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March 7, 2006

See? I'm Not Crazy

... at least not this time.

Ed Shamy, columnist for The Burlington Free Press, today supports my claim that Vermont is a closed community uninterested in anyone bearing even the slightest whiff of otherwhere.

From Ed's column today:

Long before Burlington came up with its complex system of instant runoff voting, Vermont practiced an informal system of assessing credibility to voters.

It's a system based not on rhetoric, wealth, age or physical girth. It's based on lineage, and it is invoked every day in every hollow and on every street corner in the state.

How long have you lived in Vermont, and what have you been doing while here?

Sixth generation dairy farmers' opinions are considered 100 percent pure. Same goes for descendants of Ethan and Ira Allen. Everyone else is a carpetbagger to a greater or lesser degree.

There then follows a lengthy catalog of those who may find themselves in a Vermont Town Meeting, or merely engaging in conversation on a Vermont street, and how little their opinion means.

It's a brilliant piece. If you're from here or living here, you owe it to yourself to go read it.

It ends, sadly enough, thusly:

If you are a college student from out of state, even if you're a legal Vermont voter, your opinion counts for 9 percent.

If you live here only because you ran out of money at the last Phish concert and haven't raised enough to go home yet, you're the owner of a 5 percent opinion.

If you were born out of state, are the beneficiary of a trust fund, oppose hunting, don't ski, are lactose intolerant and don't like to talk about the weather, your opinion doesn't count. For the sake of your neighbors, keep today's town meeting debate moving along by not bothering to offer your thoughts.

You can still vote, if you insist.

This is especially sad because I get even less credibility than the flatlander students, less even then the broke Phish-heads, because...

If you were born out of state [I was born in Texas], are the beneficiary of a trust fund [I'm not], oppose hunting [I do, except when the hunter is starving], don't ski [I did when younger, haven't in years], are lactose intolerant [well, really more "lactose unhappy] and don't like to talk about the weather [what's to discuss?], your opinion doesn't count. For the sake of your neighbors, keep today's town meeting debate moving along by not bothering to offer your thoughts.

You can still vote, if you insist. [But I can't, because South Burlington doesn't have a Town Meeting.]

Sigh.

Posted by reparent at March 7, 2006 11:16 AM