When Saturday Comes to New England

It is no secret that I call New England home. It is not secret that I call the great state of New Hampshire my home. And it is no secret that I currently reside just outside the state capitol of Concord.

What is a secret is what I do on Saturdays here in New England. I do what every other citizen of our nation does. I try to relax and have some fun. I exorcise my Liberty and my Freedom.

In New England through out the Summer and Autumn months you will find celebrations called "Old Home Day". This is really something that many other parts of the country may call "Town Fairs" or maybe even "Town or City Field Days".

Here in New England many towns celebrate their "birthday". What you usually get with this is a small town parade, merchants with special sales, maybe even a BBQ on the Town Square or Town Green. It is a typical New England tradition.

Hey, we will celebrate with a parade and food at the drop of a hat. We will use our kids to give us the excuse to participate in silly races such as potato sack racing and other activities including, but not limited to, face painting and hot dog eating contests.

This is America after all. We have a reason to celebrate at the drop of a hat. We have a reason to recall the founding of our town, our city, our state, our nation. We have a reason to spend our Saturday over eating. Its called Freedom.

And just think of this. We are a nation where it is very easy to "get there from here". So we don't have to limit our celebrating to just our own town or city. We can travel to another town, another city even another state and participate and revel. We are the United States of America.

We have fought, we have shed our own blood, we have sacrificed so much so we deserve to be able to celebrate whenever and whenever we want. Most other nations on the planet cannot say that. Most other nations on the planet cannot compare. In fact when it comes to Liberty and Freedom, no other nation on the planet can compare.

We don't have to worry about authority breaking up our fun. We don't have to worry about a Pontiff, a Potentate, a dictator encroaching in on our fun.

We can even decide that a simple protest of our very government is going to be the fun of the day.

I say, go out and about. Travel the roadways to a different town. Make merry and celebrate your freedom. Express your pleasure and gratitude of the sacrifices of the past for it is those sacrifices that allow you, that give you the ability and the right to do just as you please on your Saturday.

Enjoy your America. Enjoy your freedom. But just remember there are those who stalk in the shadows, in the alleys, in the dark doorways who have only one thing on their mind. To remove you from your freedom and liberty. So celebrate today and on Monday get back to work preserving your freedom so that come the next Saturday, you have the Liberty to celebrate again.

Isn't America a wonderful place? I think so. Now I'm off to celebrate. What are you going to do with your Freedom and Liberty this Saturday?

Remember the shot heard 'round the world?

This is one of the most outrageous things I have had come to my attention in a very long time. I read and heard about this and I could not believe my eyes and ears. Massachusetts has no idea what kind of Pandora's Box they are trying to open up.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts wants to extend its tax policy outside of its own borders in direct conflict with the US Constitution.

There is a tire chain store here in New England called Town Fair Tire. It is not a huge chain but it does have rather good prices on tires and wheels. Well, somehow Massachusetts was able to force its way into their NH books and decided that Town Fair owed the 5% sales tax that the state says came from MA residents buying tires at their NH stores.

First of all, I don't know how they were able to audit the books of a company not in its own state and second, I don't know where they even get the idea they could force a company not in its state collect sales tax for them. This is a direct affront to the sovereignty of the State of New Hampshire.

MA wants to force this tire chain to collect a sales tax in a state with NO sales tax at all. Now think about this for a second. If MA wins this case it will open the doors for every state to require every other state to collect its sales tax from residents that travel. It will become an accounting nightmare for business not to mention, states without sales taxes will find themselves enforcing the sales tax policy of other states.

Because NH doesn't have sales tax, most businesses don't have a mechanism to collect such fees. If MA wins this fight then it could force these small and large companies to come up with very expensive mechanisms to collect these charges from people who chose to shop in their state who live in another state.

This would not stop at sales tax, it would spread to just about every other tax and fee. It would be a nightmare.

