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October 26, 2024 44 mins

Today Vermont is known for its progressive politics, beautiful forestry, Bernie Sanders and Ben and Jerry's. It's not a state you'll hear much about outside of the US and, for many Vermont natives, that's just fine. But once upon a time, Vermont was a very different place -- in fact, for a number of years, it was an independent Republic. How did this come about? How did it become part of the modern United States? Tune in to find out.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, have you ever been to Vermont?

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I have not been to Vermont, but I do like
Ben and Jerry's. I know that's so cliche everybody, So
I think anybody know we're fishes from I think, right,
our fish from Vermont.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah. Also famous for stunning a tumnal foliage. Sure, people
say they drive to Vermont and lovely level headed people apparently. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
And Bernie Sanders, right, he's a Vermont.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Bernie Sanders, Yeah. Most famous as being a cousin of
Larry David's. He did some other stuff. I didn't want
to catch up with him.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
But make some memes. If I'm not.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Mistaken, he did some memes. He's got some mittens. Yeah,
but he's got a long and very career, and he
is a Vermont guy. And once upon a time, as
I believe you and I were both surprised to find,
Vermont was not a state. But it was an independent republic.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
That's right as sure was, and we're gonna hear all
about it on this classic episode of Ridiculous History.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, Hello, Hello, welcome,

(01:33):
and thank you for lending your ears. Ridiculous Historians like
to begin today's episode with an excellent trivia question. I
think this will work. Know you're a fan of trivia.
I'm a huge fan of trivia. Hit me Ben, all right,
Oh yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I bet you know.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
I forget that part sometimes accomplished it. Yeah. So here's
the trivia. Which US states were once upon a time
independent countries of their own countries. You say, well countries.
There's the Kingdom of Hawaii. Oh okay, there's the California Republic.

(02:08):
There's Texas as well, which is still very proud of
that period in their history.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
May they're trying to turn back the clock in fact.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
And there's one that might surprise many people, and that
is Vermont.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Vermont. You say, home of Ben and Jerry's Bernie Sanders.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Bernie Sanders fish.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Trees, right, I think Fish is from Vermont band Fish.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
I thought we were just now naming things.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Hey Fish, you know a famous Jimmy jam Newdley guitar guys.
Apparently they got together at the University of Vermont in Burlington.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I can see that meeting. No, maybe they said, you
know what I hate when songs are less than twenty
minutes long.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
No, man, it's funny too. Because like, the people that
are really into that band are like, dude, did you
hear that one show they played like the longest ever
version of slippy Dip. Yeah, that's a fish song I
just made up.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's up there with poblem quat
mm hmm yep, I think it's off there. That's a
concept album. Yeah, only only real music heads. Well we'll
get that reference fish heads. Yeah, only real fish heads,
real music of fishionados like our man on the Ones
and twos Ladies and gentleman super producer Casey Pegram. No,

(03:22):
have you ever been to Vermont?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
No? But it seems glorious and it's I mean beautiful.
It's very green, and it just seems kind of like
a bit of a of a liberal paradise, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
It's often portrayed that way. It's also very popular with
nature lovers, as long as you don't mind a little cold.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh okay.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah. And one other fun trivia fact that I don't
know will either fascinate you in a weird way the
way it did me, or just seem completely irrelevant unless
you're playing a game of trivia, is the following of
all the US state capitals. The capital of Vermont, Montpellier,
is the only one in the nation to not have

(04:02):
a McDonald's.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Oh, I think you mean Montpier, Casey Montpelier, Ah, and
that is Casey on the Case, crushing me. Well.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
The interesting thing here is that for most of us
in the modern day, whether in the US or abroad,
you know, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of
people outside of the US haven't really heard much about Vermont.
It's not one of those states like New York or
California that seems to be in the news every single day.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
No, No, it's definitely not. Because it feels like there's
sort of a little enclave, a little island in the stream,
sort of an oasis. Right, Yeah, because not only just Montpiier, Huh,
not bad, Okay, Casey on the Case not having McDonald's.
In fact, in all of Vermont billboards, my friend, yeah,

