Immigration - The Rule of Law

I hear a lot of rhetoric about immigration.  Let’s be clear, the issue is not immigration.  With very few exceptions, all of our ancestors are immigrants, and all of them came to this country under a variety of conditions, whether they were in the cramped quarters of a sailing ship or on an airplane.  We are a nation of immigrants.  We are a state of immigrants.  This is what makes this country great. When we become the melting pot our forefathers envisioned, the whole society is greater than the sum of the individual citizens. 

The real issue is not immigration, it is the rule of law and whether or not we are a nation of laws that respects these laws.  My grandparents came to this country in the early 1900’s under the laws of that time.  These laws were not always easy, but they were the laws of their new country and they abided by them.  During WWII, my grandfather worked with Governor Carr* of Colorado to resettle many displaced Japanese in Colorado.  All during that time, they lived according to the laws of their chosen country.  Whether we like the law or not, the way to change laws is not by mass violations as we see happening today all along our borders.  The way to change our laws is through the legislature and courts that adhere to the constitution.  I want to reframe the argument on illegal immigration and address the rule of law.  It’s quite simple:  If you come to this country (or this state), you follow the law. The New Ipswitch case a few years back was a travesty.  The officer should have been encouraged, rewarded, not reprimanded.  Our Courts and the Attorney General should have backed the law enforcement officers who were enforcing the rule of law.

Like a lot of issues, some people like to frame the issues with terms that fit their argument.  Or, place bogus arguments on the table such as “... how can we deport 20 million illegal immigrants?”  The answer is actually simple... arrest the employers and show them in handcuffs on the seven o’clock news.  The illegals go home and our business ALL compete on a fair basis.  Too many of our small businesses who follow the law are forced to compete with businesses who break the laws and hire illegals.  Too many of our skilled citizens are unemployed because employers who follow the law can't compete with those who do not and are going out of business.

 As your Governor I will enforce the laws, and I will work with the legislature to pass requirements for proof of citizenship before receiving State aid, including health and public education, and I will seek prosecution of business owners who hire illegal aliens.  It is time we remember that we are Americans and we must follow the law.

*P.S. If you want to know my model for a great Governor, read the book "The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story."

Transparency

Many politicians like to talk about transparency but really never understand or define it in a meaningful way to you.  I’m going to change that.  It’s simple.  Transparency means that you, the person paying the bills, know what you are getting for your money.  As an example, take the Financial Resource Mortgage Ponzi scheme.  Friends of mine called all the agencies responsible for overseeing companies like FRM before they invested.  The response from these supposed "watch dogs" of the health of companies like FRM: Don’t worry, we have no issues with FRM ... this, despite the fact that there were nearly ten years of reports about the vermin.  Based on this "clean" report of FRM’s health, my friends proceeded to invest and lose several hundred thousand dollars!  I just looked online at the Manchester Health Department’s inspection record of eating establishments and found that on March 11th, one restaurant had “...openings [that] have not been tightly sealed to prevent the entry of vermin.”  Why couldn’t all the financial regulatory and oversight agencies of FRM put what we now know was years of similar findings about “...the entry of vermin” into FRM?  At a bare minimum, we should know that there are "pending investigations" on these institutions.

As your governor, this practice will change.  We will post all findings from agencies, regardless whether they are inspecting restaurants or financial institutions online immediately so you, the person paying the bills, know what you are getting for your money.  This is true transparency.

While we are on the subject of transparency, let’s talk about checkbooks (or more likely today, credit card statements).  Most of you can go online right now and find all your charges or checks for any given period-of-time, in most cases up to yesterday, if not sooner.  Why can’t you do this for all the expenditures by all the departments in the State?  Sure we can find a copy of the budget on line, but that is just how those in Concord plan to spend of our money.  What you really want to know is who receives that money, why and when.  And, I want you to know this because you are the best auditors we have.  That’s how vigilant Windsor citizens found discrepancies in the town’s property tax system.  As your Governor I will put our state’s checkbook online.  Well run companies know this level of detail, and so will you.  Join me in bringing real transparency to New Hampshire.  

See you at the polls on September 14th!

Scouting... Our Next Generation of Real Men

At a time of celebrating the Centennial of the Boy Scouts of America, President Obama just thumbed his nose at the Boy Scouts and decided an interview on “The View” was a more valuable use of his time.  In 1988 my husband and I had the honor to watch our youngest son, Matt, receive his Eagle Scout award at the World Jamboree in Australia as a "Lone Scout."   A few years before that our oldest son, Pat, earned his Eagle award while we were stationed in Ohio.  Today three of our five grandsons are in Boy Scouts and in a few years all of them will follow in the foot steps of their father, grandfather and great-grandfather.   Without a doubt, the Boy Scouts is a beacon of light in a dark sea of political correctness. 

Scouting helps dads mold their sons into men in a society that tries to feminize and degrade them.  When was the last time you watched a sit-com on TV that didn’t portray the husband or father as a doofus who but for the smart females, or children would be a complete failure?  This is what Hollywood believes.  We can do better.  

