Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
you're not seeing the forest for the trees, as it were. Yeah, the seatbelt, helmet & gun laws are important, but they are just an aspect of the NH spirit. When you cross into the state borders and see the obligitory seat belt sign, where others states tell you that you must wear seatbelts beause it's the law.. NH signs say 'seat belts require for under 14- common sense for all' (ok, maybe I have the age wrong, but you get the idea). It's that tag line there that really shows what NH is about: it's the not needing or wanting all the nanny laws the other states have, because we prefer to use common sense. Sure, most of us have sense enough to wear seatbelts - and (dare I add) helmets. but some choose not to. It's not that they don't understand the ramifications, it's not that they are rebelling against The Man, they have their reasons and have made a personal and deliberate choice not to. That's their right and that's what we will fight for. The right to make our own decisions (and accept whatever consequences if any).
We don't need our lives micromanaged by laws that are only enforced when someone feels like it (most states don't allow texting or handheld cell phones while driving these days: how many drivers have you seen still doing it? how many of them are getting pulled over?). We were taught how to behave when we were little, we just want to get on with our lives.
Exactly what Wanna said (well said). The lack of seatbelt and helmet laws are symbolic of the libertarian mindset that most of us on this board cherish. The lack of a seatbelt and helmet law are no big deal to me in themselves, as I wear both. It's the mindset of the government to not get involved in these things that impresses me. Most of the rest of the country just assumes that the govt can get involved in these personal decisions, and that's just the way it is. Well, that's not neccesarily the way things are in NH.
I think the point is, in NH citizens want to do the right thing because it IS the right thing. Not because we are cowering in fear of the "seatbelt law". We don't appreciate the big stick of "the law" hanging over our heads when we are talking about things such as seatbelts or helmets or what we feed our kids at lunch. We are CAPABLE of thinking for ourselves and making good choices. We are not infants, we do not require some sort of spanking from the government over trivial common sense matters.
Harper if all you see are things like seatbelt and helmet laws, you're not getting it. I didn't get it either for a long time but maybe my story of a Vermonter who converted to a Granite Stater will help.
I grew up in VT and I should say that was a LONG time ago. Both states were different. Economic times were good, and both states were doing well. Back in the 70's I looked down my nose at NH. Why? To me as a teenager, NH was the state with the trashy billboards advertising tourist traps. VT was the state that had outlawed billboards and yes, introduced the bottle and can deposit to help rid the scenic roads of the trash thrown there by the visiting flatlanders. VT had higher taxes but also well-taken care of roads, whereas NH (and MA for that matter), well you could tell when you crossed a state border riding in a car with your eyes closed because of the potholes. And back then while VT was conservative in a laid-back New England way, NH seemed to me to be ruled by the wingnut pen of William Loeb. So really I was a proud Vermonter.
I left, saw the world, and returned to the region. I started a business in VT but live in NH (for personal reasons). In the beginning I wasn't happy about living in a state whose unofficial motto I saw as "I got mine, see to it where you get yours, chump" but after almost 10 years, I get it. I'm a little slow I guess and didn't realize that the Vermont I knew from the 70s was long gone, never to return. Vermont has been taken over by out-of-staters who view business as evil and who will lap up anything that is packaged as being good for the environment (even if it isn't). Whereas there was once a time when anyone willing to learn a trade could live in relative wealth, now the state is actively driving business away. The region where I have my business and where I grew up now has an economy based on welfare, yard sales and drug deals. And it's getting worse.
As much as it pains NH to take on the character of MA from the spillout from Rt 128, the high tech business is a huge boon to the NH economy. The state makes sure the roads down there are nice while the northern half of the state can - well - see to it if and where it gets money to fix our roads.
You want to talk about MA? Did you hear the one about the town that BANNED the sale of bottled water? I thought it was a joke but it isn't. This is more silliness from do-gooders who don't do the math because they don't understand it. Their little minds don't get the complexities of recycling and have stamped plastic as evil, period. Depending on what source you think is reliable, anywhere from 50-80% of glass brought to recycling centers ends up in landfills. But I don't want to digress, my point is that VT and MA increasingly have a population and state legislators willing to create laws based on ignorance and fallacy. So help me someone in the VT state legislature introduced a law thaty would have banned dentists from using mercury amalgam fillings. If you hunt around on the official VT websites you'll find some baloney about mercury "vapor" [sic] being emitted from dental fillings. And this from people who claim to have degrees in science.
