Sometimes, I just need to lean into my literary side. In case you’re not familiar with the original poem by TS Eliot, The Hollow Men, here’s a quick primer. The lines I worked off are his most quoted, referring to the death and destruction wrought by the H-Bomb. My reference is that as the world slides inexorably towards socialism, and the undisputed death, disease ,and malaise it spreads, voices promoting health, critical thinking, and individualism will simply be drowned out. And by “drowned out,” I mean silenced.
If YOU are someone promoting internet censorship and cancel culture, I implore you to STOP. You are the modern equivalent of a book burner and snitch. If that offends you, it should. What you are doing is wrong, and if you have a shred of decency, you will understand that silencing people you disagree with is authoritarian and tyrannical. Beat me with better arguments…
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Thank you to the hundreds of friends who wished me “Happy Birthday” on my 49th yesterday! I feel much loved and appreciated!
2021 is again going to be a year of growth for me. The words I chose to guide my actions are “sthira and sukha,” which mean, “effort and ease.” I will continue to strive for this balance in all my endeavors, from my health goals and yoga practice to my activism and art.
I desire to create a consent-based society in the #LiveFreeAndThrive state where we acknowledge every single person is unique and where we respect each others’ body autonomy and right of self-ownership.
Also, these birthday flowers from Louis are real purdy! Happy Friday, y’all!
Dear Elon,
Without wanting to come across as too “boil-your-bunny-on-a-stovetop,” I’m a big fan. We share a common story. I too am from South Africa. I too was relegated to boarding school (Pretoria Girl’s High) and finished high school at 16. I too emigrated to America after winning a Green Card in the Lottery and worked as in-house counsel at Apple and Logitech. I too am a crypto and Bitcoin enthusiast (I bought my first BTC for $6 and was the second person in the world to use the first bitcoin ATM, imagined and built right here in Manchester, the capitol of the Free State of New Hampshire). I too have big dreams (but I’m bad at math :P), and see what we are building in New Hampshire as complementary, sort of a base station of thinkers, for YOUR dreams.
Now, let’s dispel with the most confusing part first. The Free State Project in America has nothing to do with “Die Vrystaat” in South Africa. Yes, I admit, it’s kinda confusing–you should see my Google Alerts!
The Free State Project is a movement of thousands of individualists living in and moving to New Hampshire in order to build a Free State, a new, truly consent-driven society, based on voluntary exchange, free markets, and individual freedom.
We are the most successful mass-migration movement for liberty since the closing of the American frontier. We are apple-pie baking anarchists, hippies and hipsters with guns, farmers with the internet, sustainable food freedom fighters, and techies with big aspirations.
The Free State Project is a 501c3 educational nonprofit. We host a summer festival, the Porcupine Freedom Festival, AKA “PorcFest,” which attracts up to 2,000 attendees to the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. The 18th Annual Porcupine Freedom Festival will take place from June 21-27, 2021, and we would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it if you popped in! Come land a helicopter on the field!
At PorcFest, entrepreneurs run “free trade zones” where you can buy homemade ice-cream, bacon weaves, grass fed beef, BBQ, CBD products, and other goodies. Vendors accept gold, silver, barter, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, with FRNs being the least favorite mode of exchange. We encourage children to “free-range,” and to put their best entrepreneurial efforts forward. One year, a nine-year-old sold a beer to an NPR reporter. You know, it’s like that.
On the Main Stage, where you would appear, experts talk about their passions: what makes them tick, what matters to them, why? Across the campground, smaller “villages” offer workshops and informal talks on anything and everything: politics, homeschooling, cryptocurrencies, off-the-grid living, civil disobedience, energy policy, farming, etc. There are also nightly bonfires, music and bands, dance parties, daily hikes and ‘shrooming. As one attending professor put it, “PorcFest is Burning Man for rational people.”
I’m the former president and current chairman of the Free State Project, and an author, activist, and attorney. I’m confident you would have a remarkable and memorable experience with us, and we would be thrilled to have you. Past speakers at our events have included Edward Snowden (via video in 2016), John Stossel, Naomi Wolf, Ron Paul, Roger Ver, Rick Falkvinge, and more. Having you attend would, well, frankly, blow my mind, but it would also help elevate our mission and attract more like-minded, brilliant people to our cause. We are building it, but we need more people to come!
We “Vrystaaters” are pioneers and mad dreamers, but ultimately, pragmatists who are voting with our feet to build a better future without so much government meddling into every aspect of our lives–we are building our very own Wild, Wild East while we wait for you to colonize Mars. Come see for yourself!
