CPAC 2010 - My Story

6:15 – Sparta , NJ (my in-laws’ house) – Shower in the world’s worst shower. Don’t even wash my hair – it would take three weeks to rinse the soap out. Since my haircut on Tuesday my ‘doo can survive a night’s sleep.

7:45 – We’re on the road. After an intense discussion involving several maps, a laptop and a GPS system larry has chosen his route to the den of iniquity, the whore house of all whore houses, Washington D.C. We’re driving the back roads of NJ but I know we’re on the right road because we turned left at a sign that read “The Land of Make Believe,” then drove through a town called “Hope.” I’m sure “Change” is just around the bend.

1 p.m. – Washington D.C. – Smooth drive and we’re here with an hour to spare. We pull up to our hotel, the Omni Shoreham, which was part of the Campaign for Liberty package. Nice place. Much too nice for a couple of country bumpkins like us. We don’t know how to use the valet service – we’re chain motel people. We settle into our room but I’m anxious for our bags to arrive since my leather jacket is among them and I realize I can’t wear my ski jacket over to the convention without looking like the dorky Vermonter I am. Turns out I really don’t have the wardrobe for this life I’m trying to live. Finally I give up on the jacket because I’m supposed to be at the convention for my volunteer training. I see our valet cart next to the front door as i leave – I guess we were supposed to give him our room number (yeah, that makes sense). I grab my jacket and give him the room number. I’ll get this hang of this some day.

2:05 – I’m at the C4L exhibition table getting my conference pass and asking about the training. They haven’t even started yet – in fact, it will be another twenty minutes before they do start, and then it’s just a matter of “Here, take these flyers and hand them out to people as they come in.” I can handle that. In the meantime I go cast my vote in the straw poll. One more for Ron Paul!

2:40 – We’re handing out flyers advertising tonight’s “Liberty Forum” with Ron Raul and Judge Andrew Napolitano. The girl I replace at the top of the escalator warns me – “If they say ‘no’ real mean-like it means they hate Ron Paul.” Okay. I meet a few of these people but also a number who take an interest. One young man passes me wearing a red shirt with the word “Capitalism” spelled out like the Coke logo. I admire his shirt and he stops to talk. Turns out he is from New Hampshire and we discuss the Free State movement. One of my fellow C4L volunteers, a high school kid from Connecticut, comes over to join the discussion. This kid is the most enthusiastic worker of our group. I wish I saw more of his passion in other teenagers, especially my own.

Most of the conference attendees have already received the flyer we’re trying to give out and I feel like a pest. . My team leader, Jonathan, recognizes this and says we can quit after we’ve finished our stack. I take him up on this and take off. Charlie, my young friend from Connecticut, however, is still enthusiastically handing out flyers, brochures and dvds. Great kid.

I head toward the exhibition hall for a look around and run into Steven Vasquez. This is amazing because there are thousands of people here and we’re not even at a C4L event. I ask if he has dinner plans and since he doesn’t invite him to eat with Larry, Elizabeth and me. Then I head back to our hotel room to regroup for tonight.

5:00 – Early dinner to beat the rush and since all we’ve had to eat since breakfast are fruit and snack mix. Now we’re looking forward to good Italian food at Café Paradiso. I’ve called and texted Steve Vasquez but haven’t been able to reach him so it’s just the three of us.
Dinner is expensive and mediocre. Elizabeth doesn’t care for her four-cheese fettuccine, which is heavy on bleu cheese, not a favorite of hers. My fettuccine with grilled chicken, artichokes, basil and tomatoes looks better than it tastes, which is kind of bland. Doesn’t even compare to a similar dish I had in Bennington when Larry and I went out for our anniversary. Sigh - there’s no place like home.
We head over to the convention and finally I get to walk around the exhibition hall, though it has emptied out considerably. Elizabeth is gathering candy, I’m picking up literature and bumper stickers. A friendly guy waves his sticker at me – it says “Recycle a Liberal” and I laugh and take one. I tell him I this is more apropos than he realizes because I’m from Vermont. At that his partner in the booth shoves a few more at me. Larry is anxious to put one on our ’85 Audi, where it will have the most credibility.
The best exhibit is put on by the NRA. It’s a lazar gun target shooting booth and finally we see Elizabeth smile. When she shoots 71-percent her first round Larry starts dreaming of a future Olympic biathalon champion.

