This election year, signs have been appearing all over the state with the slogan, "Take Back Vermont." The media, in their infinite wisdom would lead us to believe that the slogan is solely a homophobic response to the Baker Decision and the Civil Union Bill. The truth of the matter is that the slogan represents the bottled up frustration of a growing number of Vermonters with a whole host of issues. There is ACT 200, ACT 250, ACT 15, ACT 60 and a number of other issues as well. What all this has in common with the Baker Decision and the Civil Union Bill, is that they all reflect an arrogant and out of touch oligarchy in Montpelier.

Let us examine now why these various decisions are tied together and viewed as described above. Each of them represent a centralization of power and decision making in Montpelier and a shift away from the time honored tradition of local control and democratic self government. Increasingly, the decisions that emanate from Montpelier have the effect of micromanaging the lives of Vermonters on issues ranging from education to planning. As such they reflect an attitude of contempt on the part of the political class for the average Vermonter. We are seen as incapable of handling these issues ourselves without the beneficent intervention of all knowing bureaucrats in Montpelier. Not only does this have the effect of undermining the Vermont tradition of democratic self-government, but also it pits one group against another in a competition for state funding. This undermines another highly valued Vermont tradition, that of the compassionate community. When the state is divided into "gold towns" Vs "receiving towns", rich Vs poor, and environmental activists Vs farmers and property rights activists, our social cohesion is ripped asunder.

The Baker Decision and the Civil Union Bill was simply the last straw in a series of decisions that have all been pointing in the same direction. Vermonters pride themselves on their "live and let live" approach to life. We have no sodomy laws and most of us have no desire to micromanage the personal lives of others, even if we do consider their behavior to be strange. On the other hand, most of us instinctively recognize the historical importance of traditional marriage and the family unit in preserving a free and stable society. Marriage has long been seen as a ceremony marking the beginning of a family by a couple. The family has long been seen as the one institution that combines the biological role of bearing children with the sociological role of raising children. The recognition of marriage and the family as a vital foundation to a stable society is a cross cultural understanding which stretches back so far that it predates the institution of government. As recognition of this fact, modern governments have legally sanctioned the relationship of marriage.

The historical reason for the legal recognition and subsidy of traditional marriage is to encourage stability in a relationship that can produce children. In a nutshell, the idea is to prevent a break up of the relationship and the possible abandonment of children. So it is the children and not the couples themselves that are the intended beneficiaries of the subsidy. There is no other legitimate reason for the state to concern itself with a private relationship between two people. Since children can only emerge spontaneously from an opposite sex relationship, those are the ones that have been the object of state subsidy. There is no discrimination here as anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, that chooses to engage in a traditional marriage will get the subsidy.

The Baker Decision and the Civil Union Bill ignored the historical reasons for the marriage subsidy and insisted that an equal subsidy be given to those who are engaging in relationships that are purely a matter of private concern. The majority of Vermonters reject the notion that, to be seen as tolerant and fair, we need to subsidize relationships that are of purely private interest. When so many Vermonters opposed the latest round of social engineering coming from Montpelier, we were portrayed as knuckle dragging homophobes by an elite that is merely displaying not only its contempt for the average Vermonter, but an abysmal historical ignorance. We now have the spectacle of Governor Dean saying that those who oppose this move simply do not understand what is going on and Democratic Senator Peter Shumlin quoted as saying that, where someone comes down on this issue is a reflection of whether they had a library card as a child. Vermonters are completely fed up with the arrogance and attitude of contempt coming from our political leaders and are finally rebelling against it.

The desire represented by the "Take Back Vermont" slogan is to reclaim Vermont's heritage of liberty and democratic self-government. This is the Vermont heritage represented by our motto "Freedom and Unity".

Most of us are familiar with the history of how the "New Hampshire Land Grant" settlers first came to Vermont and faced a dispute with the government of New York over the validity of their grants to the land. When Ethan Allen and his family moved into the area in 1769, he became the leader of a grass roots populist resistance movement that would eventually lead to an independent republic. In the midst of the struggle, with the help of radical theorist Thomas Young, Allen developed an ideological justification for the land grantees right to own the land and the right for the people of the area to break away from New York and form their own government. Some of Allen's thoughts on this matter were captured in his "Brief Narrative" written in 1774, which laid out a theory and justification for rebellion. It also expressed a view of the purpose of government that was quite similar to the arguments advanced by Jefferson in our "Declaration of Independence" and Thomas Paine in "Common Sense". In fact, Jefferson referred to the notion that the people had a right to throw off a tyrannical government, and set up one of their own as, "The Vermont Doctrine". For Allen, the preservation of family formed the core justification of political resistance to superior authority, as well as the basic building block of a free democratic polity.

In Allen's view, sovereignty flowed from individuals to the family and from the family to the community. The only purpose of government was to insure the security of individuals and their families. Allen did not share the aristocratic distrust of popular democracy with Alexander Hamilton and some of the founders from the southern colonies. Most of the New England colonies, Vermont in particular, had a lot of positive experience with direct local democracy. Colonies like New York and some of the southern ones were much more suspicious of direct democracy. This is reflected in the Federalist Papers, and the fact that the U.S. Constitution gives Federal Judges a life term. The idea was to have a judiciary that would be independent of the pressure from the people.

The passions of the "mob" were seen to be a dire threat to liberty. Ethan Allen, along with men like Thomas Jefferson, saw it a different way. Entrenched professional politicians with no accountability to the people were seen as a greater threat to liberty. The danger to liberty by the passions of a mob was fleeting and not likely to be sustained. On the other hand, the danger to liberty by unaccountable public officials was much more permanent. It was for this reason that, in the original Vermont constitution, the state's voters controlled every branch of government, electing the state's executive officers and judges, as well as representatives to Vermont's unicameral legislature. This was also behind the fact that Vermont Supreme Court justices were not appointed for life. Of course that constitution was written in 1777, soon after an official "Declaration of Independence", which was written patterned after the U.S. Declaration of Independence. More than any other colony at that time, Vermont remained faithful to the ideals of the "Declaration of Independence" penned by Jefferson, going so far as to write the first constitution that outlawed slavery.

Of course, Ethan Allen and the early Vermonters realized that for direct democracy to work, it must be kept local. This is demonstrated by our tradition of local town meetings. The state government was to be kept very limited in its functions. At this level we are a democracy, at every other level we are a representative republic. When the functions of government are centralized in the state, we lose the democratic aspect of our democratic republic. This is what has been happening here in Vermont for the last few decades, and it is undermining our heritage of liberty that is expressed in our motto "Freedom and Unity". Ethan Allen and the early Vermonters founded the state of Vermont in the heat of battle with an arrogant and out of touch government oligarchy. In doing so, they left us with a tradition of liberty where governmental authority flowed from the people up. Now Vermonters are once again locked in a struggle with an arrogant and out of touch government oligarchy to preserve our heritage of liberty. Let's hope that, in November, we can "Take Back Vermont."

Robert Maynard Director (one of five) Citizens for Property Rights Williston 879-7190

November 3, 2000