Northern New England hates southern New England, particularly Massachusetts (aka Taxachusetts) and the Boston area. The dislike between New Hampshire and Maine vs Boston is particularly strong because rich people in the Boston area tend to buy vacation homes in the former two, move their permanently when they want to retire and bring their politics with them.
Lumping part of New Hampshire in with Boston is like lumping Northern Ireland in with London. One side considers it a horrible insult and the other doesn't see why you wouldn't want to be associated with them.
Historically (like since the 1600s) southern New England has been a far more controlling and paternalistic society than Northern New England hence the north side of the MA/NH line being the "free" side.
In my experience, the only people in New England who call it "Taxachusetts" are the same people who would use the phrase "On the free side of the NH line."
MA doesn't even make the top 15 in terms of total state tax burden (property, income, sales).[0]
> Lumping part of New Hampshire in with Boston is like lumping Northern Ireland in with London. One side considers it a horrible insult and the other doesn't see why you wouldn't want to be associated with them.
For those reading who are not from the area, this is fun to imagine but not actually true.
The tension between Northern and Southern New England is less serious even than the Boston/New York "rivalry" which is notional and mostly confined to sports.
I'm from Maine originally and the only person I ever heard open their mouth to complain about "Taxachusetts" was...my dad, who moved away from there in a huff.
Are you from Portland? Outside of people who make their money off them (tourism industry), few North of Portland or substantially West of 95 hold the Massholes (hint: if that name offends you you're likely a Masshole, if you think it's a compliment of your driving ability you might be alright) in high regard.
> One side considers it a horrible insult and the other doesn't see why you wouldn't want to be associated with them.
It's worse than that. I've lived in Boston for 30 years and was unaware that this animosity even existed.
I have had many nice vacations in Northern New England and have friends, relatives and colleagues in NH and Vermont and I have yet to hear any serious anti-Boston sentiment uttered by any of these people (aside from their hatred of our traffic, which I share.)
> The dislike between New Hampshire and Maine vs Boston is particularly strong because rich people in the Boston area tend to buy vacation homes in the former two
eh. The animosity, particularly in the southern NH area, is due to gentrification in Massachusetts pushing "undesireables" into Nashua and Manchester.
Well the problem way many people in NH and ME see it is those "undesirables" want to vote for politicians who will turn NH and ME into MA with all it's traffic, crime and increasingly out of control cost of living.
Of course it's kind of hard to have this discussion here in particular because most of HN would be like "I don't see what the problem is, MA is fine" because HN really likes urbanization to the point of pretending the trade-offs don't exist.
Also, many would rather be slightly worse off economically and live under a slightly less authoritarian (in the dictionary sense of the word) and paternalistic government/society than the reverse.
I've lived in all three of the states in question here. It's not just the guns and the fireworks. It's really hard to explain without using imprecise and loaded words (specifically "socialist" and "individualist") or making sweeping generalizations but there's just something about society in NH and ME that's much more permissive of basically whatever an individual wants to do and nicer to people whereas in MA everyone expects everyone to step in line and act however the "right" way to act is. This difference seems to be reflected in all levels of government (government is of course made up of individuals who have personal beliefs and biases). It's also hard to over-state how much nicer people are in the rural parts of NH and ME than they are in MA.
I'd also say that the government in MA gets in everyone's way whereas in NH and ME it stays out of people's way. When I spend over an hour on public transit in MA daily and the regulars I ride with are always complaining about government (state and local). They're complaining about "the MBTA did bad thing W", "some other department did bad thing X", "the state cops are covering for their buddies doing bad thing Y", we pay all these taxes and they can't even get Z done"
That stuff is just not even a consideration in NH and ME. Then the government isn't a source of problems for people in those states. It probably sounds like I'm over-focusing but it really creeps into every aspect of your life.
And FWIW the economic argument isn't gonna resonate with me. I'm probably gonna take a huge pay cut in a few years to move to one of those places and I have in-laws who moved from MA to upstate VT because "being poor sucks less in BFE Vermont than it does in southeast MA." (I'm paraphrasing).
A lot of this is the difference between urban and rural and not the states in themselves but northern New England is much more rural than southern New England and it shows at the state level so it's effectively differences between states because you can't get the NH experience by moving somewhere rural in MA (lol, tried that).
I guess if you just want to live in a typical apartment, work a typical job, live in a typical house, pursue typical and unobtrusive hobbies, raise a typical middle of the road family, etc MA is fine but if you're gonna deviate from the norms you'll get whacked hard by society there (tall nail gets the hammer, or so the phrase goes) and would probably be better off in NH. For example, the fact that the free-staters, specifically the more extreme ones in Keene who sometimes don't register their vehicles and generally thumb their nose at authority at every opportunity continue to exist (and not behind bars) shows how tolerant NH is.
I know I'm going on a rant here but this is an internet comment, not a medium post.
So, can you give a definition of a non-typical and obtrusive hobby where MA would exercise prior restraint? Given that MA is made up of 352 municipalities (all of whom hate each other), and no significant county government, I'm finding it difficult to understand the statewide prohibitions (with the noted exception of fireworks) that you find limiting.
Also, as I'm sure you know, while MA gun laws are statewide, issuance is done by the local police department, which means that you don't even have to get outside of I-95/MA-128 to find a "shall issue" town.