We head back to our hotel room so Larry can catch the first half of the Georgetown-Syracuse basketball game. I head to the lobby to take advantage of the wireless internet down there (I’m NOT spending an extra $10 to get it in our room, not when I get it for free at my beloved chain motels!). I sit down across from a young man who is looking at the very flyer I was handing out earlier in the day. I tell him the forum will be awesome and I hope he will attend. He says he probably will and when I tell him I’m with C4L he wants to ask me a few questions.

What follows is a great discussion with another great kid. We talk about Ron Paul, who interested him for a number of reasons, not least of all because Dr. Paul attended Gettysburg College, where my new friend, Matt is a freshman. We talk about the upsurge in libertarian thinking, which has actually been very apparent at this conference. We talk about his hope to become a lobbyist working for renewable energy, especially nuclear. We agree that becoming self-sustaining in energy can only be good for America and shouldn’t be an idea Conservatives automatically reject. We talk about my involvement in this movement and my highest motivation – saving this country for my kids. Matt understands that it is his generation that will be most adversely affected by the policies being enacted today.

Now is a good time to make an observation of a situation here at CPAC that has been surprising but most welcome. By far, the majority of the people here are young. YOUNG! I am so used to seeing middle-aged and old people in Vermont everywhere – in the stores, on the streets, at our meetings and rallies. The only time I see young people in abundance is when I stop by the high school. But here at CPAC, young people are everywhere. Their energy and passion for this cause shines on their faces and rings out from their conversations. They get it, Thank God, they get it and they are doing something about it. They will take what they are learning about activism here back to their college and high school campuses and help build this movement from the ground up. The combination of knowledge and experience we oldsters bring in along combined with this energy and passion should prove unbeatable.
I encourage Matt to visit the Vermont Campaign for Liberty website to read our blogs. I promise him he will find interesting, intelligent and thoughtful writing. So Hunter, would you mind not posting for a while? Kidding, I’m kidding, reaching across the digital sphere to tweak ya buddy, you blog away.
Matt and I part ways but before we do I remember my son’s best friend’s brother Chris is also a freshman attending Gettysburg College. Does Matt know him? “Red? Yes, he’s one of my good friends!” Matt tells me. It is indeed a small world.

I return to the room to get Larry and we head back over to the conference for the Liberty Forum with Ron Paul and and Judge Napolitano. We get there early and are about a third of the way from the podium. I look around and notice that we are, once again, surrounded by young people. Just judging by our row and the two in front and behind us, I would say the ratio of twenty somethings here compared to those of us 30 and older is nine-to-one. Awesome.

Once Thomas Woods introduces the Judge and then Ron Paul, the atmosphere in this room is more like that of a rock concert than a serious political debate. The standing ovations come fast and furiously. There are whoops and hollers. I expect them to pick Ron Paul up and pass him overhead to the back of the room any minute. The judge’s rousing reminder that the opportunity to fight for freedom comes to very few generations but it has fallen upon this one is met with deafening applause. In this room one can feel safe and confident that our nation as we know it will endure because it is obviously in very good hands.

The Current Abuse Program

Current Use, who wouldn’t like it? Preserving farmland, protecting the forest, ensuring that Vermont doesn’t become just another giant strip-mall, the trouble is, it’s a double-edged sword. This program, like most spawned by well-meaning lawmakers, has grown into something that threatens to destroy the state it means to save. 

In last week’s Vermont Standard,  our State Representative, Alison Clarkson, gave us a synopsis of how the legislature is dealing with the $150 million deficit they created when they overrode Governor Douglas’ veto of the last budget. She informs us that the ‘first real savings’ were voted on last week: the $1.6 million ‘saved’ in changes made to the Current Use Program. She tells us they were originally supposed to save $3.2 million, but that that would be devastating, so they finagled it so they only had to save half as much. 