I can be reached at cgericke@freestateproject.org or on my cell at 917-607-4353. I hope to hear from you.
Thanks for your precious time!
Sincerely,
Carla Gericke
More about the Free State Project: https://www.fsp.org
More about PorcFest: https://www.PorcFest.com
More about me: https://www.carlagericke.com/about/ and on Wikipedia
When Your Hairdresser Is Worried About Wheelbarrows of Cash, It’s Time to Move Home to the Free State of New Hampshire
Usually at Starbucks, my order of two coconut lattes and two sous vide egg bites costs $19.84, which I remember because it always tickles my anti-authoritarian fancy. Today, that same order was $20.93. That’s a 5% increase.
I was returning home from my hairdresser, let’s call her “J,” who, as a mom supporting 2 young kids, has been struggling during the government-induced lockdown, because, like most hairdressers, she makes the bulk of her income from events like proms and weddings. I noticed her prices had, understandably, also increased.
While J was cutting my hair, we chatted, muffled and repeating ourselves through government-mandated face coverings (mine might have been a loosely draped silk scarf).
J: “You should hear what clients have been saying in that chair.”
Me: “Folks finally over it, or they still think this crap is good?”
“So over it! People just want their lives back! Seems like more and more clients are questioning the whole narrative. How dangerous they claimed it was. Whether any of this was even necessary. I just got back from Florida, no one is wearing a mask!”
We chat on, she mentions “money printing” and “inflation” and “a wheelbarrow of money” to pay for stuff. Now, mind you, J is an ordinary working mom, not some monetary supply guru. I mention a true crime series about the Hotel Cecil in downtown LA., because I was struck when the narrator said, “It cost a million dollars in 1924 to build. That was a lot of money in those days.”
Me: “Why does no one stop and question WHY money was ‘worth more’ in the past? Or wonder, when magazine articles say things like ‘in 1980 dollars,’ what that actually means? Why don’t more people wonder, ‘What happened? Why is my money worth less now? Where did the value go?'”
J: “What do you think happens next?”
Me: “I hope it’s not a dollar collapse, but it’s hard to imagine what else is coming with this extra $4+ TRILLION in debt and counting. This past year, the feds have put close to the amount of all previous money in circulation, in circulation. It’s not sustainable. My best guess is it’s not going to end well for us, the little guy.”
Inflation is an invisible tax on us all courtesy of the US Federal Reserve colluding with a corrupt, immoral federal government driving us deeper and deeper into unimaginable debt and decline. Over this year, you will notice prices eking up, then possibly even skyrocketing. Know this: your government is ACTIVELY MAKING YOU POORER WHILE PURPORTING TO “CARE.”
America is bankrupt. Withdraw your consent.
Stop believing in the myth. Stop believing their criminal bullshit. Start thinking for yourself. Turn off your TV, especially the “news”! Start putting your extra cash into crypto, and hard metals like gold, silver, and lead. If you can, buy a gun and learn to shoot. Start cooking your meals from scratch. Get healthy. Like real health: where you have clarity of mind, energy, and the stamina to help others. Learn new things. Curiosity is the antidote to statism. Tell a friend what you know. I helped turn on J to some of these ideas through years of chit-chat in that chair.
As more people grasp the truth through their own experiences (after all, the sky didn’t fall), we can build better lives free from government overreach. I am building a community based on my values, that includes looking people in the eye and making your word count. So… If you are a free stater not living in New Hampshire, get your butt home! It’s time to #MakeYourMove in order to #LiveFreeAndThrive! We’re waiting to welcome YOU soon with your very own “Passport to Freedom!”*
*Want to know more? Move!
Oldie but goodie! Back in 2016, The Economist said “shock-troops” were coming… Don’t know why liberty should be “shocking” unless you are so quelled that you like your life with a hulking side of Big Bad Bro totalitarianism, but thousands of “allies” have indeed moved to the Free State to join thousands of liberty lovers already here because “Liberty Lives in New Hampshire!” #MakeYourMove #LiveFreeAndThrive
Live Free, or Try: NH’s Free State Project Reaches Critical Mass
“AFTER successful careers in engineering, Dan and Carol McGuire could have pursued retirements of highbrow ease—the couple’s interests range from American history to collecting modern art. Instead they moved across the country from Washington state in response to an essay by a young libertarian, Jason Sorens, arguing that if enough believers in limited government moved to a single state (ideally one with a small population and a “live and let live” ethos), they could exert real influence.