(04:53):
you're not gonna find a one unless they're hand painted,
because they are outlawed. They are verboten.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Hand painted, and I think showing the way to downtown
or something like that. It's pretty specific.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
But we're not here to just list off trivia facts
about Vermont, which you can find at fifty States dot com,
slash factslash Vermont dot htm. By the way, if you
want to read some more of these.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, Instead, we are here to explore the story of
Vermont's history, whereas some people called it once upon a
time new Connecticut, new Connecticut, new Connecticut.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
I like Vermont better.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
I like Vermont too. I'm a little I don't know.
Every time I read something about a region or a
state named new something, I always think, surely there was
out of all the sounds a human mouth can make,
surely you could have made something that wasn't new.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Total blah blah blah. It's like you know when you
have a Chinese restaurant where it's like Mingwa too, or
like new New Mingwa. Right right, let's just come on.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Or we're both pretty big Mitchell and weblook fans also
Peep Show. They've got this great running sketch that addresses how,
at least in their opinion, how newly colonized places acquired
these strange names, like New South Wales. It's a pretty
weird name for Australia, you know, or the Australian Well.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
And I'm confused because we're going to talk about you know,
before people shred us apart for not getting to the
damn point. We are going to talk about the history
of Vermont and where it came from. But I am
confused about Connecticut because Vermont's not even not near Connecticut.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well yeah, no, no, it's it's the new Connecticut.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
I just it's like New Coke's. It's confused, I know,
I know. But here's the thing. Back in the day,
in the olden days, just before the American Revolution, in fact,
when we were still colonies of Mother England, there were
land grants given out, or the privilege of granting settlers

(06:58):
parcels of land. Yeah, and those were at the best
of the rulers, I guess, or was there maybe there's
the baron I don't know. Of established colonies.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Right, the colonial government structure. There you go, New York
being one of them and New Hampshire being another, New
Hampshire being another. So there was this thing called the
New Hampshire land Grants, and of that what became modern
day Vermont was included. But there was a problem, Ben

(07:32):
because it was like New York was giving out land
willy nilly, yep, and New Hampshire was giving out land
Willy nilly, and they were giving out the same land,
same land. They were double bookings, so crossover. Yes. So
let's say you want to settle in what would later
become known as Vermont, and you go to the designated

(07:54):
place that you have been granted, right, and you find
that there's already someone living, and they think, well, hey, buddy,
what gifts? What's your beef? You know, why are you
why are you beefing up with me? I also have
this land grant And they go, well, I have one
from New York. Well I have one from New Hampshire.
Not not a good look.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
No, and then what do they just duke it out? Right?
So this is this is a recipe for chaos, my friend.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
So what happens next? Oh?

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, can we talk about the Green Mountain Boys?

Speaker 1 (08:25):
I would love to talk about the Green Mountain Boys
and Ethan Allen their leader.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, not to be confused with the U, the furniture proprietaire, right, right,
Maybe it is the same. Is it the same?

Speaker 1 (08:38):
We'll have to find out. I don't buy a lot
of Ethan Allen furniture.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
I don't buy all my furniture is from Eka.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yes, that's the correct pronunciation. So the Green Mountain Boys
were a militia that was first established in the seventeen
sixties in the territory between New York and New Hampshire.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
They were an unofficial militia too, or an un sanctioned militia,
which I kind of always when I hear them the
word militia, I always kind of think it's people deciding
we're gonna, you know, join forces and become a little
mini army.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Right.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
It never seems like they're particularly sanctioned. But I guess
that's not true.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
That's not true in every case. It's just in the
US nowadays. Usually when we hear the term militia, we
think of separatist forces in the US.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Right there you go.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
So at this time, as Revolutionary War is kicking into
full steam, it's all hands on deck if you want
to fight the British, the colonial powers are not going
to say no to you. And the Green Mountain Boys
make a name for themselves during the war.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
They do, I mean their their primary goal was to
defend these folks who received land grants from New Hampshire
against the ones that got them from New York, who
they referred to as the Yorkies or the Yorkers. I
think it's Yorkies a little more like a term of abuse.
I'm going with Yorkies. Let's go come at me, Internet,

(10:00):
Let's go with.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yorkies, because Yorkers, you know, it just sounds like the
term for the people from York. We're talking about New
York exactly.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
But that was their thing.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
So the Green Mountain Boys formed, as as you said,
Noel to protect people in New Hampshire grants. They also
performed pretty well in the Revolutionary War, most notably when
they captured Fort Taekwonderoga on May tenth of seventeen seventy five,