If you’re in Current Use, you know exactly how it works, you pay approximately 1/8th of the property tax that everyone else pays. To use Alison’s words, “it’s a tax policy which taxes land on its ‘use’ value and not it’s market value”. (Forest land is currently assessed at a use value of $97 per acre). The goal of Current Use is to prevent development and keep the land in a 19th Century rustic state. Essentially it is a tax subsidy to people who own 25 or more acres of land as long as they follow state diktats on how they use it. Farm it the way they say, log it how they tell you, fill out the proper, forms and they’ll knock 88% off your taxes. Again, for farmers and legitimate loggers, who could argue? Few of us really want to see farms disappear and see our forests stripped to the bone like they’re doing in the Amazon. But the well-intentioned program, obeying the law of unintended consequences, is not benign. People have to pay for it... if someone pays less tax, others pay more. For many it’s a tax shelter, pure and simple, a particularly rewarding one, thus people are lined up to get into the program. How much land is currently covered by Current Use? Over 2.2 million acres. We’ve only got 6.1 million acres, so over one third of Vermont’s land is being subsidized.

So how did the State save that 1.6 million dollars? It did it by keeping people out of the program. They called for a one-year moratorium. Want to sign up? Sorry, you’re going to have to wait for at least 12 months, you’ll have to pay your full dollop this year. You can have the break in 2011, when as Alison says, ‘the economy has returned to some normalcy”. Was there an alternative to the moratorium? What about the idea of divvying up the needed savings amongst the current participants? The 12,500 current users would have to chip up $128 each to meet the goal. No, the Ways and Means Committee has decided that it is better to stall a couple of hundred people for a year, collecting an average of $6000 of tax they wouldn’t normally have to pay, than to even slightly affect the sacred cows that are already enrolled. 

The question you have to ask is who are these couple of hundred people? Are a bunch of new farmers moving into the State? Are there new forests popping up that suddenly need your protection? Or are some people just sort of slow on the uptake and just never really understood that they could have saved tens of thousands of tax dollars over the last 30 years if they’d just had a clue about how to use the system? And what about the 24% of the participants who are out-of-state homeowners? We’re expected to believe that they need our subsidies to protect their land? The truth of the matter is the system is rife with abuse, it needs to be looked at closely and reformed drastically. Most of all, the lawmakers who vote for and defend environmental legislation have to understand there’s a high price tag attached. 

The true irony of the situation is the enormous number of signs going up that accompanies the process. Not highway billboards or downtown Fedex posters, I’m talking about Posted Signs. Drive along any of our dirt roads nowadays and you can’t fail to see the abundance of yellow Keep Out, No Hunting, No Trapping, No Trespassing signs now being plastered on trees and poles. I’ll give you a clue, it’s not the loggers and farmers that are putting them up. It’s folks who want to live in Vermont without the inconvenience of having Vermonters tramping across their land. It really is a travesty, you’re told that subsidizing the land is for your benefit, but you’re not allowed to visit it. Our tax dollars are being used to create private environmental theme parks that you can only look at from the outside, Under Penalty of Law.

I asked Alison once why the state didn’t adopt a New Hampshire approach of a two tier system, where posted land is taxed at a different rate, her response was that “we give such a huge benefit, 88.4%, it is very hard to consider giving more in this economy”. I think she missed the point, it’s not time to give away more, it’s time to ask more. The State has given away way too much, for way too long. It’s finally found itself in a position where the piper has to be paid. The people of Vermont are tapped out and it’s time to make some tough choices, not just kick the problem down the road like the proverbial tin can.

Budget Time: A time for action.

If you haven't received a copy of this letter to send to your representatives in Montpelier, please read it over and consider sending it. Make any changes you wish, but don't let them raise your taxes without at least having done something to stop it. The time for talk is over. The budget is under consideration. Several bills are out there that will raise your taxes. What few cuts they have offered are too little and not long-term. We must make them understand that the budget even with this half-hearted cuts is not sustainable. The time to act is now!


