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POLITICAL ACTION<GEN XYZ, CHANGE THE DAMN SYSTEM maybe like this>SUPPORT THIS AMENDMENTRecently, New Hampshire Representative Ellen Read sponsored CACR19, a state constitutional amendment that guarantees local communities the right to make the decisions affecting the places where they live – including recognizing Community Rights over corporate claimed “rights.” The New Hampshire Community Rights Network (NHCRN) and local residents drafted the measure with support from CELDF. Several co-sponsors have signed on, creating a bi-partisan coalition.
It sounds simple enough: the right to local community self-government. But it has many New Hampshire legislators in a tizzy. One of them says that the people do not, and should not, govern themselves. Check out one resident’s powerful exchange with a legislator here, in response to a Letter-to-the-Editor supporting the amendment.
A New Hampshire Resident & a Legislator Exchange Words on Community RightsNov 20, 2017
https://celdf.org/2017/11/blog-new-hampshire-resident-legislator-exchange-words-community-rights/(Does it sound like freedom when we can’t say no to corporate projects depleting our aquifers, drilling through our estuaries, poisoning our water?)
NOV 14, Representative Brian Stone opposed the amendment with obfuscation about home rule.
NOV 16,
Monica Christofili replied as follows.Representative Stone, your comments show thoughtful mindfulness of our NH Constitution and your constituents’ freedoms. However, the proposed State Amendment is not about home rule. (The editors used “home rule” in the title, not the letter writers.) Instead, the amendment is about recognizing, securing, & protecting NH citizens’ right to self-government. In other words, it’s about community rights affirmed in our Declaration of Independence & NH’s Constitution. Namely, Part 1, Art. 1 of NH’s Constitution declares that government of right originates from the people and is founded in consent. Art. 2 declares we have natural, essential, and inherent rights.
This said, you’re correct. NH state law determines what happens in our communities. Yet this often means the state denies communities the authority to protect themselves. Therein, Art. 10 of NH’s Constitution declares that when government no longer protects its people, the people have a right and a duty to reform the old or establish new government: “The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.”
In other words, the amendment is about inalienable rights, about town residents determining whether projects benefiting the state “over-all” will affect the health, safety, & welfare of themselves and nature. How do we figure this “over-all” sum to begin with? Consider an energy project that brings jobs but also threatens residents and ecosystem. The project is no longer benefiting the state over-all because it creates a sacrifice zone of a town’s residents and ecosystems. Is this town worth less than the state as a whole? How do we justify that viewpoint to town inhabitants when they cannot say no to a project hurting them? You mention that community rights supporters who want to say no to such projects are usually from liberal towns that want to limit rights of citizens. You might be interested in this study about the community rights movement transcending political party, age, and gender:
https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/water-concerns.
You also state, “More laws, regulations, ordinances. Does this sound like freedom to anyone?” But does it sound like freedom when we can’t say no to corporate projects depleting our aquifers, drilling through our estuaries, poisoning our water? It doesn’t to me, my husband, or to our 5 year old son, who asks us if his friends who were poisoned with contaminated water at Pease AFB are going to die and if the contamination is in our water supply. We don’t know how to answer him since Pease contamination has reached the Great Bay Estuary, right next to our water supply. We’d like to be able to say to our son that if a project ever comes near us that the state is allowing, even though it is going to poison our water, we’ll be able to exercise our freedom to say no to the project and yes to his inalienable right to clean water.
[CELDF.org is assisting communities in states like New Hampshire to protect themselves from unwanted corporate projects. From fracking and pipelines to corporate water withdrawals and sewage sludging, we’re grassroots organizing, educating, and providing legal support to advance and protect rights.]
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Topic: Future School (Gen XYZ): Local Sovereignty (Read 14063 times)