(10:30):
and then later also they invaded Canada. Technically, or more specifically,
they briefly held Saint John's in Quebec, but then when
they heard the British Regulars British military was coming.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
They dipped.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
And they later became Oh you know what, I've got
to interrupt, Casey is going to kill us if we
don't mention the etymology of Green Mountain.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Oh it's true. Well, there's a couple things here. The
Green Mountain Boys took their name because they were protecting
folks who had these disputed land grants right, they received
it from New Hampshire, but New York said that New
Hampshire had no rights to lands west of the Green Mountains.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
And so the Green Mountain.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Boys, the Green Mountain Boys, and also.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Vermont itself is a mispronunciation or mistranslation of a French word.
And I propose that we consult our own Francophone ladies
and gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Is Casey on the.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Case, Yeah, so Vermont would be from the French vere
for green and Mont for mountain so Vermont. But the
syntax is kind of done in the English style, and
French you would say montvere, whereas in English we put
the adjective before the mountains so Vermont.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Ladies and gentlemen, Casey on the case, I'm so glad
he's here. He's the best son to miss him.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Oh that's right. Should we announce I guess we should.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Well, let's go.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, let's let's not our our close close friend. One
of the best parts of the show casey Pegram will
be embarking on a grand adventure very soon. He will return,
but we're gonna miss him.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, but we've we've kind of twisted his arm off.
Mike in the hopes that he will send us some
sweet audio postcards from Franz.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
That's right, that's right. He is traveling back to France
for a while.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
So the Green Mountain Boys, they were kind of terrorists
in a lot of ways, at least insomuch as they
terrorized these settlers who had the grants of land from
New York.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
They apparently like would cattle russell, and they even were
known for beating the crap out of people with birch rods.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, and it goes back to this idea of them
being kind of, I don't want to say knuckleheads, but
very much acting in their own interests rather than some
greater ideology of what we would call the United States.
And in seventeen seventy seven they established their independence, but
they didn't partner up with New York. Did partner up

(13:15):
with New Hampshire, No, sir. They became their own republic,
with their own currency, their own flag, and the Green
Mountain Boys, which still active, became just one of a
number of what we would call irregulars. Because Vermont initially
supported the Revolutionary War, they fought against Quebec, but in

(13:39):
seventeen seventy seven they got more of a neutral stance,
and deserters from the colonial armies as well as the
British armies would go to Vermont, and George Washington was
asked by Congress to go in and subdue Vermont, take

(14:01):
take possession of it.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
I seem pretty subdued to me already.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah. Around the same time, some members of the Green
Mountain Boys, not all of them, started having secret talks
with British officials in Quebec to say like, hey, do
you want to take over.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Let's boo up, let's boo up. Yeah, but that didn't
work out because Quebec wanted to see how this whole
revolution thing was gonna shake out.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
That's right, and you know you would we could argue that.
Fortunately for US as a nation, Vermont stayed a part
of the United States, but not yet, not yet, because
it's seventeen seventy seven, so they're still independent. For a
few years.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
They had their own constitution even.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, adopted off the one Benjamin Franklin wrote for Pennsylvania exactly.
And this constitution was very progressive for its time and
forward facing. It had some guarantees that the rest of
the United States had not legislated.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, and you know now, and we talk about this,
this seems like duh, but that all men men could vote,
even if they weren't property owners. And they also were
very progressive in that they outlawed adult slavery, and I
always see that, does that mean child slavery was still okay?

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Right, Yeah, that's a troubling caveat. But still they were
outlawing slavery in some form.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
That's more than we can say for the rest of
the country.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
That is true. When they were voting on this constitution,
it was described as a baptism of thunder lightning and
rain because the weather was really bad and they got
stuck inside. And let's let's talk about a few of
the things they did once they became an independent republic.
We said they had their own flag. What else did

(15:41):
they They also had their own currency, which was called
Vermont coppers. Sounds very British to me. They were made,
of course in Vermont. Vermont also operated a postal system,
that's right, grew their own food, they had their own roads.