As a citizen and taxpayer of this State, I have become concerned that the Legislature is seriously considering a significant tax hike that will affect all Vermonters. I am writing to you and your colleagues to demand that, before raising anyone’s taxes or fees, drastic and necessary action be taken to reduce the size of our state government and eliminate unnecessary agencies and programs.
When a family's income falls short, they don't usually make immediate changes to their housing or food budgets. Food can be tweaked some but housing is usually the biggest expense. Families usually turn to cutting out the extras, like premium cable and other entertainment, eating out, streamline transportation, etc. The state has taken a pay cut and cannot, and will not for the foreseeable future, be able to afford luxuries is currently includes in its budget.
I suggest the following be considered for elimination from the current and future budgets:
Arts Council- While nice to have, it is not necessary.
Office of Chief Marketing Officer- State agencies need a state agency to tell it how to market itself?
Office of Economic Opportunity- Again, nice to have, but not affordable when tax payer’s economic opportunity is being limited by higher taxes.
Department of Education- This Department has more to do with bureaucracy than it does direct education. Cut the red tape by cutting the makers of that tape!
Elevator Board- How many elevators are there in Vermont? How many inspectors does this board need to certify? Don’t localities with said elevators have the resources to check the credentials of these inspectors?
Film Commission- Totally unnecessary and not sure why it even existed in the first place.
Commission on the Future of Economic Development- The problems are now, the future is now.
Department of Information & Innovation- An unnecessary and redundant agency.
Department of Libraries- Most libraries are privately or locally funded. Again this Department is nice to have but unnecessary.
Council on Physical Fitness & Sports- Every school has a physical fitness program. Why do we need a council?
Vermont Scenic Preservation Council- How is this necessary given the number of local and state boards overseeing land use that already exist?
Department of Tourism & Marketing- So million dollar ski areas need our tax dollars to get people to use their ski areas. Get them off the dole.
Vermont Life Magazine- Most magazines are supported by advertising and sales.
Vermont Public Television- Most television stations rely on advertising and fundraising.
Council on the Humanities, Early Education, the numerous (and often ignored) legislative studies, and land use planning grants.- All programs that are nice but not necessary to have.
The State of Vermont is trying to be all things to all people. But as this budget crisis indicates, attempting to pay for everything under the sun is not sustainable. We simply can’t afford it!

Social Welfare in a Free Society

Since most of us have never lived in an America without a government-run social welfare system it is sometimes difficult to imagine how a liberty-oriented society might take care of the needy. Last month the owners and employees of AirNow and the people and businesses of Bennington showed us exactly how community-based charity can work.

The local effort on behalf of the people of the devastated nation of Haiti began with a phone call to Michelle Van Ness, AirNow executive vice president, from the Evangelistic World Outreach (EWO). EWO asked Van Ness if AirNow might be able to provide a plane to fly supplies to Haiti.

This simple request morphed into a charitable effort that included people and businesses from all over Bennington and New England. Van Ness requested and then shared with family, friends and co-workers a list of supplies needed. Word spread and donations poured in - more than 18,000 pounds of goods filled thirty-five pallets within a few weeks. AirNow owner David Corey donated a plane and staff time to collect, organize and stock the supplies and pilot John Somero volunteered his skill and time. Within a few days of the initial request Somero had delivered his first planeload of supplies and then stayed in Florida to continue this work with the help of Agape Flights, a missionary organization which is helping defray fuel costs. Meanwhile Van Ness is looking for truck and fuel donations to transport the remaining supplies to container ships in Maryland.

Some might wonder that all of this has been accomplished without the help of one government bureaucrat. None of Vermont's congressional delegates held town meetings to spur people to action. The governor did not have to beg the people of Vermont to open their hearts and wallets nor was the president's soaring rhetoric necessary to inspire us to greater heights. We did it because we, and I include in that the vast majority of Americans, are good and generous people who instinctively understand how blessed we are and want to help those who are suffering or in need.

What's remarkable about AirNow's grassroot, unmandated charitable actions is how unremarkable they are in this country. Almost daily we read front page news stories about people freely choosing to help other people. Whether it be community members of all ages plunging into icy water to raise funds for Special Olympics or members of a local church sponsoring a pancake breakfast to help a local family raise money for medical expenses, we Americans routinely come together to take care of our own.

In the college textbook Social Work and Social Welfare: An Introduction, the authors review the history of social welfare in England and the United States. It is interesting to note that in early America social welfare was a community responsibility. The American frontier was a hostile place where settlers needed to work together in order to survive. Colonial government was a loose and haphazard network which assumed no obligation for the care of its citizens. Instead, neighbors and churches and then towns provided relief for those in need. Economic uncertainty actually grew as colonial America moved from a semi-feudal system toward a pre-industrial society and at the time of the American Revolution public relief was the largest expenditure in most major cities' budgets.

