Mike Sylvia: The word 'present' means what it means — what it has always meant

To The Daily Sun,

I recently read an article written by Walter E.Williams entitled, "Language and Thought." In it he exposes the degradation of our language and says, “Sloppy language permits people to get away with speaking and doing all manner of destructive nonsense without being challenged.”

He goes on to dismantle "white privilege." He is one of those people invisible to outrage mob, a distinguished and successful professor. He is invisible to the social justice warriors because he is also a Black man. Those who push "systemic racism" can’t stand to have an incredibly long list of success stories interfering with their dependency trap. If a young Black boy can envision himself following the footsteps to independence, he can’t then be used as a pawn in their "social safety net," which I envision more as a spider’s web.

Our New Hampshire Supreme Court has been called on to engage in a bit of language destruction by the General Court. More precisely the Democrat majority of the House. They seek to have the word "present" found in Part I, Article 20 re-imagined to include members of the House who are not present but somehow appear to be via electronic connection. Imagine 400 state representative on a Zoom connection; pure chaos.

Beyond the chaos that would ensue for House sessions, we have 678 chapters in our statutes with frequent uses of the word "present." Will we be spreading this disorder out to your town meeting?

The question to the court was unnecessary. The word present has not changed but the Democrat majority (hopefully past tense) wishes a meaning that comports to their desires. We can see in the statutes that the Legislature has properly read the meaning of the word and where an exception has been found to be necessary they have used the term "deemed to be present." An example is RSA 91-A:2 III (e) where a member of a public body can attend by being "assumed to be present," Not actually present but "deemed to be."

Politicians, when looking to do questionable acts, often seek to have a legal "fig leaf: to cover their embarrassment. Our New Hampshire Supreme Court should roundly reject this destructive nonsense.

Rep. Mike Sylvia

Belmont