liberty

The cowardice of Portsmouth’s Music Hall

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged censorship liberty New Hampshire on by

Last weekend I attended a concert by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in the Music Hall, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The audience seemed smaller than usual. There could be several reasons, but one possible explanation is a recent act of cowardice by the Music Hall’s management.

Earlier in October, the Music Hall unilaterally cancelled a scheduled event by the Lovering Center of Greenland, NH. The stated reason was security concerns. What terrified Music Hall president Tina Sawtelle was news that a peaceful protest was planned outside the venue. There was no suggestion that violence or disruptive activity would happen, but the Music Hall management thought that a simple protest placed the theater in too much danger. I wonder if they barricaded their doors and windows during the October 18 “No Kings” protest in Portsmouth, which was vastly bigger. The description of the planned Music Hall protest said it was “to hold signs, pray, fill the sidewalks with chalk messages of hope and truth, and enjoy each other’s fellowship.” You don’t have to agree with their cause to recognize that it’s legitimate activity under the First Amendment.
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Bothsidesism now   Recently updated !

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged history liberty on by

In a world dominated by political tribalism, you’re expected to condemn things the other group does while excusing your group for doing the same thing. If you apply the same standards to both, you’re mocked for “bothsidesism.” Hypocrisy is an obligation.

Many of the things which Trump has done have precedents in previous administrations; he’s just carried them to their outer limits. Democratic and Republican presidents alike have conducted wars not declared by Congress. After a mysterious meeting in the Biden White House, Amazon put some books on the “Do Not Promote” list. The ACLU actively supported Biden’s attempt to write off student loans, which would have been a federal expenditure by executive decree.
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Steven Goddu’s falsehoods

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It’s unusual for me to write on this blog about a local politician, but I want this on the record so that people doing searches for information on Rockingham County Commissioner Steven Goddu will find this and know why they should never vote for him for anything.

Rockingham County, New Hampshire, has been negotiating with ICE to hold abductees and get money for it. County government in New Hampshire (which handles only a few functions) is headed by commissioners. Rockingham has three of them: Kathryn Coyle, Steven Goddu, and Thomas Tombarello. I was able to find contact information only for Goddu, so I wrote an email to him urging that the county not collaborate with ICE. His reply shows he is a dishonest person and should not be elected to any public office.
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Reclaiming liberalism 2

This entry was posted in Commentary Personal and tagged liberalism liberty SanityProject on by

There’s no hope for a near-term turnaround in the US. If there were any decency left in America, Trump, Rubio, Homan, Leavitt, and the rest of the crowd would be climbing out of the Potomac, covered with tar and feathers. I’ve done what I can, pointing out one outrageous act after another. Nothing helps. The United States is a nation of cowards with a large minority that favors thuggish central rule and controls Congress.

Concentrating only on the short term leads to despair. Avoiding tyranny in the US — or recovering from it — requires understanding its causes and changing the intellectual climate. There can be a resurgence of the liberal ideal in America, but it will take time.
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Sometimes everybody is wrong

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged law liberty Minnesota on by

A recent news article reports on a case where a woman acted like a scumbag but was apparently within her First Amendment rights. Everything about it is strange, and everyone seems to be wrong in important ways.

The article says: “Minnesota prosecutors filed misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges Tuesday against a woman accused of using a racist slur against a Black child at a playground — an incident the woman has since used to raise more than $800,000 after she appealed for help with relocating.” The article doesn’t give her exact words, but the linked official document says she used “the N-word” more than once. The charge is engaging “offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct, or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language that would reasonably tend to arouse alarm, anger or resentment in others.”
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Who killed America? 1

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The Democrats’ rush to beat the Republicans at the gerrymandering game confirms that America is doomed. Even Barack Obama, whom I regarded as having some degree of integrity, has endorsed the scheme. Meanwhile, the Democrats in Congress aren’t even trying to get Trump removed for his many despotic abuses of power. Most of them are avoiding any hint of impeachment because they’re afraid of losing the pro-tyranny vote. But the Democratic Party isn’t afraid of losing the votes of people who care about fair elections. It doesn’t mind throwing away any suggestion of principled opposition to MAGA.

America as a free country is dying, murdered from within. Who did it? Let’s look at some suspects.
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August 2, a day of rage? 1

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The theme for the August 2 protests coordinated by the 50501 group shows a disturbing shift from the earlier ones. “Hands Off” and “No Kings” were excellent themes, addressing governmental overreach and the centralization of power. The theme for tomorrow, though, is “Rage Against the Regime.” The name is an obvious reference to the group “Rage Against the Machine,” whose songs are characterized by protest and mind-numbing repetition.
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Don’t call it “Alligator Auschwitz” 1

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The new ICE confinement facility in Florida, semi-officially called “Alligator Alcatraz,” is by all accounts brutal, unsanitary, and degrading. It’s a showpiece of the Trump administration, whose followers admire it for its sheer viciousness. Some people, including plenty on Bluesky, have taken to calling it “Alligator Auschwitz.” The term trivializes the Nazi extermination camp. Bad as the Florida facility is, it isn’t designed to kill people systematically. Equating the two implies that Jews in the Nazi camps merely had a very rough time of it.

Alligator Alcatraz is a concentration camp, a place where many civilians are involuntarily moved to and confined in without charges or due process. The Japanese-American internment camps of World War II were concentration camps in the same sense, and I’ve used the term repeatedly for them. But it isn’t a death camp. Trump is evil, but he hasn’t reached that level of evil yet.
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A little ICE breaking

This entry was posted in Personal and tagged ICE liberty New Hampshire on by

There’s no safety from ICE anywhere in the US. La Carreta is a Mexican restaurant in Portsmouth, NH. On July 1, ICE abducted four of their employees on their way to work. This has increased fears not only for the people at the restaurant but for everyone in the city.

That’s not far from where I live, and the restaurant looked interesting and reasonably priced, so I decided to eat there on Sunday. They had outdoor seating and it was a very nice day, so I got a table outside.
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