Certainly the founders were aware of this yet they did not consider social welfare the domain of the federal government. James Madison, primary author of the Constitution, said “…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”

Was Madison just a mean guy who didn't care about the poor? More likely he realized the impossibility of a government far removed from individual communities providing efficient and effective relief for poor individuals. He probably also recognized the potential for abuse, corruption and waste in a system that requires money to be filtered through several parties before it reaches those for whom it is intended. And he probably understood that cities, towns and states were better positioned to assess the needs of communities and develop solutions that would truly benefit the physically, socially and financially needy.

When the federal government assumed (unconstitutionally according to Madison) responsibility for social welfare, first in the 1930s under the New Deal and then through the Great Society legislation of the 1960, it guaranteed a one-size-fits-all approach that actually fits none. Instead of creative, innovative and local programs designed specifically to meet the unique challenges of individuals and communities, it set up a heavily bureaucratic system that punishes work and discourages marriage, two of the best guarantors against poverty.

Under the current welfare structure the craftier elements of society quickly learn how to "game" the system to get the most from it. Unfortunately, those who are truly deserving of help are tainted by these actions. Meanwhile, conscientious and productive members of society grow increasingly resentful that their charity is not only taken for granted but also compelled rather than volunteered. Perhaps most destructive, the government now stands as a barrier between those who give and those who receive, which greatly diminishes positive incentives for both parties to participate in finding long-range solutions to both personal and societal economic problems.

Americans are beginning to see that big is not necessarily better, and this goes for government as much as it does for corporations and banks. Local problems are best solved locally, a concept the Founders understood when they created a Constitution in which most governing power rested with the states, not in Washington D.C. By removing a bureaucratic layer we could do more good with less money. As AirNow so aptly demonstrated, small groups of people freely participating in charitable work can accomplish great things. It's time for Washington to get out of our way and let us get to work.