That essay spawned the “Free State Project” (FSP), whose early members voted to make New Hampshire their testbed. This was a nod to the state’s modest scale, its culture of Yankee self-reliance and low taxes, and its unusually accessible political system, starting with the state’s House of Representatives, whose 400 members answer to a few thousand constituents each, and are paid $100 a year. The FSP devised a pledge for activists to sign, by which they agreed to move to New Hampshire if 19,999 other libertarians made the same commitment. Once that critical mass was reached, FSP members pledged to make their own trek within five years. The FSP announced on February 3rd that the 20,000 target has been reached.
In the past decade 2,000 pioneers could not wait and moved anyway. A total of about 40 Free Staters have been elected to New Hampshire’s statehouse at various points, among them the McGuires, husband-and-wife Republican legislators who represent overlapping districts. Free Staters have helped to legalise gay marriage and ease rules on everything from home schooling to selling unpasteurised milk.
Some wins were easy. A repeal of all state knife laws passed in 2010: Mr McGuire shows off a now-legal switch-blade that can be opened with one hand, noting that such knives are handy tools for paramedics. Mrs McGuire is proud of a law making it simpler for farmers to slaughter their own chickens and rabbits. The couple credit Free Staters with making New Hampshire juries more aware of their right to throw out cases that seem to offend natural justice, under the centuries-old principle of nullification. Future battles loom over school choice and over using public money to send children to private schools.
Free Staters are yet to overcome national partisan divisions. In 2015 New Hampshire’s Democratic governor vetoed a law making it legal to carry a gun without a licence, backed by conservatives of all stripes, some of them libertarians. Interviewed at her suggestion in a smoke-filled Manchester cigar bar, the FSP’s president, Carla Gericke, stresses that some Free Staters have run for office as Democrats (though they are a small minority). One Democratic Free Stater is currently trying to legalise prostitution. Others are moved by internet privacy and alternative currencies such as bitcoin.
Ms Gericke would like to see New Hampshire become a “mix between Alaska and Amsterdam on personal freedoms, and Hong Kong on economic freedoms”. That is a stretch. As a fine place to live New Hampshire attracts lots of newcomers, many of them more conventional than the FSP’s shock-troops. Still, Ms Gericke hopes that are allies on the way. Pledge-signers have e-mailed to say that their homes are on the market, she says. New Hampshire boasts a property firm founded by a Free Stater (and former member of the state House) to help project members move. It is called Porcupine Real Estate, after a favourite libertarian animal, honoured as a beast which is dangerous only when attacked.”
Source: “Live Free, or Try” at The Economist.
Stop the Insanity Of Gun Control Advocates Once and For All: CACR-8 Testimony
Dear Honorable Committee Members:
My name is Carla Gericke, former Republican state Senate candidate in District 20. I live in Manchester, NH, am an attorney by training, and serve on several local educational nonprofit boards. I ask you to please SUPPORT CACR-8, and ask my testimony be presented to all committee members and form part of the permanent record for this bill.
Is your time not valuable? How many gun bills do you have to sit through annually? Hearing the same arguments for and against over and over again. For an issue all of us know, despite whatever your personal views about gun ownership may be, is an unequivocal, inalienable US and NH Constitutional right. I’ll go even further, and say it is a natural right to be able to defend yourself, and no one, no man, and not you, has the authority to restrict natural rights.
Article 2 of the NH Constitution says: “All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.” The US Constitution says: “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed”.
It’s a “Right.”
That “SHALL NOT be infringed.”
What part of this is confusing? Can we please stop wasting each other’s time and move on?
Know this: We gun rights folks are. never. ever. going. to. give. up. our. rights. So you have to ask yourself, do you want to continue to behave like crazy people, doing the same thing over and over again ad nauseum, or do you want to pass this proposed Constitutional Amendment and put the matter to rest so that we can focus on issues where bipartisan solutions can be accomplished?
It’s your call, but my recommendation is, support CACR 8, which states: “The Legislature shall enact no law that limits the right of a person to own, carry, or use firearms or firearm accessories in any manner that would create a greater burden than that in federal law. Any federal law that infringes upon rights guaranteed in this New Hampshire constitution shall be unenforceable by New Hampshire law enforcement.”
