Positions

I fully believe in this ideal.
NO statewide income tax. No way. No how.
The Claremont decision is wrong. The state of New Hampshire does not need a broad-based tax, which will only cause more problems in the name of another government "solution". The federal government currently gives the state approximately 80 million dollars a year to educate our children. How come we still can't do an effective job? Because all of the money is lost to bureaucrats along the way. This is what happens when we entrust our money to the government. We don't need to throw more money into the problem. We need to shrink the size of government, give people back their money, and give them back their options as to how their children should be educated.

Freedom of choice on everything, including what you eat, drink, smoke, who you do business with, who you marry, and how you live your life. How can a politician who has never even met you know better than you how you should live your life? Privatize the the liquor stores. Why is it that only the state is allowed to sell liquor?

The state saying that they need money is not a good excuse to take away our rights! What if they decided they needed more money and decided that only the state of new Hampshire was allowed to sell some other product, say, sneakers? Of course, the price would go up, because, they're trying to raise money for the state. And our rights to a free market economy are eroded. Let's get big government out of the market.

Legalize marijuana. Legalize hemp. If we legalize drugs, the crime rate will go down. Police will have fewer excuses to invade your privacy, and our jails will be less crowded, making room for real criminals. Our courts will be less jammed, and it will cost the taxpayers a lot less money. I find it sickening that the average dope-smoker will spend more time in jail than the average baby-rapist. Let's put the real criminals in jail, and leave everyone else alone who isn't hurting anyone. Besides, where in the constitution does it say that the government has a right to tell you which substances you can put into your body? And it's sad that hemp, an extremely useful product that cannot be used as a drug, has been made illegal simply because it is within the same family as marijuana. That's insanity!

Institute more lenient DMV laws. Government shouldn't discriminate against drivers under 21. Why should we be forced to carry licenses, which are just like traveling papers were in Nazi Germany? It is primarily so that the government can keep closer tabs on us. They are working under the assumption that we are all criminals, and need to be watched. In fact, if the government criminalizes so many things that it would be impossible to find someone that has never broken a law, they then are right in treating us like criminals. But maybe there is something wrong with their laws, and not with us.

Biography/Personal

Grew up in Hillsboro, NH. Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania.

Was in foster care from the ages of 13-18. Learned an important lesson about how intense government control can ruin someone's life, how erratic bureaucracy really is, and how a simple loophole can make life unbearable. People become a file on someone's desk, they fall through the cracks, and they aren't entrusted to make any of their own decisions to change this. Currently a Sophomore/Junior at Keene State College, majoring in journalism, with a minor in political science. Wrote for the editorial pages of the Keene Sentinel two summers ago.

Attended Stevens High School in Claremont for my Senior year. Has a pretty good idea of what's going on with the Claremont Decision. Stevens doesn't need more money. They're only using it to fund a program for troubled students, which treats them like criminals and doesn't help them at all. Next door in Cornish, the public school has horseback riding, golf, and other goodies. Very posh for a public school. There is definitely some fat to be cut.

Ottersons environmental attitude comes from the fact that she is part Erie, a tribe from Northern Pennsylvania and southern Ontario. They respected the environment without all the legislation. We don't need more laws, we need to stop paying corporations to pollute our land. Get rid of corporate welfare to heal the earth.

Otterson speaks out about young voters and the enviornment

Once upon a time, there was a people who lived in a beautiful land, next to a crystal clear lake. They hunted and fished, and there was always plenty to eat. They built a society in which the people were free to live in whatever manner made them happy, as long as they didn't harm anyone else. They had a king, but he couldn't make any decisions without consulting his people. The people paid homage to their king, but it was only as much as they felt they could afford, and the king accepted this not as his due, but as gifts for which he was grateful. The poor were cared for in the same manner, and there was plenty for everyone. They lived like this for thousands of years.

Then a new people came to the land. These people came from a society in which their king felt that the people owed him their very lives. He taxed them severely, and meddled with their lives in every matter. He told his people what religion to follow, he placed restrictions on their trade with each other, and no one could deviate from any of his rules without severe punishment.

