Should Vermont continue its efforts to close Vermont Yankee?

Do you think that Gov. Peter Shumlin is doing a good job?

Should the high school drop-out rate age be changed from 16 to 18?

Stop talking to your computer screen! I’m not asking you those questions. State Sen. Bill Doyle (R-Washington) is, as part of his annual Town Meeting Day Survey.

Doyle (pictured), who teaches political science at Johnson State College, has 14 questions on this year’s survey. Download it here.

Among other things, Doyle wants to know whether you think the Vermont Legislature is doing a good job (couldn’t be any worse than Congress, right?), if Vermont should have a four-year term for governor, and if drivers should be prohibited from using cellphones while driving.

Doyle also wants to know if you support the individual mandate in the federal Affordable Care Act, whether Vermont should legalize (not just decriminalize) the possession of small amounts of marijuana, whether wind turbines should be built on ridge lines, and whether the bottle bill should be expanded to cover all bottled beverages.

Doyle’s survey isn’t scientific, but for years it has offered a rough pulse on Vermonters’ opinions. Now he’s got some serious competition in the form of the new polling institute at Castleston State College, a  statistically valid poll that released its first poll last week and intends to survey Vermonters on any number of hot-button issues.

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Andy Bromage was a Seven Days staff writer from 2009-2012, and the news editor from 2012-2013.

9 replies on “Doyle Town Meeting Survey Polls on Vermont Yankee, Wind Power and Legalizing Pot”

  1. Should gov continue to take away rights to Liberty little by little……NO! 

    Notice how many of these are mandates ,there is no right to mandate vaccinations, health insurance, high school drop out age, etc.  These are personal liberties and are to be protected by the government not taken away. 

    Of course testimony and hearings on these items will/have occur(ed) and waste money as they are a court appeal away from being tossed.  Look at Obamacare, the mandate will be declared unconstitutional and will get tossed, the program only works with the mandate in it.  Ergo, Congress spent a lot of time, money, and more importantly political blood that has rendered them useless since.  For what?  A program that is useless.  Nice job Obama.

    Now we got Mullin with his mandatory vaccination… get lost Mullin.  Obama wants mandatory age for drop outs, get lost Bacrockofshit.  Oh and Mr Doyle, when was 2 ounces become a small amount of weed?  For christ’s sake, you are either a serious doper, a seller, or stockpiling the green stuff for the winter if you need that much…

  2.  If your kid’s lack of a vaccination makes someone else sick, that’s an infringement.  If you choose not have health insurance and don’t pay the
    hospital when you get sick, they pass that on to me and that’s an
    infringement on me.  It’s been proven over and over that the more
    education a kid has, the less apt he is to end up in jail.  If your
    uneducated kid screws up and ends up in jail, we pay 60k a year to keep
    him there.  That’s an infringement. 

    You can’t just wave a flag and scream liberty.  Neither of those acts have an ounce of meaning.  They’re just symbols.

  3. Liberty is an “inalienable right”, not a symbol that is to be tossed aside on a what if’s.  If you don’t care about your rights then oddly… that is your right as it is the right of others to protect theirs. 

    By your logic, since you going grocery shopping when your sick could make me sick, that would be an infringement and anyone with a sniffle should be put on house arrest.

    By your logic, since medicare/medicaid/Green Mtn Health/ etc don’t pay the hospitols full amount and that remainder gets passed on to me that’s an infringement and those things are therefore bad.

    By your logic, a thug out causing trouble at 16 will somehow get their act together if they stay in schoold until they are 18 and will no longer be a trouble maker, they also won’t be disruptive in school and infringe on any other students right to an education.  Sounds good.

    Oh and since one of those other all important inalienable rights is the right to life, well heck that’s just symbolic too. 

    Sorry, but you have IMO a really warped sense of what our country is about and the principles it was founded upon.  I’m going to disagree with your assessment.  Wait is that a right or does that infringe on someone somehow.  No more free speech!! 

  4. I think all this jibber-jabber is meaningless.
    What we can all agree on is that our constitution (which IS our country,) has been murdered by two wars that have been saying their defending it.
    Our rights and constitutional law have now been eviscerated completely and they are not stopping there.
    They are paving the way for tyrannical leadership.
    Let’s fight for the constitution, that is our country and the only thing that protects us from this run-away ‘elite’ civilization.
    THAT is what being a real patriot is about, defending our constitution.  Thanks

  5. Jcarter, by his logic:

    contracting whooping cough = freedom from burdensome regulation

    Supreme court case not to be decided until 2013 = obvious, foregone conclusion

    2 oz weed = worse than 9/11

  6. contracting whooping cough = your choice, albiet a stupid one, but yours none the less.

    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
    they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
    life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights,
    governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
    consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes
    destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish
    it, and to institute new government”Not only does the government have no power or authority to take away your right to liberty, it is an action that authorizes the people of this country to abolish the government and institute a new one.  Its ok for a woman to choose to have an abortion, it’s ok for a person to choose to end their life, and yet it’s not ok for someone to choose to not vaccinate themselves or their children.  That’s just silly and absurd…par for the course for the government and especially the people of this nanny state. 

  7. Where is that written in the constitution? You’re quoting a colonial document with no legal authority.

  8. Besides the 5th and 9th amendment, you might have noted that unalienable rights are “endowed by their creator,” not by their government.  No legal authority needed, as that would require that the government controls those rights, which kinda goes against the whole unalienable part.  Moreover, federal courts have recognized the Declaration of Independence in case law, in particular the right to liberty. 

    Why are you afraid of letting people make their own choices? 

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