Live Free and Die

It’s time to change the license plates in New Hampshire to reflect a new reality.

It’s official: Time to change those license plates in New Hampshire.

Yes, it will be a hassle, not to mention a bureaucratic nightmare, but at least they only have to change one word to make the state motto more accurate.

Live Free and Die.

The “or” has become increasingly moot to a vocal minority of New Hampshire residents who would rather risk dying from COVID-19 than take a vaccine or wear a mask, and aren’t above menacing others to make their point. Take what happened at Saint Anselm College on Wednesday.

An Executive Council meeting at the college, where the state was to formally accept $27 million in federal vaccine aid, was canceled after it was hijacked by a bunch of lunatic fringe antivaxxers.

According to local news accounts, some of the antivaxxers shouted, “We know where you live!” at three councilors inside the meeting room.

When Councilor David Wheeler told the audience that the meeting was canceled because state employees scheduled to speak were afraid, someone in the mob yelled, “They should be afraid!”

Wednesday’s debacle marked the second time in a month that a mob figuratively wrapping themselves in the Live Free or Die flag was able to use threats and intimidation to force the cancellation of a state meeting called to address the ongoing pandemic. In early September, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services canceled a public hearing on changes to the vaccine registry in the face of antivaccine protests.

If you’re keeping score at home, it’s New Hampshire Thugs 2, New Hampshire Democracy 0.

While the antivaxxers revile Democrats, they intimidate Republicans, too.

Two weeks ago, at a State House rally in Concord, the crowd’s anger was directed largely at New Hampshire Republicans whom they accuse of not doing enough to thwart a federal vaccine mandate.

“We’re out here to try to help you, and now you’re attacking us,” House Speaker Sherm Packard, a Republican, told the heckling crowd.

Four of the five-member Executive Council are Republicans, conservatives who recently voted to defund family planning clinics. They are hardly a bunch of Jeanne Shaheen-loving, commie blow-ins from Massachusetts.

The open and blatant attempts to intimidate public officials is a huge headache for Governor Chris Sununu, a Republican who casts himself as a moderate in a state where many in his party are anything but. Sununu chairs the Executive Council but neither he nor two other councilors emerged from a back room before the meeting was canceled.

“I will not put members of the Executive Council or state agencies in harm’s way,” Sununu said in a strongly worded statement. “State Police had to escort state employees to their cars after unacceptable, unruly behavior.”

But, like Kevin McCarthy, the US House minority leader whose initial strong words about the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington gave way to mealy-mouthed platitudes, Sununu’s criticism softened later in the day. At a press conference, Sununu minimized what had happened, suggesting that only one or two protesters “crossed the line.”

Annmarie Timmins, a reporter for the New Hampshire Bulletin, reported that “while four people were the loudest Wednesday, dozens in the crowd chanted with them, calling for the meeting to be shut down.” The crowd of angry protesters would have been much larger, but Saint Anselm officials, citing fire codes, wouldn’t allow more of them into the meeting.

Last month, when the state’s Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee postponed approving the $27 million in federal aid to increase the state’s vaccination rate, the committee chair, State Representative Ken Weyler, disputed Health Commissioner Lori Shibinette’s assertion that 90 percent of those hospitalized with COVID are unvaccinated. Weyler, a Republican, repeated discredited claims that most people hospitalized with COVID are vaccinated.

Weyler, who is not vaccinated, told the NH Journal he got his information from talk radio shows and the Internet.

This is how democracy dies. Thugs shout down and shut down the democratic process and craven politicians make excuses for them and repeat their bogus claims. Jan. 6 was just the beginning.