Let’s do this, and free up all of our time for more productive matters. I have no doubt this proposed Constitutional Amendment will pass with flying colors if brought before Granite Staters–give us all the opportunity to weigh in directly!
Please SUPPORT CACR-8. Thanks for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Carla Gericke
West Manchester
Last weekend, Free Staters gathered together to celebrate the Free State Project’s 5th Annual Porcupine Day. This sold-out event showcased the PBS documentary film about world-renowned economist Thomas Sowell, Common Sense in a Senseless World, and we were honored to welcome the president of Free To Choose Network, Robert Chatfield, as one of our speakers.
Porcupine Day holds great significance for me as a milestone because five years ago, under my leadership, we landed Edward Snowden to speak at Liberty Forum, and triggered the move, calling all principled libertarians home to the Free State of New Hampshire.
On Saturday, we celebrated the hard work necessary to take the musings of a graduate student in an online essay and turn it into a genuine, grounds-up libertarian movement, the one and only of its kind in the world! The reality of what we are building in New Hampshire is the global success story for libertarianism. Not only do Free Staters put the “move” in “movement,” we are not going anywhere, and, in fact, we’re growing like never before!
Vince Perfetto showed us some impressive numbers. In addition to significant measurable year-over-year growth between 2019-2021, Vince included a goal to increase the mover rate 50% in 2021, from 225 to 338. This is an exciting and aggressive goal, and he will need all of our community’s support to achieve this. How can YOU help activate a new mover?
You should support the brave vanguard that, frankly, every libertarian should be helping in some way, either by moving, donating, or telling a friend. Share our social media posts, sign up for the newsletter, get (and stay) involved!
Speeches were also given by some of our local allies. State Representative Herschel Nunez spoke on behalf of the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, and Andrew Manuse of ReBuild NH gave us a run down of their ReOpen activities over the lockdown. Jeremy Kauffman of the Free State Project’s board floated a few new ideas for consideration, including what the definition of “free stater” should be now that we’re doing away with the formal pledge and pivoting towards simply marketing New Hampshire as “the best state for libertarians, period”. The FSP is also considering changes to our board structure and bylaws to create a more “shareholder/membership” based model to reward doers and donors more effectively. Want a greater say in the organization? Contribute to our success!
I spoke briefly about the history of Porcupine Day, the ridiculous year we had in 2020, and how totalitarianism helps us grow by allowing us to sell New Hampshire as a “libertarian safe space.” I plugged my recent appearance on The Tom Woods Show, thanked Porcupine Day organizer, Stephen Nass, for his excellent work putting together a successful event, and told folks about PorcFest XVIII being spearheaded by Dennis Pratt. I also unveiled the new Free State Passport, a unique initiative to help the groundswell of new movers we are expecting. The passport includes “visa” prompts inside to direct new movers to network more efficiently with the existing community. The goal is to have a scaleable way to assist new movers in order to better integrate into the existing community. I will post more information about this “Passport to Freedom” in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
You can read the full speech I delivered back in 2016 to announce that the move had been triggered in my collection of award-winning work, The Ecstatic Pessimist, but you can catch some highlights from this post, A Free State: An Idea Whose Time Has Come. As I said in 2016, the ability to freely use the internet has always been crucial to our success, and back then, I told the Statists to keep their grubby little paws off OUR internet… At the time, I never thought de-platforming and cancel culture would become the norm we see today. It is clear to me (having just come off my own 30 day Facebook ban) that we are losing the battle for free speech, and need to push back even harder. On the plus side, as government overreaches more and more, more and more people are waking up, and we already know, you can’t put the liberty genie back in the bottle once you know what liberty looks and feels like…
So… long-term, we will win, but I fear it is going to get worse before it gets better, and it’s going to take time and treasure, and reinforcements… It is going to take… YOU!
Come join the fun! Not ready to move quite yet, but curious? Come to the 18th Annual Porcupine Freedom Festival, aka PorcFest, taking place June 21-27, 2021 in the White Mountains. Join thousands of like-minded people for a weeklong celebration, with confirmed speakers like Tom Woods and Jeffrey Tucker. This year, we are putting ourselves front and center, and showcasing our incredible community of incredible free staters doing incredible things. Learn more at PorcFest.com. It’s going to be the greatest year ever, so don’t miss out! Get your ridic cheap $30 tickets TODAY because prices will go up! You also need to book your accommodation with Rogers, and sites are selling out. Don’t wait. This year is going to be BANANAS!!!