(16:02):
They were ready to go it alone, but they were
still they were still in conflict with New York.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, oh, big time, because I mean New York was
pretty sore about them having just kind of boguarded those
land grants that they felt like they had the rights
to and those pesky green Mountain boys whipping their folks
with their birch rods. That wasn't gonna.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Fly, right, Yeah, And eventually it comes down to a
matter of negotiations.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Right.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
So, for around fourteen years, Vermont is this tremendous anomaly
in the northeastern part of what would later become known
as the United States, and they were still they were
still in conflict with New York in an unsustainable situation.
But things began to get back on the rails, back

(16:56):
on track in March of seventeen ninety when New York
and Vermont cracked a deal.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Well, this is when the Revolution had come to an end, right, Yeah,
and territories or colonies were being made into states. And
I guess because of the contentious nature of their relationship
during the Wild West period that was the Revolutionary War,
new York and Vermont had to come to terms before

(17:22):
New York would consent to Vermont being made a state.
Not that it was entirely up to them, but they
certainly were making a stink about it, right, And tell me,
they give me the deals here.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
So it's that same boundary dispute that was dogging them
for so long. The fact that the Green Mountain Boys
were operating as a de facto government meant that they
were also part of the negotiation process here. And so
New York and Vermont got together. They had a group
of people representing the New York side of the argument

(17:53):
and group representing the Vermont side, and they said, we
are going to negotiate the boundary. We need to know
where New York stops and Vermont begins. The folks negotiating
on Vermont's side said, we also have to settle these
real estate disputes. We cannot leave those to be decided
by a larger Courtlet's one on one figure this out.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
It seems smart, I seem acquitable.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, because there's so many more variables that could happen
if it goes into a federal court.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
What a nasty situation. I mean, it seems like the
New Hampshire grant recipients having these rabble rousing Green Mountain
Boys on their side certainly helped them out during the time.
But think about it from New York's perspective. I mean,
what did they do wrong. They had the same claim
as New Hampshire did as far as they were concerned.
And you know, they probably felt a little rightfully sore

(18:45):
about the whole situation, physically sore from their bottoms and
being hit with switches.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
And fiscally sore on their bank accounts or their purses.
You know, they're sacks of coppers. Sure, so they eventually,
thank goodness, crack a deal. And on October seventh of
seventeen ninety, they announced as a group that the negotiations
are done and it's a success. And the bottom line

(19:13):
is that the Green Mountain people are going to be
able to keep the land grants that were issued the
land that was issued to them via New Hampshire, and
the New Yorkers are not going to get these New
York patents, the Yorkies. The Yorkies are not receiving this. Instead,
Vermont is going to pay thirty thousand dollars to New York.

(19:34):
Thirty thousand dollars in seventeen ninety will inflate in a second,
and this will be distributed amidst the Yorkies, New York
residents who you know, rightfully feel like they got their
land stolen, and thirty thousand dollars in seventeen ninety is
a big number, but it's not as surprising as I

(19:55):
would have assumed. Thirty thousand dollars in seventeen ninety is
seven hundre undred and ninety thousand dollars approximately in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Okay, not that impressive, Not that impress It seems like
a pretty good deal, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Honestly it does because that's an entire state, you know
what I mean. Oh yeah, that's a great deal. You
can't go buy a state for a million dollars today,
just the district, yep. And so eventually Vermont is admitted
to the Union in seventeen ninety one. It's interesting because

(20:29):
it's the only state admitted without conditions of any kind,
either those prescribed by Congress or the state from which
was carved other than the thirty k, Other than that
thirty large Yeah, thirty was thirty juligans, thirty thousand hooligans.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Or thirty thousand biscuits.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yes, yes, they're jeb jams or pony boonts. What are
we talking about. We'll get to it in a second,
but for now, it's important to note that part of
the reason Vermont was accepted to the Union was to
be a free state counterweight to the slave state Kentucky.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Oof.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Indeed, so this would be this would appear to be
the short lived tale of Vermont's career as an independent republic.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
But wait, he said, there's more right right.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
You see, many philosophers will tell you that time itself
is a series of wheels, And in our modern day, folks,
it seems that the wheel has turned again.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
In around two thousand and three, a movement became a foot. Yes, yes,
that is correct.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Nol, professor emeritus of economics at Duke University. A fellow
named Thomas H. Naylor founded the Second Vermont Republic movement,
and he argued that the US has become an ungovernable empire,
much like the former Soviet Union, and Naylor's description of

(21:59):
this Second Vermont Republic is a nonviolent citizens network and
think tank opposed to the tyranny of corporate America and
the US government and committed to the return of Vermont
to its status as an independent republic as it had
been between seventeen seventy seven and seventeen ninety one. He
calls himself Naylor describes himself as a left leaning libertarian