I have yet to see any of this -pardon me - crap in NH and this is why I finally get it. The state is not trying to micromanage my life. And a good thing too, because by and large politicians do not possess the scientific and technical background to make sensible decisions and they don't even know enough to find decent advisors.
ETA: you asked about the anger - yes I am angry over what VT has become. I see a second generation of welfare recipients who have given up, who see no way of getting a job that will pay the bills, much less advancing themselves, and I see a state that is stepping into the role of taking care of them as opposed to providing a structure that will help them take care of themselves. It's gone beyond being a matter of lending a hand to a neighbor in need, which I am all for. Now it is an entrenched way of life which makes it much harder to eradicate.
Hope that helps! I used to be one of those people who told the joke about the two best things about NH: there is no sales tax and you get a good view of VT but not any more.
you don't have to wear seatbelts or helmets. Is that it? What's the big deal about that stuff?
The big deal about that "stuff" is that it is symbolic of ALL freedom and individual liberty. Many of us here in NH (and around this country) want the government to leave us alone. We are free people with free will and God given right to life and liberty. We don't need or want the government telling us what we can or can't do. Today, it's helmets or seatbelts, then it's salt and sugar, then it it builds and builds until before you know it the government controls everything about your life. It's unfortunate, but we MUST fight every day to keep our freedom and that often means fighting what seem like insignificant battles. I for one support these and all battles to protect individual freedom whether that's the freedom to smoke, to eat salt, to drive an SUV, or to wear a helmet. If you are not hurting anyone else it is none of my business and none of the government's business.
NH is one of the few remaining states able to cling to some small amount of freedom. "Live Free or Die" summarizes it.
I've started multiple responses to this thread, and just couldn't seem to convey the message as clearly and well as many of our regulars have done here. DogNH, your post hit the mark squarely. Great posts from many of our regulars.
Hopefully the OP has a better understanding of the freedoms that have been lost by so many other states. And the residents either don't realize, don't care, or just plain prefer for the .gov to be in charge of as many aspects of life as possible...
Be happy you don't live in California...good grief, I'm at work and can't even go to the bathroom without "somebody" telling me what to do. See, there are two TP rolls in each stall, so on one roll there is a sticker that says "please use up this roll first before you use the second roll"...I mean, what the heck is the difference??? They will both get used up eventually, no matter which one I use first. Big brother is watching everywhere. It is ridiculous!
And I had my maintenance people come into my apt and change all the light bulbs to the energy efficient kind, which seem to turn on and off at will. I'm paying the electric bill so what is it their business what kind of light bulbs I'm using. Just a few examples....
LOL at the toilet paper, but it's probably a note from the janitor who replaces the rolls. It's much easier to replace one roll at a time, then to have both run out together and possibly leave someone stranded.
"And I had my maintenance people come into my apt and change all the light bulbs to the energy efficient kind, which seem to turn on and off at will. I'm paying the electric bill so what is it their business what kind of light bulbs I'm using."
Maintenance just did that at DD's apt. complex in Manchester. She also pays the electric bill.
Lid laws and seat bealt laws are laws to fund the system. We can wear seat belts and lids or not and not also fund the system. I ride and have 3 lids which I can choose from or not as I please.
I never use a seat belt ever, but my wife does every time. I don't wear a seat belt in any other state either, and i won't. So far I have never needed one. I dam well don't need a cop stopping me, wasting my time and giving me a ticket I probably won't pay.
I do wear a lid when I want and I carry 24/7. I carry at home sitting here typing, and when I leave this place i carry 2 hand guns. Why I carry 2 is one is a back up. I carry in MASS and NY and once i rode my bike with my wife all the way to California and was armed all the way out there and all the way back.
NH has changed a lot since the 50's thru the 80's, and it changed more since then, but never for the better.
Here we are not as Free as we were, and Free doesn't mean For Free, Free means we are willing to spill blood, our own and anyone elses.
I can't wait for Lynch to be voted OUT. All the Democrates do is want want want and tax tax tax.
Before them we were a solvent state, now we are broke, and in harder times and still the Democrates want want want and tax tax tax.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
while the northern half of the state can - well - see to it if and where it gets money to fix our roads.
