The anarchistic outburst that halted the Executive Council meeting was not the first and surely won’t be the last

LEGISLATURE

Anyone who follows politics in New Hampshire had to be disturbed by what happened at the Executive Council meeting last month at Saint Anselm College.

To have the workings of government halted by a small group of aggressive and vocal mobsters is new for New Hampshire and a sad day for state government. The meeting was halted after Department of Health and Human Services employees felt threatened and left the building under State Police escort, not something that has happened in New Hampshire before.

New Hampshire’s political discourse can be heated and passionate, but it has always been essentially civil. A new group of activists is creating foundational change to the political playing field.

The anarchistic outburst that halted the Executive Council meeting was not the first and it surely will not be the last.

Traditional political philosophy is not the driving force for Free Staters, Libertarians, Rebuild NH or Liberty 603. Individual freedom at all costs is and the consequences are monumental.

The pandemic and government actions to stop its spread have been the target of the groups, some of which even propose the state secede from the union. They use intimidation, threats and other tactics best described as bullying. What they want to achieve is minority rule, because the vast majority of the state’s citizens do not agree with them.

The insurrectionists have had help along the way, as they have been allowed to drive the “Republican agenda” in the Legislature, and Gov. Chris Sununu, who was one of their main targets at the council meeting, tried to placate the near-anarchists and signed a budget largely dictated by the Free Staters and Libertarians.

What happened at the Executive Council meeting was a significant victory for a couple hundred protesters who achieved far more than stopping the approval of a couple of contracts. And that is the real problem New Hampshire faces.

With about 50 law enforcement officers at the meeting, a number of particularly vocal, abrasive and threatening activists were allowed to “do their thing” to shut down the meeting, and not one was arrested.

Protests at the State House or where a governor is making an appearance are acceptable behavior, but a governor’s or senator’s or official’s home has always been off limits — but not anymore.

Many of the same people picketed Sununu’s Newfields home after he instigated a mask mandate, the last one in New England and the first to be rescinded. The antimaskers planned to disrupt Sununu’s outdoor inauguration ceremony in January, but Sununu canceled the event and gave his inauguration speech remotely.

Several weeks ago, a public hearing on proposed rules for the state’s vaccination registry had to be canceled when the same groups turned out protestors and overflowed a hearing room in Concord.

And last month, they shouted down Republican legislative leaders at a press conference called to criticize President Biden’s vaccine mandates. The protesters told GOP leaders they and the governor had not done enough to protect them.

While Sununu, the Executive Council and state employees had a couple of dozen police to protect them, many school boards and selectmen do not and face the same aggressive behavior and unruly people objecting to whatever the boards decide.

People need to understand what the protesters and some politicians want. They want to stop the state from spending federal money on programs to increase vaccinations to stop the spread of Covid-19.

It is not enough for them to not be vaccinated; they don’t want you to be, either, and they don’t want you to wear a mask.

That is not freedom. That is tyranny. And it is just as tyrannical as they claim Biden’s mandates are.

What is happening with disruptions like the one at the Executive Council meeting and at school boards around the state is tribalism and not democracy. It is mob rule by intimidation and threats. How civilized is that?

The real target here is not masks and mandates, it is government and their hate for it or anyone they perceive to be telling them what to do. And the target is not just one party, as the House GOP leadership learned last month.

Viewing what is happening in New Hampshire and the country, it is clear that democracy as we once knew it is broken.

The only question is if our state and country are fixable.

Garry Rayno of New London is IndepthNH.org’s State House bureau chief.