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Liberal Place: Brattleboro, VT
These are comments on Brattleboro, submitted by other Turn Left visitors. They do not necessarily represent the opinion of the webmaster. You may add a comment on Brattleboro if you want.
This charming, laid-back environmentally-conscious town in Southern Vermont was a nice place to visit. When I went to a writer's convention there at the local high school a couple of years ago, I could sense the value they placed on education and intellectual achievement. It boasts an excellent public school system with low crime and drug-abuse rates. The town is proud of its AIDS/HIV program aimed at helping people and their families suffering from AIDS. While Brattleboro of course has churches of many faiths, it appears, based on their website, that they are most proud of the local Unitarian Universalist church (one of the world's preeminent liberal religious faiths), as it is the only one listed on the site. Here's a city that has real "family values": Where parents teach their kids to be wise, thoughtful, mature and tolerant. The school charter bars students from discrimination on many counts including, daringly, sexual orientation. I'd be proud to raise a kid here.

...and another comment...

Brattleboro (and the rest of Vermont as well) has a well-deserved reputation for being a place that's tolerant and liberal-minded. Having lived in the Brattleboro area for the last eight years, I can attest to that. Many of the back-to-the-landers came here in the 1960s to set up their communes. Ray Mungo's Total Loss Farm is not far from here in Guilford. These people stuck around and are now actively involved in the community.

The Common Ground is one of New England's most celebrated vegetarian restaurants and Everyone's Books is a top-notch progressive bookstore. The downtown is a nice mix of old and new, where you can get a bag of nails as easily as you can get crystals and fresh squeezed carrot juice. It is a politically active place, one of the few towns in America that actively opposed the Persian Gulf War and is home to all kinds of progressive groups. If you're going to be a liberal, Vermont is the safest place in America to be.

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