My Testimony to the Joint Fiscal Committee

Arriving late due to work, I came into the Rutland Vermont Interactive TV Site hoping to find several fellow patriots concerned about our budget. I was disappointed. The room contained about 10 other people, each from some non-profit or a beneficiary of some non-profit, concerned and saddened that their particular group was facing budget cuts. Universal Healthcare Advocates and Worker’s Center representatives also were in the audience. I signed up to speak and was the last on the list for Rutland.
Over the next half hour, person after person pled for their pet projects and related tales of sorrow over what life would be like without those programs. A few offered a simple solution to the budget crisis, more taxes. Yet, in this chorus calling for legalized theft of your hard earned money, there were voice of sanity and fiscal responsibility. Members from the Vermont Campaign for Liberty from around the state called on our elected representatives to follow the Constitution and obey Chapter 1, Article 18.
When it came to my turn to speak, I presented the following (please note that I don’t write my speeches, but only refer to notes, so this isn’t a exact transcript of my speech.):
“I want to thank the Committee for holding this public hearing and I agree with many who have gone before me that your job is not an enviable one.
Vermont is in trouble. We are facing a problem that we saw coming for years, but did little to prevent. Numerous voice sounded the alarm well before the most recent economic downturn calling to us, “this budget is not sustainable”. Yet those voices went unheard.
In fact, even as the economy started to sour, Montpelier went on a spending spree. Creating programs, agencies, and mandates in such a manner that a drunken sailor would blush at how our tax dollars were thrown around. Even in the last two fiscal years, when the reality of what we faced could no longer be denied, Montpelier continued to created boards, commissions, and programs which further increased the size of government.
The truth is and was well known back before this fiscal house of cards collapsed. We all know that our economy goes through a cyclical process of boom and bust. In the last forty years, our economy has gone through six recessions of a years length or more. This equates to a recession occurring every six years or so. During each recession, we find ourselves in the same place. Falling revenues and increase budgetary demands leads to half measures and wishful thinking. We just squeak by with partial cuts and increase taxes. Yet, when the recession ends, we returned to our spendthrift ways and act as though the last year or so never happened. However, six years later, we are back again, the budget gap has grown larger and the revenue shortfalls greater. Clearly the budget and the size of government as it exists right now is not sustainable.
In preparation for this hearing I went to the Joint Fiscal Office’s website and printed off their five year projection for budgets and revenues. I am sure you already know what I found, but I think it is important to restate the problem we face. According to the Joint Fiscal Office, over the course of the next three years, fiscal year 2011 through 2013, Vermont faces a combined debt of $462,000,000. The equivalent of about a third of our budget. However, these figures are based upon two optimistic projects by the Joint Fiscal Office. The first projection is that the budget will not grow more than the rate of inflation (approximately 3.5% per annum). Of course given the fact that simple inflation alone does not take into consideration mandated programs from Washington (generally un-funded) and the growth of costs associated with Medicare/Medicaid which has traditionally outstripped inflation by a mile. The Second, and the most suspect, projection is that revenues for the next three fiscal years will grow by 2.34% (FY 11), 6.87% (FY12), and 6.34% (FY 13). These incredible leaps in revenue are the only thing keeping our projected budget deficits from growing completely out of control. Without this optimistic projection in revenues, Vermonters would be facing a debt closer to $800,000,000 over three years.
So what traditionally has been the response of Montpelier when the budget goes out of balance? Well, as you know the government attempts to chip away at the problem, cutting a little bit here, trimming a little bit there, raising taxes on some, and fees on others. Yet, this approach rarely solves the problem nor does it provide a long-term strategy to prevent future crisis. A prime example of this tried and not so true method is the most recent Miscellaneous Tax Bill.
Under this bill, the legislature seeks to make up the shortfall in the 2010 budget by increasing fees, taxes, and other revenue generating payments. Yet, this bill is a “death by a thousand cuts” to the average Vermonter. The hard working Vermonter, who already has seen his stagnant wages diminish in value over time, will now face higher fees on his property, his licenses, and his access to governmental services. The people who you rely upon to pay their taxes and make this state work, the ones who have little money to begin with to make ends meet, are now to be milked in a hundred little ways of more of their expendable income. The sad reality of this bill is that it does not solve the problem it seeks to correct nor provides a long term solution to our recurrent fiscal problems. It is only a band-aid provision applied to a gaping chest-wound of a fiscal crisis.
So what is the problem? It is very simple. The problem is the paradigm in which budgets are made in Montpelier. The process is flawed because you approach the issue of budgets by saying “what is it we want?” and then you figure out how to pay for it. I would recommend to you that a sustainable and more fiscally responsible approach would be to ask yourselves, “what do we have for revenues and what does the state need?”
The Vermont Campaign for Liberty believes that the government serves an important, but limited purpose in society. The primary functions of government, that which that government needs to do, are providing for roads and bridges, law enforcement, courts, jails, and infrastructure. These should be of first concern and the first to be provided for. However, today our roads and bridges are in sorry shape, law enforcement is spread thin, our courts are understaffed and becoming harder to access for average citizens, and our jails are overcrowded. Meanwhile, Montpelier continues to create more and more agencies and programs that have little to do with what we need and more to do with what we want. Fiscal responsibility demands that we identify the difference between wants and needs. Then pay for our needs before providing for our wants.
Tonight, you have heard numerous people call for the restoration of cut programs, but you have heard very little about how to balance this bloated budget. Therefore, I will do the unpopular thing and recommend the following to be eliminated, not cut, but permanently eliminated from the budget: Arts Council; Office of Chief Marketing Officer; Office of Economic Opportunity; Department of Education; Elevator Board; Film Commission; Commission on the Future of Economic Development; Department of Information & Innovation; Department of Libraries; Council on Physical Fitness & Sports; Vermont Scenic Preservation Council; Department of Tourism & Marketing; Vermont Life Magazine, Vermont Public Television Grant. Council on the Humanities, Early Education, the numerous (and often ignored) legislative studies, and land use planning grants.
These items are all well meaning and clearly something most Vermonters would like or want to have, but they are not necessary to the core functions of government. By cutting these items, the State Budget would be reduced by at least $60,000,000 and without effecting the traditional core functions of State Government.
As a conclusion to my testimony I want to make the following two observations. First, budget planning to date has always been done with good times in mind, but this ultimately leads us to the inevitable fiscal crisis like we are now experiencing during the bad times. Perhaps, we need to plan our budgets as though every year is a bad year. This method negates the constant recurrence of fiscal problems while ensuring that the budget is sustainable and can weather any changes in the economy. Second, I want to point out that the method of identifying your needs and paying for them first before pursuing your wants has been a method applied in most fiscally responsible households around the state for many decades. It has worked for them over the years and it will work for you.

