Exercising the First
by Doug Lambert
Feeding the Beast
As I dig deeper and deeper into the affairs of supposed “self government” and the rule of law, and try to work — as any good citizen would — to right apparent wrongs, I know that there are some out there who see these matters of no great importance, calling serious activism “frivolous” and involving trivial points of “process.” I offer no apologies to those reading who choose not to care about such things. It is unfortunate that this attitude exists, because, like it or not, government, and thus politics, permeates into practically every facet of our lives. One cannot help BUT get involved… unless you remain unconcerned about the consequences of an all-powerful, omnipresent force unanswerable and unaccountable to the individual citizen, who will cease to exist.
Long gone are the days of the nation Alexis De Tocqueville described in his classic “Democracy in America”: “Nothing is more striking to a European traveler in the United States, than the absence of what we term the Government, or the Administration.” In that America, powers were split up and down, keeping it close to the people. The famed Frenchman noted that a “manner of diminishing the influences of authority does not consist in stripping society of some of its rights” but instead “in distributing the exercise of its powers among various hands, and in multiplying functionaries, to each of whom is given the degree of power necessary for him to perform his duty.”
Coming back to the present you cannot say there is an absence of government. And while there are many entwined bureaucracies and insulated administrative structures that have become more Byzantine than one could ever imagine, you could make a case that they have become entities existing mostly for their own sake, with those at the upper end actually pulling all the strings. How are they able to manage this? It’s simple, really: money.
There is nothing more corrosive to the present body politic here in our time than the corrupting influence of so-called “federal” dollars. Those at the local level are eager to lap it up and redistribute it, partaking in its warm afterglow and the attendant helpful political advantages, while giving up the powers they have been delegated by the people in exchange. Witness the seatbelt law. For a few measly millions of dollars, many of our elected “representatives” were willing to sell one of our state’s basic freedoms that was an important–albeit minor–example the right of an individual to make a choice.
Combine this eagerness to sell our liberties down the river with a refusal to defend or even exercise delegated powers, and we end up with taxation and representation with no real representation. One day we’ll all wake up broke, or worse, bound in the chains of tyranny. I know that this sounds like an old-fashioned, quaint way of thinking, but it contemplates an outcome that when we experience it firsthand, will not be pleasant, and it will be too late to stop. These are the things the Founders knew, and attempted to warn and defend against.
Tuesday evening, despite the fact that two concerned county residents begged the Belknap County Convention to delay or say no altogether to a proposed federal law enforcement grant—one that is the object of a lawsuit due to questions of who has authority to bind or commit the taxpayers to certain expenditures and whether state laws requiring proper public transparency and oversight were adhered to– that body (comprised of the 18 elected House members of the county) demonstrated an obvious inability to refuse “free” money. Money that partially funds, in this case, a shadowy law enforcement team utilizing an operational and organizational model that some would describe as “paramilitary.”
While people certainly believe in supporting the local police and working for their safety, there are some that think there is a limit to how far a buildup should go. Beyond that, some folks are uneasy about the fact that it comes from the federal government, which may not have our local best interests at heart.
The problem is that such issues have not been thoroughly hashed out and gotten a public airing because the proper legally proscribed process has not been followed. Had it been so, the public at large would know that Belknap Countyhas had serious issues with such grants in the recent past. They also would come to understand that the regional law enforcement “Special Operations Group” is costing more than the $5,000 claimed in the original budget proposal back in December. Instead, the citizenry in general is left in the dark, and decisions are being made with little to no debate or study on the part of our elected officials.
Many people are railing against what’s happening in Washington these days, especially Republican politicians and their supporters. Kelly Ayotte, the former Attorney General told an audience in Wolfeboro recently that stimulus spending was bankrupting the country and our children’s future. Sadly, this was mere months after sending instructions to statewide governments and agencies telling them how to get their share of the federal largesse.
New Hampton Republican Fran Wendleboe, who often holds herself forth as a model conservative, (rumored to be considering a run for the NH Senate) had this to say about taking “free” federal money: “I’d rather not spend this money—it’s other people’s money. But grants are made available… If we don’t get them, somebody else is going to get them. Our Belknap County taxpayers pay a lot of federal taxes. It’s part of the system.” And far be it for Fran Wendleboe to try to do the right thing by bucking that system that she, Kelly Ayotte, and others of their ilk on BOTH sides of the aisle have perpetuated.
Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” We can sit and bleat about what’s happening at the national level all we want. The fix is not going to come from the top-down, but instead from the bottom-up. I will not support politicians that speak the mantra yet hose me when the rubber hits the road. No more!
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Doug Lambert’s column, reprinted here with permission, appears in the Daily Sun every week. He has an opinion on almost everything. For more, visit online at www.granitegrok.com and www.gilfordgrok.com. Hear him on the radio Saturday mornings from 9:00 to 11:00 on 1490 AM, WEMJ.