Try cross country skiing. VERY low barrier to entry, cheaper than downhill, you don’t need to drive to a mountain to do it, et cetera.

Nah, you suck it up and get right out there. Yee-haw!

Your best bets are Chittenden County for Burlington.

North of Burlington gets you “closer” to Plattsburgh, NY, but I don’t think that has as many flights as BTV.

Otherwise, for the northern part of the state, Montreal, in Canada, would be the closest airport with transoceanic flights.

White River Junction is, maybe, 75 minutes or so from Manchester, New Hampshire, which Southwest flies to.

That’s just bananas.

NIMBY I’ve heard, and totally agree with your sentiments.

What’s “BANANA” though?

Which half is it? Sounds lovely!

If I’m not mistaken: “AH-hee AH-hee HA-HEEEEEEeeee.”

The LAN party? What a bunch of nerds. (Jk)

What is the tournament?

Ymmv?

Is there any reason it would be cheaper to get it from a teller than an ATM? No fee, for example? A better rate on one side of the border versus the other?

Athens Diner by Exit 16 on 89.

Is there anywhere to spend a day XC skinning right now?

Don’t tease us!

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.

>>I dont like them either, but they're the same types with "take back Vermont" signs too, so should we abolish gay marriage because it doesn't make Vermont, Vermont to them?

Nope. If they’re going to fly the traitors’ flag, then send them packing. Vermont sent over ten percent of its population to fight in the Civil War, and had the second most fatalities per capita, according to at least one scholar. We were also the site of the northern-most action in the Civil War, the St. Albans Raid. They can’t have it both ways, embracing the Confederacy and its symbols while claiming to be “real” Vermonters with a monopoly on what makes Vermont Vermont.

I think we don’t actually disagree about NIMBYism in Vermont, so I’ll address your other points in the other sub-thread, time permitting.

ETA: To be perfectly clear, if they don’t like same-sex marriage regardless of whether they have confederate sympathies or not, they can still move to another state. If Vermont is anything, it’s a democracy, and that’s how we got (albeit awkwardly with the whole civil union thing) to marriage equality, here.

>>Crazy that nimbys don't consider public safety when you have kids walking home from school on the side of the road.

Or wireless towers for expanded broadband coverage, or renewable energy generation for our climate aspirations. Who wouldn’t want sidewalks?

>>when changes are discussed in your locale more people need to ask themselves what really makes Vermont, Vermont; and we should then ask if the changes proposed actually threaten that, because most of the time it doesn't.

Well said.

>>At one point there used to be more cows than people, and a lot of the forests we have now are because Vermont used to have a lot more farm land that has since grown over. Should we clear cut the trees to make Vermont, Vermont again by bringing the sheep farms back too?

I suspect a some people’s misplaced sentimentality about overcrowded forests that aren’t even old growth gets in the way of forestry practices that would actually promote a healthier ecosystem. “bUt yOu CaNT cHop dOwn TrEes!” they say, though.

>>I think a lot of people confuse preservation with never changing anything. But if your house is already rotting now, you're not doing anyone a favor by leaving it dilapidated for the next generation. . .

Excellent point. It’s incredibly frustrating to see so much crappy housing stock that people try to pass off as “quaint” or “having character” or “being unique,” as though being “unique” is an end in and of itself, even if it is uniquely bad.

Also: God forbid we build high rises or allow for increased density in our urban areas (That was sarcasm). It grinds my gears that people complain about a lack of affordable housing in the same breath as opposing development of denser housing.

>>Vermont was also the first to abolish slavery, shall we exile everyone who flies confederate flags here, or ban the flag itself, since Vermont was never a part of it and was openly against slavery before emancipation?

Yes.