This really started some time ago with the State of Maine imposing an income tax on NH and MA residents that work in Maine. Now you may think that is not strange and that every state does this. However, Maine takes it one step further. If on spouse works in Maine, then the other spouse that does not work in Maine is subject to the Maine income tax as well. The bad thing about this is that the state of NH did not vigorously fight this and this policy sticks to this day.

So don't think for a minute that the MA sales tax wont be spread to other areas of your income. And think about this. If you live in New York State and Shop in MA would you have to pay both sales and use taxes? Would that not be double taxation? Double taxation is against the Constitution.

And for that matter so is what MA is trying to do. What these states need to do is be responsible for their spending and stop looking for ways to get more cash. They need to cut back or eliminate all of these social programs that are draining the coffers of state treasuries all over the nation.

CA is delaying giving back money that does not belong to them because they don't have it. CA is the largest socialist state we have and look at them. They are so broke that they can't even give the money back to the people to whom it belongs. Instead of refunds on their income tax, the people of CA are getting I.O.U.'s.

You gotta ask how much more will the people of CA stand for before they open their eyes and start voting in conservative thinkers to run their state.

The same thing should happen in MA. Those idiots keep voting in the liberal idiots that are grabbing their income as fast as they can. Now those same liberals want to toss the Constitution aside so they can grab even more cash to feed their bottomless pit policies of socialized everything.

MA is the first state to require every single resident in that state to have health insurance coverage. Even if they cannot afford it, if you live within that state, you must have coverage. Sure if the state determines you can't afford it then the state will pay for it for you. This was projected to cost around 900 million dollars. Six months into the program, the health department of that state requested another 1 billion dollars to cover the cost. DOUBLE the projected amount. This boondoggle of a plan in its second year cost the state more than twice what they told the people of that state.

Socialism is too expensive, it doesn't work and it takes more and more of YOUR hard earned money to fund. If you live anywhere in this country, you need to tell your governor and Attorney General to support the State of New Hampshire in this fight against the Commonwealth of MA. This is unconstitutional. This is unfair. This is not right. This is dangerous.

Read more about this hear.

Enviromental Wackos team up to wack OH Energy company

Just when you think there is not much to cover on the front of Liberty and Freedom (as if there is never anything to talk about in this country as long as there are Liberals around) all I have to do is open up a local newspaper and just read inside.

Just one issue of the Nashua Telegraph of Nashua, NH has given me enough fodder to talk about for the next two weeks. Seriously. And that is is only on the first 6 pages of the small city newspaper. You see, I don't usually read newspapers. I don't have high blood pressure now and I know if I were to read the bull that most Liberal rags purport to be news, I would end up with sever high blood pressure.

OK I am being a little bit funny there. But I do not read many newspapers because I know of their bias from years of reading them in the past.

One of the stories that caught my attention is in the News Digest section on page 2. Here is what the little blurb said in part:

N.H. To get $1.2m in pollution settlement.

OK you might think that is a good thing. The state is getting money from a polluter to offset the cost of cleaning up a mess. Well you would be thinking wrong. Read on.

CONCORD (AP) – New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte says the state will receive $1.2 million fro a multi-state settlement reached last year with an Ohio power company.

The money comes from an October agreement with American Electric Power Company over smokestack pollution that drifted across Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. The case began in 1999 when eight states and 13 environmental groups joined the Environmental Protection Agency's crackdown on energy companies accused of rebuilding coal-fired power plants without installing pollution controls as required..

Yes you read that right. A company was sued by our government because they did not put some over regulated pollution control devises back in place when they up graded the plants that produce the very power that you, me, and the government uses.

Now who do you think is going to pay that settlement? You think an insurance company is going to pay? No. The reason is this is more like a fine but in order for the different state and federal governments to get a piece of the action it has to come down as a law suit. We the consumer will end up paying this bill.

Not to mention it will also cost this company finances to invest in new technology that would make using coal and other domestic sources of fuel a more viable and cleaner source of energy for all of us. After all we depend too much on foreign oil, at least that is what the left side of the political isle is always telling us.

The entire settlement will end up being $60 million to be distributed throughout the Northeast and parts of the Midwest for environmental projects such as improvements to building to make them energy efficient and investments in solar power.