We need to change this and make organizations like the Boy Scouts an important part of our son’s lives.  When we do this, we raise them to be responsible men.  When we do this we strengthen our families. When we strengthen families we reduce fractured families and the cost to our citizens and our state.  Help me do this.  Become a Scout leader and enroll your sons in Scouting.  As your Governor I will be honored to pin the Eagle Scout award on your son’s chest.

Guest Blog on the Second Amendment by Robert Jursik

Karen Testerman was a guest this past Saturday at the Tri-Rivers Friends of the NRA dinner in Franklin, which affords us an excellent opportunity to reflect a bit on the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment and her uncompromising support of it.

In New Hampshire, the politician who would publicly disdain the 2nd Amendment is rare to the point of non-existent. The campaign websites for three of New Hampshire's arguably most liberal candidates - Paul Hodes, Carol Shea-Porter and Anne McLane Kuster - are utterly silent on it. Perhaps wisely so, as the orthodox liberal opinion of gun rights is almost universally negative. Conservative candidates such as Karen happily proclaim their defense of gun rights from the rooftops, and are rewarded with significant voter acceptance. It is a perennial conservative issue.

The reason for this is that the 2nd Amendment has greater sophistication than words on a page. The philosophical foundations of it constitute the essence of American liberty, the very soul of the ardent Constitutionalist. The leftist's skepticism of individual liberty is revealed in the sorry catalog of his policies, one government-run purgatory after another: health care, housing, energy, education. It is no different with the self-defense of Americans. To limit or even remove the ability of the citizen to arm and defend himself creates a corresponding dependence on the state to defend you, in the form of law enforcement. Although conservatives are second to no one in respect for our police, we insist on the right to determine for ourselves the circumstances of our defense: its timing, its degree, its target, its duration. No one - least of all the orthodox leftist - can appreciate those circumstances better or more quickly than we can.

If these facts seem obvious to us, they would have certainly been obvious to the Framers as well. Why then include the obvious in the Constitution? In the Bill of Rights? Second only to freedom of speech and religion? It is because the Framers understood that the necessity for bearing arms referred to more than just confronting a mugger on a sidewalk. At the time of the Ratification, the first police force in world history would have still been decades away - and on the other side of the Atlantic. Defending against local crimes would not have been nearly as important to them as defending against the abuses of an overreaching government, something with which they would have been painfully familiar. Keeping and bearing arms of at least comparable power to those employed by the state would be the citizen's last, surest stronghold against tyranny. Such an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment would be in perfect harmony with the letter and spirit of the entire Constitution, the most government-limiting document ever devised.

No one should be surprised that conservatives - with their fondness for rule of law, stability and tradition - embrace the amendment as written and in its larger meaning. The question, rather, is why the left does not. This is, after all, the same crowd which finds constitutional justification for abortion hidden deep in the misty "emanations" and "penumbras" of the Constitutional jungle. Yet they are woefully blind to the high-visibility, reflective surface of the 2nd Amendment billboard standing directly in front of them. There is no escaping the conclusion - they don't see it because they don't want to.

NOYB?

A few years ago my husband, Dave, went to his doctor in Amherst for an annual physical.  At the end of the examination the doctor was going through a series of questions that seemed reasonable until the doctor asked, “Do you have any firearms in the house?  Are they under lock and key? Are their children in the house?” and several similar questions.  Dave’s response was universally “None of your business!”  

Since when did these kind of questions become acceptable for your family doctor to ask?  When did this kind of political correctness become standard fair?  It was not that many years ago that firearms safety and marksmanship were taught in our public schools.  My father had rifles in the house and Dave still has the original shotgun he bought from money he earned mowing lawns when he was 11.  Firearms used to be part of what you found in every home, just like you found tools to repair the car.  Today too many homes don’t even have tools to repair the family car (if they could). The idea of your family doctor asking the questions like Dave was asked would have only happened if the Doc wanted to borrow a rifle to go hunting.

Isn’t time we tell people and groups like this that it’s “None of Your Business?”  When did our right to bear arms become a health issue?  

So parents. . . what will you do to teach your children about firearms?  Are you going to let your family doctor assume your role?  You may want to take advantage of programs like Eddie Eagle, or those taught at your local fish and game club.  But, most importantly don’t let your precious Second Amendment disappear into the grayness of political correctness.  I can promise you that my family won’t let this happen and when I’m elected your Governor I’ll fight for your rights as parents to do the same.

Guest Blog on NH Jobs by Robert Jursik

It is not surprising that all of New Hampshire's Republican gubernatorial candidates would be required by today's circumstances to address the issue of job creation, or that their responses to it would trend generally to free-market capitalism. The surprise is that it is the non-politician, non-entrepreneur candidate who possesses the strongest grasp of the issue and therefore the best chance to pursue the appropriate policies.

This past week, I had the great pleasure to join Karen Testerman at a dinner table, discussing how New Hampshire could generate new business and also attract established industries to relocate here. As a thunderstorm rumbled on the other side of the window panes, our twenty-minute interview left few stones unturned in a quest to find lasting, practical strategies for growing the economy and developing jobs. 