(22:20):
with strong anarchist tendencies.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Okay, there you have it.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Not pulling mini punches.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
No, none punches. And in fact, this movement has a manifesto.
And in the manifesto they quote Thomas Jefferson himself, and
it's really hard to argue with this. The words of
the founding father quote, whenever any form of government becomes destructive,
it is the right of the people to alter or
to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its

(22:46):
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such
form as to them shall seem most likely to affect
their safety and happiness. And here's the thing. They have
a list of demands in this manifesto that they want
to achieve. Shall we go through them? Ben sure. First,
we find it increasingly difficult to protect ourselves from the
debilitating effects of big government, big business, big markets, and

(23:08):
big agriculture, who want all of us to be the
same and to love bigness as much as they do.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Second, in addition to being too big, our government is
too centralized, too powerful, too intrusive, to materialistic, and too
unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and small communities.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Third, the US government has lost its moral authority because
it has owned, operated, and controlled by Corporate America. National
and congressional elections are bought and sold to the highest bidders.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Fourth, we have a single political party, the Republican Party,
disguised as a two party system. The Democratic Party is
effectively brain dead, having no new ideas since the nineteen sixty.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Is that e Vermond accent?

Speaker 1 (23:46):
No, I'm just I wanted to sound like a bunch
of people reading it.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Oh cool, I'm going to be the one kind of
angry semi guy. Fifth, we have become disillusioned with the
so called American way, corporate greed, the war on terrorism,
homeland security, the denial of civil liberty, pandering to the
rich and powerful, environmental insensitivity, and the culture of deceit.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Sixth, the American foreign policy, which is based on the
doctrine of full spectrum dominance, is moral, illegal, unconstitutional, and
in violation of the United Nations Charter.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
I was like an old man there. Yeah. Seventh, as
long as Vermont remains in the Union, we face the
risk of terrorist attack and military conscription of our youth.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Eight The US suffers from imperial overstretch and has become
unsustainable politically, economically, agriculturally, socially, culturally, and environmentally. It has
become both ungovernable and unfixable.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
And that's where we get to the Jefferson quote. All
of this stuff is in response to the actual constitution
of the United States giving us an out in the
event that these things come to pass, as the founders
of this movement seem to think they have.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
And you can find information about this on multiple websites
by several different authors, and they will make numerous arguments
about I guess Vermont's capacity to be independent or to
grow its own food, monitors population, and a lot of
the arguments that you'll see extended here are very progressive

(25:13):
considering what the rest of the US is doing, oh
big time.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
And you know, there was a sense that this movement
kind of faded a little bit from the public eye
and from any you know, semblance of ever possibly coming
to fruition. But with our current president, who you know,
many folks of this kind of left leaning ideology have
some real serious beef with there's a sense that who knows,

(25:38):
you know, maybe this could happen because in an article
from Seven Days Vermont's Independent Voice entitled if at first
you don't see Trump could revitalize Vermont movement. There's a
lot of discussion around the kind of resurgence of this movement.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, absolutely, that's They mentioned the Vermont Manifesto that we've
talked about. They they have an argument of unsustainability right
on the part of what they would call the American Empire.
It's too large, it's too damaging to the people who
are governed by this, and a lot of their claims.

(26:17):
One of the claims that really stuck out to me
in this one is they talked a little bit about
framing it. They said, you know, if you don't call
it secession, if you don't call it separatism, if you
don't call it secession and focus instead on values, ninety
percent of Vermontors will support you. And so the idea
there is that the residents of Vermont already feel that

(26:39):
they are kind of separate.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
What does it take ben to secede.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
It's a rough one because you know, at numerous times,
especially in you know, in the formation of the country,
and sometimes in recent years, various groups of people have
decided that they are a sovereign state. There was one
here in Georgia a number of years ago, called the
Sovereign State of Georgia. There were more in the south,

(27:06):
the creative, very creative burst of creativity. They had their
own licenses, they had their own license plates and stuff,
and they were making their own currency, and they, like
several other separatist groups, believed that they could become a
sovereign nation just by claiming it and putting a sign
up so that I have signs if the law if

(27:28):
law enforcement officials came to their area, there would be
a sign that was like, this is not us property,
this is the sovereign State of Georgia. Foreign seems misinformed.
It's a little misinformed. No foreign powers are allowed on
this spoiler alert. It never stopped the cops or the