This people were so unhappy that they risked their lives and traveled half way around the world to get away from their king. And yet they hadn't learned any lessons from this experience. When this repressed people met the free people, they were deeply offended by the free people's way of life. They couldn't tolerate a people who would not submit to their religion, their form of government, or their way of life. And so the second people set about killing the free people.

The repressive people didn't have to try too hard. You see, they had been living in dirty cities, in unsanitary conditions, eating poor food, struggling to live under the system that their king had forced them to live under. And so they had many diseases that the free people didn't have, and when the two people met, the free people were literally decimated by these diseases. And yet the repressive people began to kill the free people. They pushed the free people off the land, and killed every animal and plant that they didn't need or couldn't control.

The repressive people built dirty, crowded cities on the land that were just like the ones they had fled from. They were intolerant of anyone that had different beliefs. They built a society just like the one they had come from, and payed taxes that their old king demanded.

Finally, some of the repressive people began to realize that their king was unjust. They had to wage a war in order to be free from the repressive king. They won, and in the spirit of liberty, formed a government that would allow them to be freer than they had ever been. Unfortunately, this seems to have only been a brief phase in the repressive people's history. It didn't take long before they began to fear every aspect of life that they didn't have control over. They set about to control their trade with each other, the way their cities would be built, the way families would be formed, what kinds of food people could eat. They tried to control every aspect of life, and the fact that all of this control only made their lives worse at every turn didn't really seem to matter to them. Soon the land was so abused that their food wouldn't grow. Their air became so polluted that no one could breathe. Most of the plants and animals were dead, and you remember that crystal clear lake? It became so polluted that it actually caught on fire once. Dead fish float onto the shore, and the water has a bad smell. And the repressive people's answer? More controls, of course.

This story might sound familiar if, like me, you are a native American. And yes, our beautiful Lake Erie actually did catch on fire once.

I recently read that a poll was taken of African Americans, and over 30% of them are basically libertarian in their beliefs. I bet that if the same poll were conducted on native Americans, we would be off the charts! I bet that young people would, too.

Remember this the next time you see a young person wearing a t-shirt that says, "skateboarding is not a crime," or "legalize marijuana."

One day, there was a group of young people hanging out on the sidewalk and a police officer told them to leave. One young man asked the officer, "What about our constitutional right to peaceably gather and assemble?" Well, the cop looked at him as if he were the lowest of criminals, and said, "You're loitering. Leave, or I'll have you arrested."

Our youth have been criminalized and demonized. We are the primary victims of the drug war. We are discriminated against by police, a practice commonly referred to as "profiling." There are more restrictions specific to young drivers than on any other group in America today. We are shuffled through a public education system that is more focused on making us conform than giving us an education, gives us Ritalin, then invites the cops into the schools so they can conduct unconstitutional searches of our possessions for "illegal" drugs. Some have lived as I have as a file on some social worker's desk, to have important life decisions made for us by someone who has never bothered to ask us what we want. Our question, "What about our Constitutional rights?", if answered at all, is answered with a rolling of the eyes, and some comment about youth being rebellious, or stupid, or just trying to cause trouble. The overlaying message is: never mind your constitutional rights. Forget about the fact that our programs concerning you don't work. Ignore our hypocrisy. Do as we say. Why are young people in our country treated like this? Remember the repressive people? They're afraid of anything they can't control. Including their own children. And we all know how repressive people deal with what they are afraid of. I want to tell the young people of today, and every other citizen in this country, who simply wants to live their own life without interference, that you're not criminals. I trust you to live your own life. You do have rights! People often ask me how it is that I'm so politically active. I guess not many 25 year olds run for office. The truth is, as a young native American, I was already a Libertarian, I just had to find the party. How many more of you out there are just like me?

If you're like me, and you believe in freedom, want government off your backs, want to end the drug war, lower taxes, and a smaller government that respects our rights and our privacy, then please go out and vote. Vote your conscience. Vote Libertarian.

For more information about Libertarians, please click on the links below, or call 1-800-559-LPNH

Click here for the the Libertarians on Campus at Keene State Home Page

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