Immediately, Karen directed our attention to an important point: providing incentives for new businesses must take into account the TYPES of businesses our state needs. Every candidate, no matter the party, will pledge to create jobs - but as has been seen from the Obama stimulus, a nation does not prepare itself for the 21st century by laying down hundreds of miles of asphalt. "Shovel-ready" is not the equivalent of microprocessor-ready. The contemporary marketplace will need to strongly favor newer, clean-technology industries to compete successfully with the global manufacturing universe. Karen correctly identifies education as a critical component for this but also understands the serious "brain drain" being experienced by New Hampshire, as information technologists and engineers pursue dreams elsewhere.

New Hampshire's lack of an individual income tax allows for a personal accumulation of wealth, and the parallel lack of a sales tax allows for the free transfer of that wealth - both are indispensable for a state's economic future. However, that is not why the entrepreneurs are sitting on their wallets or taking them over the borders. New Hampshire still retains among the highest unemployment insurance taxes in the country, among the highest corporate property taxes in the country, and is the undisputed champion of corporate profit taxes. The message from the "Live Free or Die" state to businesses is unmistakable: get out and take your jobs with you. With a state population less than a fifth of New York City, why does New Hampshire's government require so much capital?

The beast needs to be fed. When Right-to-Work legislation failed to pass years ago, state employee unions were able to close their government shops tight and bargain for ever-higher benefits and pensions. The money had to come from somewhere, and since the Democrats in Concord were loathe to cut spending, their favorite money tree became businesses. The state is now among the country's worst in "value-added" manufacturing (producing things of higher value than the resources used to create them) and "export-focused" manufacturing (producing things for the purpose of selling to extra-state markets). In short, New Hampshire is making cheaper stuff and selling to ourselves. That probably also explains why our state has been among the worst in the number of IPOs created for the last five years.

It does not explain why Karen's primary opponents, who continuously trumpet pledges to create "jobs," fail to match her corresponding pledge to create industries - or more precisely, to pursue market-based government policies which will allow industry to create itself.  Can the former head of a government agency, who oversaw higher budgets and benefits to his union employees, be credibly expected to successfully resist them once he occupies the corner office?  Can an executive for a service sector corporation - without union employees - be credibly expected to appreciate the necessity for Right-to-Work legislation, or technology-based entrepreneurship? Karen Testerman, having been an educator herself for many years, is prepared to take them both to school.

The unborn are not potential persons, but human persons with great potential.

In the coming weeks, you will hear me discuss the topic of the sanctity of life many times.  It is my firm belief that a respect for life is the fundamental principle that is the bedrock of our constitutional republic.

“Respect for life is the belief that human beings have a value that transcends all our human capacity to count or measure, which confers upon them an elevated status that must be honored or revered.” (Gushee)

That is a mouthful, but absolutely critical to understand. Even firm Christians and pro-lifers waver at times to uphold this ethic one hundred percent of the time. To love thy neighbor - this includes “the weak, the enemy, the disabled, the stranger, the unborn, the sinner, the poor, the ex-friend” (Gushee) - is one of the most difficult commandments to keep.

While we must remain cognizant of the entire spectrum of the sanctity of life, let us look at abortion. Since Roe v. Wade, there have been an estimated fifty million aborted children. What is the rational? Simply, the right (convenience) of the woman outweighs the right to life of the unborn child.  This supposition is based on a warped definition of personhood.

From a scientific point of view, there is no doubt life begins at fertilization and ends at natural death. For supporters of abortion, personhood only begins at some defining moment after fertilization. For some, it is when brain waves are first detected at around the forty-day mark. For others, it occurs when the baby gains the ability to feel and sense as a conscious being, which occurs as early as the second week of the second trimester. Some have even taken it to extremes, such as pro-abortion feminist Mary Anne Warren, by defining that moment when life begins as when the child is able to engage in sophisticated communication, has problem solving skills, performs self-motivated activity AND has developed concept of self!

The moment of personhood MUST be established at fertilization.  The unborn are not potential persons, but human persons with great potential. If we deviate from this view, we devalue life and move down that road into that “brave new world” envisioned by Huxley in which future generations become disposable commodities.

According to Republican leaders, it is just fine to endorse a candidate who agrees with the party 80% of the time over a candidate who aligns completely with the principles of the party.  The 20% of the equation that is almost always excluded is LIFE.   No more 80% Republicans!  Just another Republican is not good enough. 

As governor of New Hampshire I will fight to restore a culture of life in this great stat.  I will work with the legislature to reinstate our Parental Notification bill.   I will request my attorney general examine end of life laws and be a voice for personal responsibility and a culture of life.  To become the governor who will work to restore a respect for life, I need your help.  Together we will make a difference.

Works Cited

Gushee, D. P. (n.d.). The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity. Retrieved July 18, 2010, from http://www.cbhd.org/content/sanctity-life-0