(27:50):
FBI or.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Anything because of what would happened, right, What happened like
if we decided, you know, with the support of our
entire state here in Georgia, that we were going to
secede and we manage to that would require us establishing
militias I imagine, right, yeah, and becoming completely self sustaining
and independent where we could be cut off entirely from
any government assistance. Or any aid from the federal governments.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Yeah, here's why it's tricky. Right now, the US Supreme
Court considers what they call unilateral secession unconstitutional. So if
everybody in Vermont, just by themselves, only the state of Vermont,
decided we're not part of this crazy continental house party.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Get me off this crazy thing. That was great George Jetson, Yeah,
called love.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
That was so I married an ex murderer.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Also good.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
I was pretty good. It was surprisingly good. Not that
not my impression, but the film anyway. Because of a
case called Texas versus White, the Supreme Court says that
states can't succeed secede rather on their own. However, a
if they get the agreement of other states constitutionally, it
could be possible, like if one state wants to succeee,

(29:06):
if Oklahoma, for some reason says we've had it even
though we're surrounded by other states, we want to do
our own thing, and the other forty nine states are
all like totally, man, it's it's just been weird for
a while and we're, you know.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Ready for a change.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
We could still be friends. Then it could be possible
if all the states agree that's never going to happen unlikely,
That is highly unlikely.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
It would have to be like a perfect storm of
things falling in place, like I don't know, I don't
There's really no mechanism to do it other than like
pure revolt. Right, isn't that kind of what it would
be considered? Being an open revolt?

Speaker 1 (29:48):
Right, it would be, and if it were again unilateral,
But that's that's the case for a reason, because countries
don't typically countries or groups of states don't tip bacon
that kind of secession. A lot of people will also
say that the Second Vermont movement, Vermont independence movement, has

(30:10):
been empowered by Brexit, the process through which the UK
is leaving the European Union.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
And that was a parliamentary procedure. I mean, that was
an official vote, part of their democracy, right.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, that was, and that's something that EU member states
can do if they want. But now they have a
portmanteau for the Second Vermont thing that is not super groundbreaking,
but I love it. It's fun to say vexit.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
I was going to say verm exit.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Vermes is. This sounds like a pesticide.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
I'm into it, ver mexit.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
But I wanted to ask you you know, do you
think that this is a good idea? Do you think
it's likely? I think it could happen.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
It seems a little self defeating to me. I don't know,
are there any evenmntors out there that that are are
down with this cause that know a little bit more
like on the ground info about the plan here. I'm
interested because I really don't understand how it would functionally happen.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
And I see where they're coming from with a lot
of the arguments. You know, they have problems with overarching
corporate governance. I hear that, right, you know. It's it's
not like they're making some crazy claim like we were
going to be an independent state with no Welsh residents
or something.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
No, No, it's it's I mean, it's it's weird because
it's like we they want to be separate, but it's
very it's it's it's all about inclusion. It's weird. It's
it's not like we're saying get out, it's saying we
don't want to come in. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, it's it's a sticky situation. But I think that
you found the perfect way for us to end or
the perfect question for us to end this on if
you are from Vermont, if you were familiar with the place,
let us know about your experience, and let us know
if you support this, because, as we have often said,
you are the most important part of the show. We

(32:10):
want to hear about you, and we're putting our money
where our mic is. I guess we should do a
listener mail.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
I think we should, all right, Our first listener mail
is this sort of a heavy one. We got an email,
got two emails about the episode we did on banned
books banned science books. Yea one of them. The subject
was nol. I was bummed. And here's how it goes. Hi, gentlemen.
First of all, a huge fan of stuff that I

(32:44):
want you to know and ridiculous history. I had a
whole spiel in mind to counterpoint your dismissal of fruitcake,
but I was in the middle of a long walk.
I homeschool reluctant an anxious twelve year old and play
your podcast in the car to keep the learning going strong.
That's awesome, it's very cool, and I just thought this
was the most thoughtful, sweet, intelligent email that we've gotten
in a minute. But I was bummed to see that

(33:06):
it was about a feeling of being disrespected, and that
is never what we want to do on this show.
So I'm just going to give you the broad shokes here.
I just listened to three times society refused to accept
band books and Noel, I'm such a fan of your
whole personality and Ben's and Matt's great things happening, but
I was disappointed in the way you handled some things
on that episode. I'm paraphrasing just a little bit. She goes,