Come on. Do you think any of that money is going to go to research and investment in solar power? I know for a fact it wont. If that is what they wanted the company to do then they would have just settled for the Ohio company to invest in alternative energy research and development. Or they could have forced them to invest in solar power by having them install solar energy producing panels and the like in buildings around the Northeast.

Instead, this was just a money grab no doubt led by the 13 environmental groups. You gotta ask yourself how many trees sacrificed their lives in order to make all the paper that this litigation needed? After all everything has to be written, stamped, mailed, etc on paper.

The environmental groups had to drive their cars which use gas made from oil in order to get to the lawyers offices and to get to court in order to try this case not to mention all the gas needed by those people serving the various legal papers to those involved.

You have to ask, how much did they destroy the environment by bringing on this law suit that could have been settled with a simple fine and proper administering of the fine money?

Don't think for an instant this was about protecting the environment. It was all about grabbing money from the big bad energy producers. The very companies that produce something we all want and enjoy. Electricity.

Spring brings out Town Meeting and Citizen Government

Spring is in the air. Sure, much of the country is still buried under feet of snow and other parts of the country are still in the grips of colder than normal weather. (Just where is Global Warming anyway?) But the calender says March and in New England, especially here in New Hampshire, that means Town Meeting time.

Yes, Town Meeting is a New England tradition and it marks the near end of winter and ushers in the hope of life renewed in the form of Spring. Town Meeting is one of the purest forms of democracy in this world.

Towns all over New Hampshire will begin having their annual Town Meetings this month. Many towns and villages across New England do not have mayors, or counselors. The towns in New England don't have Aldermen. What we have is a board of Selectmen. (Yes even if you are a woman, you are still called a Selectman. I guess New England forgot that part of political correctness.)

A board of selectmen can be as few as 3 or and many as 12 but most towns have somewhere between 4 and 8. At least that seems to be the case here in New Hampshire, the state in which I currently call home.

These people are responsible for pretty much the day to day operations of the town or village. They help form policy, hire and fire the town personnel such as fire chief, police chief, highway dept chief, etc. They work on and submit the town budget for vote and they oversee many articles that end up on ballots at this time of year.

But with all of that, being a selectman is a very part time job. Most towns boards meet only once per month unless there is some pressing or urgent business before the town. These selectmen, who are elected by the town folk, have full time jobs or own their own businesses. They can be mothers, military reservists, gay, straight, black (although I do not know of a single minority selectman in the state of NH) liberal, conservative or your neighbor.

They are just everyday people who run the towns in which they live for the betterment of the entire community. But their power is limited and they must bend their own will to that of the people. Besides, if you piss off enough of your fellow town folk, they just might show up at your front door. This brings a whole new meaning to the statement “all politics is local.”

At Town Meeting, there are usually a number of articles that the town gets to vote on right then and there. Usually by a simple show of hands and a simple majority. I have seen this form of self government in action numerous times and believe it or not...it works.

Town budgets are usually fat free. Things that need to get done within the town don't get studied to death and usually happen quickly and in a timely manor. The only time things slow down is if there is a state or federal law or mandate that gets in the way.

People are free to voice their opinion at Town Meeting and all who attend get a fair shake at the podium. In fact, it is not unheard of for Town Meetings to last until 1AM or be adjourned and finished on a second day.

If you think the regular folk of a town don't know what they are doing, think again. These people, the ones who take the time to participate, are well informed, articulate and know their stuff. They definitely have an idea of what they think would be best for them, their families and their town.

If you visit New England, look at the small towns you drive through or visit. Notice everything about the town. Then understand that town is a well run machine and overseen by just every day ordinary people.

No this is not mob rule and it is rare that things at Town Meeting get out of hand but people do have their opinions and they can be strong. But for the most part, people are civil and they accept the final vote of the towns folk.

Citizen government at its best. That is what Spring time in New England is all about. That is why I know that the snow will soon be gone and warm weather will soon be at hand. Town Meeting. The way our entire government should be.