Louise Andrus provides us with her “View from Concord” on a monthly basis in The Beacon.  I found her August View to be somewhat of a contradiction on a number of levels.

She states that she is now taking some Constitution classes (I hope not with PragerU) and provides her interpretation that both the New Hampshire and United States Constitutions “protect our individual liberties.” She goes on to opine that “our Constitution . . . grants us inalienable rights which means the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In fact, it was the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, and not the US Constitution, that declared that all “men” were “endowed . . . with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  

Although the US Constitution, ratified in 1788, does provide for a Bill of Rights (embodied within the first 10 amendments), it is quite obvious from a reading of the Constitution and the history of the Constitutional Convention that the focus was to “form a more perfect Union” by balancing “individual liberties” within the context of a unified Republic.

Thus, in my View from Andover, Louise Andrus’s extreme allegiance to the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance and the New Hampshire House Republican Alliance, and her obsession with their ratings, is in contradiction to our founding constitutional principles. The problem with libertarianism and free state dogma, which seem to be the driving force of many New Hampshire House Republicans, is that, in imposing their concept of “liberty,” they fail miserably to recognize and honor the freedom and liberty of all in furtherance of the Common Good.

Marie D. Nardino
Andover