Live Free (the Lie)

I live in southern New Hampshire, or "Massachusetts" as
my wise-ass more-northern friends like to call it. It seems they're
jealous that even though we live in the same state, my town gets
wild perks like free kindergarten and street plowing. Most of
the rest of NH likes to call Massachusetts "Taxachusetts".

You may know that NH's state motto is "Live Free or Die".
The people here are rabidly anti-tax. The fact that NH has
no sales tax seems to be a big deal. Any political candidate
that even mentions implementing a sales tax is shunned immediately.

Maybe it's because I grew up in another state (the real Massachusetts)
that I was able to figure out that all that's happening up here is denial:
the state simply calls a "tax" something else; usually a "fee".

I pay more in property tax (yes, they DO still call that one "tax") than
my father pays for a bigger house with more land in MA. Hmmm....

It costs an exorbitant amount to register a car here - and that's
with a clean driving record. But the registry has an even bigger
scam going: vanity plates.

It seems that the same folks who refuse to pay anything that smells of
a tax-for-service will happily shell out an annual "fee" to express their
"wit" on their cars. The plates cost an extra $25 per year (PLUS a $5
"reflectorized plate fee" - whatever that means). But THAT doesn't
seem to bother people. You can't go as far as the corner store without
seeing a vanity plate.

And why not? Who WOULDN'T pay the extra money to tell the rest of
the drivers on the road that they are "2EVL4U"? (seems like a stretch, anyway!)
How about "2SPOYLD"?? (Note: up here you can't tell if the
misspellings are to enable the message in 7 characters or if the people
just never learned how to spell correctly.)

How about "2CRAZY" - yeah, that's just what I want to see on that
motorcycle in front of me.....very reassuring.

Or this one:
"4GUNS" (and I kid you not: the OTHER license plate on this car was a
NH House of Representatives plate !!!)

The worst thing about THAT plate is: most likely, we, the NH
"fee payers", are probably paying for it! Talk about vanity.....