NH Lawmaking and Public Libraries

Today was my first exposure to how the New Hampshire legislative body works. I spent the day at the NH Capitol in Concord hearing bills as they are proposed to the respective committees in public hearings.

The first one I sat through was a Homeschool bill that would re-insert language that was taken out last year, in essence moving backwards. The sponsor wants to have a curriculum plan submitted for each child at the beginning of the year, every year. It's not needed because the homeschooled student is tested at the end of the year for competencies, skill level, etc. It was evident that the reason for the new language being reinserted was for money. In the bill was language stating that your taxpayer dollars would be sent to the school for each homeschool student that isn't in school. Gee...that means we pay triple the amount for each homeschool student if we homeschool? (taxed once via property taxes already, paying for each child at home to educate them, paying again for this additional tax...)

I think the overall feeling in the room was that this bill was completely unnecessary. I still think the original bill sponsor, is going to continue to push hard for it and similar legislation.

The second one I sat through was AMAZING!

The NH Capitol and Law Offices have open doors. Anyone can just walk in anytime. There are no lines, no checkpoints, no metal detectors....nada. It's the only Capitol and Law Office Building in the nation where you can walk in and legally carry a concealed firearm. You heard me correctly.

It's the safest Capitol in the nation....period.

So a Freshman Democrat decides to put forth a bill banning all weapons from the statehouse, creating a "Gun Free Zone", or as I like to hear it called, a "Slaughter Zone". She gets no co-sponsors. It was standing room only and they had to move the session out to the actual state house floor. Not a single person in that room stood up in favor of the bill. She got eaten alive in there. Poor thing ;)

I was going to stay for more, but I had a raging headache. So I left around 2:30.

My daughter has been sick the last couple of days, so she asked me to go to the library here in Peterborough to pick up some books for her to read. While I was there I decided to look up some things for myself. Much to my dismay, the following authors had ZERO books at this library:

1. Lysander Spooner
2. H.L. Menken
3. Murray Rothbard
4. Milton Friedman
5. Ludwig Von Mises
6. Friedrich Bastiat
7. Frederick Hayek
8. Ron Paul

I did find one book edited by David Boaz called "The Libertarian Reader" that has writings from all those authors, but I was still amazed at the lack of Libertarian thought in a public library. Then again, maybe I'm not amazed. There were plenty of socialist authors and ideas though. I suppose it comes with the territory when claiming to be the "Oldest Taxpayer Funded Public Library in the World". There was definitely an Al Gore title on the rack as I left...