uses to enforce its mandates, taxes, penalties and controls. Because of a flaw in the way Obamacare was written, by not setting up a state exchange along with other states, we may force Congress to reopen the law and amend, repeal or replace it.
In addition, considering federal plans to use Smart Meters to force consumers to use less energy, Sen. Forsythe and I introduced a bill to prohibit the so-called Smart Meter gateway devices that read and/or control the activity of appliances inside the home, without a homeowner’s decision to opt-in to have such a device installed. The bill doesn’t go all the way and ban Smart Meters, per se, but it does prevent the problematic component of the device from being installed without a homeowner’s consent. That bill has passed the Senate and is alive in the House.
On top of efforts to rein-in federal authority, we have also worked to rein-in overreaching state authority and restore fiscal sanity to our budgeting process. Specifically, we cut the state budget by one billion dollars and started to bring solvency to our state pension system. The current Legislature has begun to redefine government in the way it was intended to be defined, and we’ve reduced government’s authority to act without checks and balances in many instances. For instance, last year we eliminated so-called “affirmative action,” so now people being hired in New Hampshire will be judged by their skills and the content of their character rather than the color of their skin or their sex. After all, our state constitution says that everyone must be treated equally under the law. We also made it so government officials or their agents need to get your permission before they come in your home to do an administrative inspection, and if you don’t let them in, you can still appeal their decision. We have begun to scale back on programs that the private sector should manage, and can manage much better than the government. Right now, for instance, we’re trying to repeal the so-called “Certificate of Need Board” that controls where and when a new hospital or similar medical facility can be built. (That kind of sounds like it comes right out of “Atlas Shrugged,” now does it? I’m not quite ready to head for Galt’s Gulch, but I’m getting close. What about you?)
It’s efforts like these that slowly, but surely, help restore liberty or at least hold tyranny at bay. It’s efforts like these at the state level that affect your life more directly than anything that happens in Washington. And it’s efforts like these that need your support. More importantly, the representatives and senators who support these efforts need your help to get reelected, while the representatives and senators who don’t support Tenth Amendment efforts or other efforts that support limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility and free enterprise, must be replaced with those who do. Maybe their replacement is you, or maybe you can work for a good candidiate to help get him or her elected. This must be the focus of our movement.
And that leads me to one final point: We didn’t pass everything that we should have this session. We didn’t repeal the law that allows police officers to arrest you for no reason and then charge you with resisting arrest. We didn’t repeal the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a tax on energy production and use that pays off a few connected insiders and picks winners and losers in the energy marketplace. And we didn’t pass Right to Work, which guarantees an individual’s right to get a job regardless of whether they choose to join a union.
These shortcomings are largely due to a vocal minority that has been coming to committee hearings, writing us letters, calling us and painting an incorrect picture of our actions in the press. These shortcomings are due to executive and judicial department officials who come to committee meetings and tell lawmakers what to do. Unfortunately, there are too many representatives and senators who have bent with this foul wind, despite the promises they made when they ran for office. These are the legislators who have held back restorative change.
We need you and your political friends to be the counterweight. It’s not enough to elect good people to state offices. We have to elect good people to state offices and then make sure they’re doing what they said they would do. Not every lawmaker has the integrity to do what they said they would do, as I’m sure you know. Please stay involved in the process. Please keep your legislators honest and keep in touch with them. Remind them that the constitution is what matters most, not the status quo.
Further, please support this Legislature for doing the right thing eight times out of ten by reelecting the good legislators, as rated by such groups as the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire (RLCNH), the House Republican Alliance (HRA), the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance (NHLA). But please help support the next Legislature by voting to replace those legislators who have not done the right thing this session. If no one is challenging these folks, please stand up and run for office yourself, or ask a political friend to do so.
This battle for freedom we’re involved in is young, and it is new. It took us 100 years to regress toward tyranny from the liberty our founders fought and died for, and it may take that long to restore our liberty again, or it might not happen at all if you as individuals don’t get involved and stay involved. As Ben Franklin said, We’ve given you “a Republic, if you can keep it.” This lines up well with what Wendell Phillips said some years later: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” The key is to start with the State Legislature and use its authority to hold the federal government in check. And it is for this reason, with a firm reliance on the protection of my Divine Father in Heaven, that I have pledged my life, fortune and sacred honor in this battle for our lives, liberty, property, and all those essential and inherent Natural Rights that God has given to us. I hope you will join me. God Bless you and God Bless The State of New Hampshire and the United States of America!
