You live in the whitest state in America. STFU LOL

Here's the breakdown of where I lived in a burb of Raleigh: Asian (Non-Hispanic) (39.3%), White (Non-Hispanic) (38.1%), Black or African American (Non-Hispanic) (12.4%), Two+ (Non-Hispanic) (4.57%), and White (Hispanic) (1.98%).

80% were US Citizens. Not too segregationist, eh? Which way did Vermont go from the Civil War?

The river looks off for fall. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Only thing I miss about NYC is music and my friends. But I still try to convince them to move here heheh

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Jackalopes because they are at home on steep terrain

everything always changes

Theoretically that'll get sorted out when people start trying to sell these (good luck with that, btw). Like sampling in music. You can do it if you're creating something new, but you have to pay the creator.

Yahoo! Another Floridian in VT!! ☺️.. I don’t miss anything about FL other than diversity (mostly about food and music) and my friends and fam. Everything else I rather bring them here than go there. Beaches are great and all but I rather go elsewhere for a beach vacation than deal with parking and driving over there, to say the least.

agreed and i’m encouraged by the active coordinated efforts to maintain or improve its water quality between quebec, new york, and vermont.

there are concerning outbreaks every summer for swimmers in certain bays and often near a population center like btv.

Tree farm in Southern Vermont.

Those affluent liberal areas are built off the exploitation of slave labor (and segregation after the civil war) and the continued existence of a laboring class that can barely afford to put a roof over thier heads and food on the table (which continues to be mostly minorities). The hierarchy that exists and is perpetrated in the south is magnitudes worse than anything that exists up here. And Customer service, you mean the labor class that has to pretend to be nice to you or else they could fall into further poverty?

Your point that there’s a distinction between direct democracy and constitutional republicanism is well taken.

However, I think it’s a bit hyperbolic to say my “claim of Vermont being a democracy is just as aggravatingly false and misleading as calling Vermont a monarchy.”

Consider that Vermont’s executive, the governor, is popularly elected, as are its legislators (let’s set aside debates over ranked-choice voting, for now). Even the judiciary is indirectly subject to a popular vote with judicial retention, with judges periodically needing approval from the popularly-elected legislature in order to remain on the bench. Consider also Town Meeting Day, during which direct democracy takes place in many municipalities across the state—perhaps its notable that every municipality in Vermont (except for the unincorporated gores) was created by an act of the popularly elected legislature.

Apropos of the subject at hand, same-sex marriage, it’s worth glossing over the history of Vermont’s path to marriage equality. First there was a lawsuit that made it to the Vermont Supreme Court, which held that the Legislature had to come up with a scheme to guarantee the same rights to same-sex couples as cis-heterosexual couples. The General Assembly then passed and the governor signed the law allowing for civil unions, which accorded a version of marriage equality with regard to the legal rights and responsibilities that attend civil marriage (It’s still not full equality if you can’t call such unions “marriages” though).

It’s late and I’m too lazy to check Wikipedia or Google, but if I’m recalling correctly, Vermont may have been the first state to legislatively enact legal rights for same-sex couples. It’s an important distinction from states that initially based marriage equality solely on high court decisions (or the U.S. as a whole, for that matter), because the fact that our laws regarding equal rights for same-sex couples were brought about legislatively speaks on some level to popular will; it’s a more “democratic” way to do things than merely having a panel of learned jurists enjoin discrimination against same-sex couples.

This is a big stretch, but some time after the passage of the civil union laws, Vermont might have been the first state to legislatively recognize same-sex marriages, outright, and with many fewer political consequences for legislators who voted for it than for certain legislators who did not get re-elected after they voted to pass the civil union law. I might be totally wrong about that, so please fact-check me. I’m too lazy to look it up at the moment.

Again, where legislators theoretically effect the will of the majority of their constituencies, I think it’s fair to characterize that as “democratic.” It’s hardly monarchical, at any rate. Marriage equality in Vermont did not happen by royal or even executive fiat. Neither was it solely the product of a court decision—it took acts from a democratically-elected legislature.

You can get aggravated and split hairs about whether Vermont is a “democracy” or a “constitutional republic” (couldn’t that be characterized as a kind of democracy?), but that misses the point: Vermonters wanted same-sex couples to enjoy the same rights as cis-het couples, and had people representing them who made it happen.

Wahoo. You’re welcome!!!

I heard one yowling for the first time last spring. Had no idea what it was and I was alone in the middle of nowhere. Super cool looking back at it now. Thought I pissed off a wendigo or something at the time.

I saw my first one last spring. Glad they’re making a comeback.

How about woodchucks (the bipedal kind)? My favorite critters by far.

You took a beautiful picture. You might want to look at r/RoadPorn.

You can't get there in the fall

Damn straight. RIP.

Went to high school in Windsor.

Thanks!

Well put. We don’t travel quite as south to visit family but there are nightmarish Peachtree Cities all over America these days, so what you said really resonates. Welcome home!

"Maple Violence"?!?

I love that

No there aren't. Just ask 'em......

There is also Bangkok Asian Market and Asian Super Store nearby.