Give peace a chance? Hell, No! says Raymond, NH

As much as I love New Hampshire, living in the “Live Free or Die” state can sometimes be frustrating.

Case in point: in the conservative hamlet of Raymond, New Hampshire, just on the outskirts of our largest city, Manchester, the town’s selectman turned down a request to have a peace rally on the town commons to support the UN’s International Day of Peace.

“What kind of crowd is this going to gather? This is a peace group, we are at war and I wonder if this is going to bring a crowd of people into town on both sides of the issues and whether we need police down there,” selectman Jack Barnes said.

Anyone who knows these old-timers could have predicted that anything associated with the United Nations didn’t stand a chance of being approved. Many people in this state still believe the UN is a Communist plot to take over the government.

As details of the subversive event came to light, it was clear that there were other sinister, terrorist overtones to this so-called peace rally.

Resident Molly Schlangen sent a letter to the board requesting use of the town common for a brief gathering with complimentary yoga classes to “promote peace in our community and in our world.” Schlangen, a local yoga instructor and formerly the school nurse at Lamprey River Elementary School, held the same event last year. About 20 people attended and took part in a 45-minute outdoor yoga class.

Imagine: a yoga class in public to support peace! It’s pretty obvious that those 20 people in tights doing the Warrior pose would be sending signals to Al-Qaeda operatives across the U.S.

Perhaps more amusing than the reaction of the town fathers (the town mothers, in the minority, voted in favor of peace),  is the reaction of local cheerleaders to the ruling. Here’s a taste taken from the comments section of the Union Leader article:

“Peace” rallies have been violent in the last few years, just look at Code Pink. They’re also populated by pot smokers.”
- Jason Entres, Hollis

We don’t need people out there not supporting our troops in public. it sends the wrong message to them and they are fighting to keep us safe from terrorists. Terrorists do yoga in iran an iraq, not in america.
- HunterMike, Raymond

Please….since when does the UN actually promote peace? It’s comprised up of some the worst civil rights abusing countries. It’s a total façade. You want to promote peace – more power to you. Just stop promoting the UN fallacy. It’s time the U.S. pulled out the one-world-government UN / World Bank. UN treaties are a dangerous threat to our national sovereignty and our Constitution – stop selling us down the road to the New World Order government. Do our own research on this subject, the lasting they actual want is peace.
- Mac Wade, Newmarket

In all fairness to my home state, many people commented in support of the rally. Maybe there’s hope, after all.