I sent the following message to Martha Stewart’s agent yesterday. I’m a huge proponent of “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” something Martha appreciates, as I know from reading her books. I used her mug shot because unlike a lot of people, I admire her for fighting The Man, and as someone who has their own mug shot, I feel a kinship on that front too. (What’s the saying? “All my heroes have FBI files”?)
To agent: “Martha is a personal hero of mine. In fact, people often call me the “Martha Stewart of the liberty movement,” and I referenced this in my last NH Senate campaign ad. (I lost by 5% to an 82 year-old, 12-term Establishment dude. Meh.) I represent the Free State Project, an educational nonprofit that works to concentrate libertarians in New Hampshire. I am hopeful you can pass this message directly on to Martha so that she can make her own informed decision about my request. Thank you. “
Dear Martha:
What is the weirdest thing happening in New England right now? How about the Free State Project, a movement to encourage thousands of liberty activists to move to New Hampshire to Live Free and Thrive!
We are the most successful mass-migration movement for liberty since the closing of the American frontier. We are apple-pie baking agorists, hippies and hipsters with guns, farmers with the internet, techies, and sustainable food freedom fighters. Let’s just say, Free Staters are not huge fans of zoning either! 😛
The Free State Project, a 501c3 educational nonprofit, hosts a summer festival, the Porcupine Freedom Festival, AKA “PorcFest,” which attracts up to 2,000 people to the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. The 18th Annual Porcupine Freedom Festival will take place from June 21-27, 2021, and we could accommodate you at your convenience any time during that week.
At PorcFest, held on a rustic campground with several grand old hotels nearby, budding entrepreneurs run “free trade zones” where you can buy homemade ice-cream, bacon weaves, grass fed beef, BBQ, CBD products, and other goodies. Vendors accept gold, silver, barter, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, with greenbacks being the least favorite mode of exchange. We encourage children to “free-range” and put their best entrepreneurial efforts forward.
On the Main Stage, where you would appear, experts talk about their passions: what makes them tick, what matters to them, why? Smaller ‘villages’ offer workshops and informal talks on anything and everything: politics, homeschooling, cryptocurrencies, off-the-grid living, civil disobedience, policy, farming, etc. As one professor put it, “PorcFest is Burning Man for rational people.”
I’m the Chairman of the Free State Project, and an author, activist, and attorney. I’m a decent cook, passionate foodie, and a big fan of your work and drive. I’m confident you would have a remarkable and memorable experience with us, and we would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to have you. I also know having you as our headliner would encourage more women to attend, something we need for our movement to grow and flourish.
We Free Staters are pioneers and mad dreamers, but ultimately, pragmatists who are voting with our feet to build a better future without so much government meddling into every aspect of our lives–we are building our very own Wild, Wild East. Come see for yourself!
I can be reached at cgericke@freestateproject.org or on my cell at XXX. I hope to hear from you. Thanks for your time!
Sincerely,
Carla Gericke
PS: Feel free to bring Snoop, too!
More about the Free State Project: https://www.fsp.org
More about PorcFest: https://www.PorcFest.com
More about Carla Gericke: https://www.carlagericke.com/about/
Happy Porcupine Day! Know what accelerates the growth of a “libertarian safe space”? 😛 Totalitarianism and tyranny. Know what the future holds? Yep: More totalitarianism and tyranny, double-scooped and ice-f*ing-cold.
Five years ago today, a former version of myself stood before our consent-based community at a press conference in downtown Manchester to announce the Free State Project, a movement to attract thousands of libertarians to New Hampshire, had been triggered, and that it was time for people to start their exodus home.
Thousands answered that cry! Thank you!
You can read, “Triggered: Free State Project Reaches Its Goal, Tells Everyone to Move to New Hampshire And Do Something” in my book, The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly), but here are some highlights from my 2016 speech:
Look, the Free State Project is not everyone’s cup of tea, not everyone wants to LIVE their principles, but a large number of people are dissatisfied with the direction this country is heading—71% according to a recent poll cited on Politico—and 49% of those people expressed dissatisfaction with the federal government, 29% going so far as to say they were “angry.” Some people just want to sit around and complain—or, apparently, vote for Bernie or Trump. Others seek solutions. They want to DO SOMETHING. And that’s ultimately what the Free State Project is about: ACTION. Upping and moving to one area to concentrate principled liberty activists together to affect change. As our slogan says: Liberty in OUR Lifetime…
As more people awaken to the reality of a dystopian present, more people will seek answers and solutions, which is what life in New Hampshire as part of the Free State offers—in the future, we will see the expansion of personal and economic freedom here. People seem wary of the notion that freedom works, but what if New Hampshire can lead the way? Provide the example to show others, it’s not that scary? If autobahns work in Germany, why can’t they work here? If pot legalization works in Amsterdam and Colorado, why can’t it work here? If gambling works in Monaco—or, apparently, as long as the government runs the gambling racket like the Lotto—why can’t it work here? If deregulated markets keep Hong Kong competitive, why can’t we see more of the same here? If unfavorable tax burdens are forcing people and companies to leave certain states, why not welcome them to New Hampshire and build the Silicon Mill Yard right here?
