Also on today’s menu:
Hiker Dies On Black Cap Summit
Citing Turmoil, Governor Vetoes Student ID Bill
Community Power Agreement Lowers Prices
Today we celebrate the declaration that “all men are created equal” — but, in keeping with yesterday’s post, in which I discussed the need to embrace new information as it comes to light, we could just as easily celebrate on July 2. It was On July 2, 1776, that the Second Continental Congress passed a “Resolution for Independence” declaring “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” It just took an additional two days to draft the final version of the declaration and collect all of the signatures.
“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America,” Massachusetts delegate John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3. Somehow, that historic date never made it into my consciousness until I read historian Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American.
Once one learns a new fact, one seems to encounter it everywhere. Reading about the dissident group Republic of Texas, whose members prefer to be known as “Texians” — as those who lived in Texas before it became part of the United States were known — I learned that, “While some Texians celebrate the Fourth of July, others claim July 2 is the real Independence Day, because our first congress voted to separate from England on that date.”
As Adam Popescu writes in The Free Press, the Texians “claim that the state was never legally annexed in 1845, which makes them a legitimate authority exempt from U.S. laws and taxes. They use 1800s-era maps to define their boundaries from Montana to New Mexico, and have established their own parallel government with common law courts that elect sheriffs, congresspeople, senators, and presidents.”
Different people have different interpretations of what freedom means, so whether celebrating Independence Day on July 2 or July 4, that phrase “all men are created equal” is not universally accepted. Popescu interviewed Texian Mike Blackwell, the Republic’s vice-president, who served in the Special Forces during the Vietnam Conflict, running secret missions in Laos and Cambodia, purportedly to stop Communism. He says he learned politicians “lie to the people” when his fellow soldiers were left behind enemy lines, in places the government swore we were not fighting. “You might not believe it,” Blackwell said, “but the government doesn’t operate according to the law. If they don’t operate according to the law, are they lawful — or are they lawless?”
The same “Common Sense” pamphlet that Thomas Paine published, inspiring his new countrymen to blame the king of England for their troubles, is quoted by Texians. “In the following pages,” Paine wrote, “I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.” Now embracing all levels of conspiracy theories as fact, the Texians justify their secessionist philosophy.
“We used to take certain truths for granted: news events were more or less whatever we read in the newspaper or watched on TV; math was not racist; and so forth,” Popescu wrote. “But for decades, there had been a war on truth — on the idea, or possibility, of certain things being irrefutably, universally the case. We began to hear about all opinions being created equal, and don’t judge me, and how do you know Sandy Hook really happened? Stripped of truth, we were at sea, vulnerable to the speculations of all species of con and demagoguery — the illiberalisms of the left and right crowding in on what we used to call rational discourse.”
Hiker Dies On Black Cap Summit
On July 2 of this year, shortly before 7 p.m., the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department was notified that a 59-year-old hiker was experiencing a medical emergency near the summit of Black Cap.
Family members attempted life-saving measures before rescuers arrived, but the man died. The rescue team found the group about one mile from the trailhead and carried the victim out to the trailhead, arriving shortly after 9:30 p.m.
Members of North Conway Fire and Rescue and Action Ambulance joined conservation officers in responding to the mountain.
Citing Turmoil, Governor Vetoes Student ID Bill
Citing the turmoil surrounding the National Eating Disorders Association, and the recommendation of Representative Rosemarie Rung (D-Merrimack) who sponsored House Bill 35, Governor Chris Sununu vetoed the bill, which would have required adding the organization’s helpline to New Hampshire student identification cards.
Several organizations had notified the governor that the association had first announced it would be shutting down the human-run helpline and transitioning to a computer-operated chatbot, then it temporarily suspended the chatbot as well, saying that some of the information given was “harmful” to users.
Rung said she is hoping to find a different helpline and to refile the bill in 2024.
Community Power Agreement Lowers Prices
The town of Bristol has asked its energy committee to move forward with an agreement that would lower electricity prices for residents by joining the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire. On June 30, the collective unanimously approved discounted energy prices that will go into effect starting in August and running through the end of January 2024.
Those savings will not immediately go to Bristol residents because it will take time to formally join the coalition, which currently purchases power on behalf of about 75,000 customers in 12 towns and cities.
The coalition estimates that customers will collectively save $5.5 million over the six-month period, with savings for individual households ranging from $48 to $90. The approved base price, 10.9 cents per kilowatt-hour, is much less than the prices offered by the three main energy suppliers in the state — Unitil, Liberty, and Eversource. Individual savings vary, depending upon the mix of renewable energy — currently more expensive but better for the environment — that they want to incorporate into their bills.
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