Rule of the Hippies

When I was young, I thought of myself as a bit of a hippie. Loved nature, had a copy of the Whole Earth catalog, hitchhiked everywhere. Didn’t like people telling me how to live my life. Remember how the world was going to be a better place, if we could just sing enough songs?" The Times They are A Changin’, Peace Train, the classic: Kumbayah, of course.

Well, be careful what you wish for... the hippies have taken over. The funny thing is that yesterday's counter-culture now runs the State government, the very entity that they 'turned on, tuned in and dropped out' to escape 40 years ago. Yes, it has actually been that long since that super-songfest called Woodstock marked the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. Where have all the flowers gone? They've gone to Montpelier every one. And the problem is they've forgotten one of the key elements of their early beliefs: that small is beautiful. Today's liberal hippies, once they got got their hands on power, suddenly saw the beauty of Big Government. A government that’s going to control every aspect of your life. A control their arch-nemesis, Richard Nixon, could never have imagined. They’ll decide what doctor you’ll see and when: National Health Care. They’ll decide what food you can eat: no trans-fat for you! They’ll decide whether you can shop: Walmart? Not if we can help it. And school choice: not when we hold the purse strings. Your kids will be going to the school we tell them to go to, at least if you want us to use your fellow taxpayer’s money to pay for it. Oh yes, they’re generous, alright, when it comes to spending your money. Remember when hippies told each other you couldn’t trust anyone over thirty? And that the problem with the world was that everyone was too uptight? Well, who and where are the control freaks now?

It’s time to stand up and fight for freedom, to argue and push back as our lawmakers ensnare us in regulation, red tape, taxes and out of control fines. It’s time to Question Authority. I don’t know about you, but if The Man gave me a $214 ticket for making an illegal left turn on Elm Street by Bentley’s, as one unfortunate out-of-stater received last month, I’d be thinking of becoming a Conscientious Objector and moving to Canada. Where’s the outrage! Now, the law’s the law, and without it we’re lost, but that’s practically 4 day’s pay for a person on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Clearly the police are just doing their job, but what is the goal? Safety or revenue? The other day, down by the Police Station, an officer pulled a U-turn directly in front of us while my 16 year old was driving. We almost broadsided him. Apparently he was hot to pull over a speeder going in the opposite direction, we can’t have people going 31 mph within this village. Wouldn’t be safe! Gotta protect the townspeople, no matter how many near-crashes it takes.

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign, do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign? That was a biggie in the 60’s. Well, our hippie leaders took care of that one, they outlawed the signs. They created an anti-advertising law of such byzantine complexity that people are actually out there measuring with rulers how far the signs are from the window glass. Yep, signs are scarce these days, but there sure are a lot of rules. And heaven help you if you don’t know them all. 

It’s time to get back to the fundamentals this country was built on, what those other long-haired radicals summed up 200 years ago in the Declaration of Independence; the ones that appear in our Vermont Constitution, Chapter 1, Article 18:

“That frequent recurrence to fundamental principles, and a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry, and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty, and keep government free; the people ought, therefore to pay particular attention to these points, in the choice of officers and representatives”.

Our leaders have disregarded these basic principles. In justice; I’d cite the Brooke Bennett case. As to moderation? Montpelier has increased our taxes at a completely immoderate rate. Temperance; the police, at least, don’t seem to understand the word. Industry, if that means promoting hard work and encouraging business, they ignore. Though they certainly are industrious in working toward the opposite end, creating the country’s most generous welfare state while at the same time chasing businesses from the state. Frugality is most definitely not in their vocabulary. They spend your money like drunken sailors.

Chapter 1, Article 18 tells us, that if we want to keep our government free and to preserve the blessings of liberty, it’s up to us to ensure our representatives pay attention to the fundamentals. Instead we have a leaders with their own personal playbill:  green agendas, pushing government health care and advancing the frontier of sexual politics. The fundamentals are being ignored, it’s time to bring back Power to the People. Time to overthrow the rule of the hippies, the Hippie-ocracy we live under. Or maybe we should call it the Hippocracy.