(33:29):
Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I submit that scorning people
who hold their deep and personal faith a notch above
the theory of evolution is becoming outmoded. When I lived
on a street with several Hindu families last year, they
had days set aside for sweeping the demons out of
their homes right into the street, I must assume, and
they kept images of terrifying faces over their front doors.
This was the Dallas suburbs, USA, where we are free

(33:50):
to practice our faith in hopefully a respectful environment. I
know I respected my Hindu neighbors, though our beliefs differed.
I'm a human being who deeply believes in God loves
my family, writes useless pop songs, drinks whiskey, smokes when angry,
and embroiders nonsense. Teaches my child at home with such
resources as Candy Freak by Steve Allmond, your wonderful podcast,
and Yes, the Bible. I married my husband in part

(34:13):
for his vast record collection. Evolution, I don't know for sure,
nor do I sweat it. God can do anything he wants,
including making cryptids just to hide them for fun. It's
a big world out there, don't forget. No need to
assume everyone listening is just like you. And faith is
so personal and so dear to people. Stay away from
scorn and dismissiveness. They, unlike the decision not to worship evolution,

(34:33):
are for the young and uninformed. I love you too much, amys.
So this specifically mentioning something that I said, and I
feel like I took a bit of a tone in
that episode that I regret. I don't step back from
my opinion, but I realize that it does seem like
maybe it came across as I was criticizing Christianity, and

(34:56):
I think the reason that I may have taken that
tone because I grew up Christian and my relationship with
Christianity is complicated, just like everyone's relationship with their faith
can be complicated. And I think there's a sense of
it being on my turf and in my personal worldview,
So maybe I felt a little quicker to get snarky

(35:18):
about it. And I also didn't mean to equate directly
the idea of not believing in evolution with being and
somehow ignorant or uninformed.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
You know, there was I remember distinctly there was a
moment in that podcast where we talked about some Anglicans,
Anglican individuals and organizations who did not feel that what
Charles Darwin was writing about was contradictory or insulting to
their faith. And one thing that you and I have

(35:52):
always taken pains with, not just on this show, but
any show in our house of Works network. One thing
you and I have always taken things to do is
to you know, mention that faith is an intensely personal thing,
and it's very important to us as as a unit
not to tell you what to believe if it comes

(36:15):
to you know your spiritual values.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Absolutely, it's something that we hold very dear and personally
important to be as inclusive as possible when it comes
to all faiths. And I think in this particular situation,
my tone sort of betrayed my intention because of that
complicated relationship I have with the Christian faith.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
In like your own personal life.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
In my own personal life, I mean, I grew up
in the Methodist Church and had was surrounded by people
who I think I felt were a little bit judgmental
and were not willing to see both sides of an argument.
And maybe we're too willing to take everything in the
Bible that face value rather than seeing things Some things

(37:01):
in the Bible is an allegory or some kind of
descriptive story to help understand things like epics and time.
And I don't know, how do you see it, Ben Well.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
I think first off, first off, as as longtime listeners know,
you and I are old friends outside of work too,
and I can assure everyone listening that you're not Noel
Brown is not a mean person, nor the type to
You're not a guy who mocks things that are you know,

(37:34):
I don't think you ever come from a mean spirited
place at all. And additionally, you know, we just have
to return to the same point. We fundamentally do not
believe in nor do we practice telling people what spiritual
paths that they should take they are your own.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Here's the thing too, and then we'll leave it. The
nature of the show. Obviously, it's a conversation between Ben,
you and me, but it's also a conversation with the
audience that they are not able to directly participate in
at the moment. Even though my favorite podcast, I feel
like I'm part of the conversation and I'm listening to
people have a conversation that I am kind of vicariously experiencing.

(38:18):
If I were to hang out with Amy Z and
have this conversation and express my opinions on evolution as
they pertain to faith, et cetera, there would be a
dialogue going on, as opposed to I think an interpretation
that I was being intentionally condescending, where I think in
a real conversation over dinner or drinks, that would be

(38:39):
clearly not the You would see that that was not
the case.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, that's a great point. And also, Amy, thank you
so very much for writing very much a beautifully written letter.
And don't know if you still live in Dallas, but
if you do, say hey to the town for me.
I've got some folks that live in Dallas librarians, A
lot of librarians in my family.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
No, I did not know that about you.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Ben. Well, yeah, it's it's a true story. We do
have to have one more letter that made us laugh outloud,
and I feel like we have to read this one
because we totally did an inside joke with ourselves about
it earlier in the episode. It was a little sneak peak,
So here here we go. Trey H writes in with

