ALCIERE BILLS TARGETED REPEAL OF DRINKING, DRUG-CONTROL LAWS

NASHUA - Tom Alciere says he is not the cop-hater he was made out to be.

His interests were varied, he said, and the bills he filed in the
Legislature were proof of it.

All along, he said, his intention as a lawmaker was to restore
freedoms that he believed the government had taken from the people.

Some people applauded him, but most reviled him for what he said on
the Internet before he was elected.

"They wanted to portray me as the bad guy," he said.

Once he was elected, he wanted to get away from his old "jackass"
self, he said, the one who wrote those things on the Internet.

He wanted to do some good.

Alciere said he considered going through every state law and filing a
bill that would change what he considered to be unfair. When he
realized that would be too big a job, he set out to file a handful of
bills he believed would address some of the worst areas of state law.

Among them were bills to repeal all drug-control laws and replace the
public school system with computer-based Internet learning.

He said he wanted to do the best he could to make all of his bills
law, but he couldnít help it if "other representatives vote wrong."

"It is my responsibility to do everything humanly possible to restore
the rights of the people," he said. "I think what we have in society
is many people trying to take liberties away from each other. It's
hard to say why; they just do, and I see that as a trend."

When he resigned he left his bills in the hands of state Rep. Gary
Greenberg, R-Manchester, who promised to sponsor them. Greenberg said
later he would oppose them and ask that they be killed without
discussion.

So it appears there will be no hearings, no debate and no votes on
the bills Alciere hoped would restore liberty to the people.

Specifically:

- - He wanted to lift the drinking age restrictions.

"The government has no right to set a drinking age," Alciere said.
"Itís none of the government's business because it does not own the
beer or the person buying it."

The government does not have a right to make second-class citizens
out of people who are under 21, he said, noting such laws breed
contempt of the government and politicians.

"Alcoholic beverages are not a big deal unless you put the label of
forbidden fruit on them," Alciere said. "People enjoying liberty does
not constitute any harm."

- - He wanted to crack down on drunken drivers.

"I have no sympathy for drunk drivers," he said. "They shouldn't be
driving drunk" because that violates another person's right to drive
on the road safely.

He said fines, penalties and suspensions should be increased. And,
yes, he knew the police would enforce that law.

"I've known all along there is a particular role for them to enforce
laws that don't violate other people's rights," Alciere said.

- - He wanted to eliminate the requirement for students to attend school.

Alciere said students could go if they wanted, but didn't have to be
forced to go. It's their life, their liberty and their choice what
they do with their time, he said.

- - He wanted to set up a commission to study the zoning laws and make
them simpler.

"Zoning is an extremely expensive set of regulations that serve the
rich at the expense of the poor," he said, noting zoning should be
scaled back to minimum safety standards. He said rents would go down
with less zoning.

- - He proposed a pregnant refugee act. It would offer pregnant teens
safe haven if they wanted to keep their babies and were expelled from
home. He thought it could get support from both pro-life and
pro-choice advocates because it enforced a young woman's right to
choose to keep her baby despite the pressures from her parents.

"It's a tactical way of cutting down some of these abortions,"
Alciere said. "This is an area that hasn't been addressed."

- - He wanted to replace the public school system with online learning.
He said it would scale back education costs and let students educate
themselves "free from government bias."

- - He wanted to repeal all drug-control statutes. He said the
government has no right to dictate which drugs are legal and which
ones are not. Besides, the war on drugs is a costly, miserable
failure, he said.

"The cost in terms of human misery and suffering is immeasurable," he said.

Even though he is not a drug user, he said, he proposed that bill
because, "If I don't stick up for the rights of other people, what
happens when the government wants to trample my rights? Who will
stick up for me?"

- - And he wanted to end the involuntary incarceration of the mentally
ill. He said the state license plate says it all: "Live free or die."

"The government has no right to make mental illness a crime," he said.

Alciere said he didn't hatch these ideas overnight. He said he had
been thinking about them since he was a teen-ager. He figures it was
then that he first wanted to be a politician.

"I'm not an apathetic guy," he said. "I wanted to make a difference.
I get angry when the government takes it upon itself to write away
peoples freedoms."