NewsMax.com
Thursday, Jan. 4, 2001

According to the New Hampshire Union Leader daily newspaper:

State Rep. Tom Alciere is in hot water with both political parties for having posted a number of Web-site comments that celebrate those who kill police in what he said are acts of armed resistance to abuse of power.

Describing himself as "a harmless guy whacking away at a keyboard," he insists his advocacy of armed resistance to police has been blown out of proportion, and he is rejecting demands that he resign.

And, no, he won't pipe down.

Gov. Jeanne Shaheen said, "I, along with the vast majority of New Hampshire residents, am stunned and dismayed.

"I am confident that he will find little sympathy for his extremist views in the New Hampshire legislature or among citizens of our state."

Alciere has become an embarrassment to the Republican Party, which sent him $300 in contributions during his campaign, where he ran third in a four-way race for three seats.

He beat out a Democratic incumbent in a heavily Democratic ward, so that party isn't exactly rushing to his defense, either.

State GOP chair Steve Duprey said he relied on a list the Republican Party Majority Political Action Committee gave him to make donations of party money.

"If you want to make me responsible for every Republican candidate, let me pick them," he said.

Trying to put as much distance as possible between the Republican Party and Alciere, the GOP majority leader in the state House of Representatives, David Scanlan, R-Canaan, said:

"Alciere has destroyed his credibility and integrity as a member of the House, and the result will be that he becomes a pretty ineffective member" as he continues to "exercise his right to free speech, as repulsive as that is."

The Libertarian Party wants no part of Alciere, either.

Danielle Donovan, its state chair, said Alciere was booted out of the party in 1993 and his dues were returned to him, "based on his antisocial rantings."

She said that "Alciere may call himself a ‘Libertarian,’ but just because I call myself a ‘head of lettuce’ doesn’t make it so."

Party members sign a statement that they "do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals," she added.

The New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union saw it as a lesson in civics.

"I completely understand how police would be outraged," said Claire Ebel, its executive director.

"This is the perfect opportunity for them to come out in public and make it clear and educate people on the fine work they do for the community at large. The public will be more educated in the next two weeks than they were in the past two months on this issue.

"It is precisely that speech which we most disagree with that is most in need of protection. The more we talk, the more we listen and the more we learn."

Alciere said he has no intention of clamming up, let along resigning. He promised to stay in Concord, the state capital, to do the job he was elected to do.

"It would be the ultimate shame that if I was dissatisfied with the actions of the government and its police that I would run for public office and propose some constructive positive changes, then wimp out at the first whiff of controversy," Alciere said.

And he added that he would abide by rules requiring members to check firearms with the sergeant-at-arms office before entering Representatives Hall in the State House.

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