In ten to twenty years, if we continue to embrace the principles of liberty and limited government, I know New Hampshire will stand as a wealthy, prosperous, autonomous example—a beacon of liberty—for the rest of the world to emulate. The future for the Free State Project in New Hampshire looks bright… First New Hampshire, then the world!
Finally, I have always believed, and continue to believe, if we build it, they will come. As we continue to build on our early, impressive successes in the Granite State, the federal government will continue its brazen overreach, whether it is police state tactics like national surveillance, police militarization and lockdowns, or the unconstitutional wars taking a toll on millions of innocent lives across the world, or them trying to get their grubby little paws on OUR internet...
After 2020, who can deny how prescient my words were? It is now abundantly clear to any thinking human being that government thinks we are their property and slaves, that they can dictate our every move, and even tell us if and when to leave the house and what to wear when doing so. If I am not free to decide for myself what steps to take in my own life, am I really free? Who owns me? Who owns YOU?
Can we stave government overreach in New Hampshire? I firmly believe we can (and are). I remain 100% OPTIMISTIC about our prospects in the Free State of New Hampshire… But we need reinforcements… We need YOU!
As the boot of the state smashes down more and more, as they grab more control, as they manipulate more media and minds and spread more fake news, as they call us more and more alarming names, and try to silence and even de-platform us, we will continue to grow…
“Nothing else in the world…not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
–Victor Hugo
Our time has come. We will continue to attract like-minded, well-informed, brave, proud INDIVIDUALS who are willing to bandy together and say, Look, there are 49 other places in America you can go play ‘Socialist and Commie.’ Here in New Hampshire, we’re not playing. We are living. We are living our lives in freedom because Liberty Lives in New Hampshire! Join us!
Dear Honorable Committee Members,
My name is Carla Gericke, former Republican state Senate candidate in District 20. I live in Manchester, am an immigrant from South Africa, and am an author, activist, and attorney. I am writing today to ask you to SUPPORT HB63, and I ask that this email testimony be submitted into the permanent record for this bill.
I have been following the outlandish unconstitutional response by New Hampshire’s governor to the COVID situation with much alarm, having seen this sort of government “emergency power” overreach as a child growing up in a police state, where the little guy always got bamboozled by the all-powerful, unconstrained state.
What I saw over the past year should never be repeated in our great state, and I ask you to SUPPORT HB63 to help reverse the harmful, unnecessary, unilateral, and unconstitutional actions taken by one man acting like a king.
Governor Sununu spent the last year issuing scores of executive orders based on an incorrect reading of the situation. According to the state’s own data NO EMERGENCY has existed in NH because the All-Cause Mortality Rate remains on trend, meaning there is no discernible pandemic death rate spike.
I further submit that even if an “emergency” exists, no Governor has the authority to suspend the US and NH Constitutions, which, shockingly, is what Governor Sununu’s executive orders claimed to do by eliminating the right to assembly, worship, and free speech. Even more shockingly, and, as an attorney, tragically, the Courts played along. Executive Order #65, which institutes penalties and fines against people trying stay in business, is especially egregious, as is the arbitrarily enforcement of this order by the AG’s office against some businesses.
HB63 aims to right this wrong by voiding or reversing such fines and penalties.
Now that President Biden has said there’s “nothing we can do about COVID,” it seems time for our legislature to follow suit and SUPPORT HB63 to get New Hampshire back on track and stop punishing people for trying to make a living.
Mistakes were made, but now that we have a better sense of the actual risks, where they lie, and whom is most vulnerable, let’s work together to fix the problems that were inadvertently created by the governor’s orders. This starts with SUPPORTING HB63 to reverse the penalties and fines instituted arbitrarily against productive Granite Staters.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Carla Gericke
West Manchester