(39:23):
an email entitled other terms for money. Hey, dude, says Trey,
longtime listener of stuff they'll want you to know and relatively
new listener of ridiculous history. I'm loving the podcast.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Keep it up.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
He sent us a thumbs up emoji, so you know
it's legit. Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you
about your episode what's the deal with two dollars bills?
You guys mentioned something along the lines of how you
can almost replace the words money or dollars with just
about anything and people will probably still know what you're
talking about. I found that hilarious and decided to try
it out on some of my friends. Long story short,

(39:54):
I'm buying some old records from a buddy of mine
for forty dollars. So during our conversation over Snapchat, I
tried this out twice. I referred to the forty dollars
as forty biscuits and forty hooligans, and in both cases
my friend just rolled with it, the same as any
other normal conversation we would have. I'll probably continue this
and try it out on other people as well, because

(40:15):
it's a lot of fun. I'll email you again if
I get any funny instances. Once again, thank you keep
up the good work on the podcast. You know pony Bones, Yeah,
Jim Jam's biscuits. I would love to hear more of these.
I think that we should start. I mean I've already started.
I'll confess to you, I've already started doing this in
daily life.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Do you have a running list?

Speaker 1 (40:37):
I have some that worked. The one of the weirdest
ones I pulled off this week was.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Peppadu's That's amazing. People will just agree with it, and
I think I heard Casey it was an audible laugh
from outside the sweatbox.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
And we have encountered numerous instances of this. So wanted
to say thank you Trey for writing to us and
hopefully you're inspiring your fellow listeners to find some more
to see how far you can push it. You know,
I think shorter words are probably better, nol. I don't
think either of us could get away with a sentence
length slang.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
No, but something like scallywag might be cool. There we go. Yeah, yeah,
but definitely not. Hey man, where's my five newmono ultra
microscopic silico val Canaconiosis's Yeah, yeah, they would say, is
that a medical condition or something like that? It's a
black lung disease.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Is that really?

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Wow? Yeah, I learned that that's something that's the one
thing that stuck with me for middle school.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Well done, well done, So we are going to call
it a day. We want to thank you very very much, Amy,
thank you Trey as well. Thanks to everybody who's been
writing it and finding us on Instagram, on Facebook, via email,
ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com, the other things we do.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, help me out here, Yeah yeah, still workshopping away
at that Pinterest board. But we do have an active
Facebook group called the Ridiculous Histories. You can be a
part of it. It's it's really become a fun little
little community. We pop in there and you know, post
embarrassing pictures and videos of ourselves for your amusement. You sickos.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Right right, and we encourage you to participate in some
of the wonderful threads or fellow listeners have started.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
I'm sorry I called. I think you're lovely people. I don't,
I mean, Noel.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
The time continues on. Who knows by the time someone's
listening to this few years from now, Sickos may be
like a tremendous compliment. Yeah, it also makes fools of
us all times, time, time after time.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
It's also never time at all.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yes, but it is time for us to end the show.
We hope that you have enjoyed this look at the
strange story of Vermont, and we hope you stay tuned
for our next episode, examining some rituals from ancient Mayan culture.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Rituals, you say, are you referring to ritual alcohol animas
my friends?

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, yep, Actually we're not joking.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
We're gonna do that a whole episode.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
We're gonna do something with it.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Good lord, I can't wait.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
I'm interested to see what it works out too, But
do tune in see if we can if we can.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Pull that one off and butt chugging. I heard about it.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
I read something about butt chugging recently.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, there was a frat, a whole kerfuffle where these
frat guys were doing a thing called butt chugging, where
they kind of give themselves their own ritual alcohol enemas
right like they Yeah, yeah is the name says it all,
and apparently it gets you quite tipsy.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
So join us for what is sure to be the
classiest episode of ridiculous History in our career, Classier.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Than the LBJ episode, even even.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
Classier than LBJ, if you can believe it or not.
We'd like to thank Casey Pagrim of course bid him
bon voyage as he is preparing to leave, yeah, on
this trip and on his adventure, Yes, I dare say.
And we'd also like to think, of course Alex Williams.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
And Christopher haciotis our researcher extraordinary. And of course we'd
like to thank you.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Folks, Yes, thank you so much for monsters and non
vermonters alike.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Sure, yeah, and we hope that we'll see you again
very soon on another episode of Ridiculous History.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
Goodbye.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Noel Brown

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