What you've all been waiting for

Yeah, I know, I'm a failure as a blogger. I haven't posted in so long, people think I've gone home already, but I'm still here for another two weeks. Two weeks! Cue panic mode! I don't want to goooo!

I've done SO MUCH in the last two months, and I'll catch you up on the interesting bits of all of it. But while I draft that gargantuan post (rather than study for my last exam), here's something to keep you entertained.

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Check this out, from the mouths of "I don't want to pay sales tax/wear my seat belt/do anything you tell me to do" New Hampshirites: http://www.freestateblogs.net/node/1406

And I expected no less. I'm best described as one of those "flaming liberals" your momma and Fox News warned you about, but being from New Hampshire, I have a soft spot in my heart for my home state and its unique outlook. NH gets really excited about our first-in-the-nation primary every four years, but it has a hard time setting any other kind of example. The RealID concept is frightening at best and I'm proud that my state has the cojones to stand up to it.

NH is a funny state. Not conservative in the Bible-thumping Southern way, not liberal in the hippie Vermont way, but more of a Libertarian "we don't like being told to do stuff, so THERE" kind of mentality. It really seeps into the people, myself included. I can't stand being ordered around. My dad is fairly liberal, and mostly easygoing but one day we were talking about taxes and how they are needed for things like education, etc., and he said "New Hampshire does NOT need a sales tax!!" He went from normal laid-back mode to PAWS OFF MY STATE mode in .07 seconds. I'd say that's pretty characteristic of New Hampshire in general. Taxes = being told what to do = no thanks.

A New Hampshire citizen is an interesting hybrid of a hippie and a lumberjack. Suspicious, stubborn, indignant, liberal when they want to be and conservative when they want to be. As evidenced by our rebirth as a blue state in the last presidential election, there are more liberals these days as people move up from Massachusetts to escape sales and income taxes. This fortunately tempers the conservatism that can hinder things like abortion/gay marriage etc. without messing with the taxes, or lack thereof, which NH would guard with Cerberus if it could.

My ridiculously conservative senator, Judd Gregg (ugh), actually voted against the federal ban on gay marriage, and I was surprised at first but then I realized it was because he didn't want the government telling him what to do, not because he was pro-gay-marriage. So as a subtle jab, I wrote him a letter thanking him for voting against it, it's good to see NH senators standing up for gay rights, etc. and he wrote back with a polite[r] version of "Ha, I don't care about gay rights, I care about states' rights." Cue sound effect: wamp waaaamp.

New Hampshire's got its issues (it would likely declare open season on out-of-staters if it could), and I will admit to jokingly referring to it as "the Texas of the North," but it's definitely got character. Bottom line, It's good to know my state can run itself while I'm away.

posted by limeywannabe @ 2:19 PM