TOWNSHEND — Vermonters pride themselves on being independent. Regulations are few and frequently ignored. For the most part, a live-and-let-live attitude rules.
Drive a few miles south, and you will find yourself in a strange land. A security camera sits atop a sign near the Massachusetts border. This is the first of many cameras you will see on a trip to the Bay State. They are everywhere. Most of them are atop traffic lights but, if you look carefully, you will see them on the roofs of buildings.
The second thing you will notice is the intense police presence. Law-enforcement vehicles, many unmarked, are seen in large numbers. A yellow notice in a doctor's waiting room urges people to turn one another in to the authorities.
“No incident is too small to make the call,” the sign says. “If you see something suspicious, report it."
What is most disturbing is what you can't see.
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It seems that many things we take for granted in Vermont are illegal in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. You have to be photographed and fingerprinted to buy a hunting rifle.
Someone from Springfield, Mass. told me that he is prohibited by law from working on his own car in his own driveway. Some Springfield residents have been fined for parking on their lawns. This is at a time when property taxes have been rising.
Enter a law library in Massachusetts, and you will see written evidence of the problem. Huge state law books fill long shelves. Every year, the legislature passes more laws, never bothering to repeal the old ones.
All of this might be coming to a horrible climax. Some lawmakers in Massachusetts have proposed putting tracking devices in cars registered in the Commonwealth. When you combine this with satellites and federal wiretapping, you having the makings of a real-life Orwellian nightmare.
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The most alarming part of this is that nobody seems to care much. Like the frog being slowly boiled to death, we are unaware of how bad things really are.
The greatest concern is that Massachusetts is being used as a test bed for a new America.
Is this what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind?
Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” That wasn't empty rhetoric; he wasn't kidding around.
Every time there is a war we are told we are fighting for our freedoms.
There used to be a sign in front of a veteran's hospital in Massachusetts that said, “Here the price of freedom is visible.” Many have lost life and limb so we could be free.
Will we be strong enough to hold onto our liberties, or will we let them be taken away?