[2banana]

I have friends in Vermont, not surprising since I am a native Vermonter, who have been forced to sell off their farm piecemeal to generate enough cash to pay their property taxes. This farm has been in their family since 1850. To think that they actually voted for this is simply dumb.

Maybe not so dumb. Yes, this particular issue is by judicial fiat. But look at the representatives that Vermont regularly sends to congress, the senate and elects as governors. They are about as socialist as you can get...

[Chuckster]

When I returned to Vermont in 2000 after forty years of traveling and working around the world I intended to set myself up for retirement in the town where I was born and where my grandparents, great-grandparents and gg-grandparents are buried. To my great dissapointment my friends (mentioned in my previous post) informed me that, since the state and particularly Chittenden County, had been taken over by liberal activists from outside the state and that taxes and land use policies had gotten so onerous that I would be better advised to look elsewhere in the state. I ended up buying a small farm in the Northeast Kingdom where I hope to retire soon.

Getting to the point here: Everywhere I went I asked the people I met (Who seemed universally conservative in their views) why the state government was so liberal. One farmer, in who's barn I was checking out the 19th century post and beam construction, simply pointed to the sign on the side of said barn. It read "Take Back Vermont". That was the most eloquent expression of the sentiment I heard repeated by everyone I asked.

Of course I must confess; I didn't ask any of the latte sipping university types on Church Street in Burlington.