It’s apparently the time of year again when well-off white conservatives sell their expensive homes and feel compelled to write editorials about why they are, regretfully, taking the piles and piles of money they earned here and leaving the state.
If you’ve ever felt like flouncing loudly out of Connecticut like a teenage girl from a Livejournal group, but weren’t sure how to write the necessary opinion piece, I have great news. Presenting: The “Write Your Own ‘I’m Leaving And Never Coming Back, So There’ Template®!”
Just choose the options that suit you best, submit to the newspaper of your choice, and sit back to await the J.R. Romano fundraising email that links to your piece. Easy as pie! Ready to get started? Here we go:
Dear Editors,
As the leaves turn, it is with great (sadness | regret | smugness) that my wife (Mavis | Pattie | Kathy-Ann) and I pack up our house in (Darien | Simsbury | Glastonbury) and depart for (Florida | North Carolina | Ferengi space).
We did not wish to leave. We (grew up | migrated from Westchester to | got lost and found ourselves) in Connecticut, raised our (children | dogs | Fortune 500 company) here, and planned to spend our golden years in the state.
But Connecticut has changed.
I (shake my head in woe | sigh the sigh of the weary | let forth an unearthly howl) as I write these sad words. The Connecticut I once knew, a state where (teachers were hilariously underpaid | the poor knew their place | Republicans got elected) is no more. No longer can a young man (inherit lots of money and just sit around | work at his father’s company in Manhattan | fleece people for a living) without the ever-intrusive state stealing his hard-earned dollars.
In the past, the business climate in this state was akin to (the Gilded Age | John Galt on steroids | Oliver Twist), a fact I am sure of because (I dimly remember it through a wine-addled haze | the angry radio man told me | the past is always better than now). But now, thanks to (Democrat overspending | taxes | a complex combination of national and global trends that work against us no matter what our government does), our business climate is (stagnant | dead and bloated | blown to tiny, pungent bits).
Our cities, which used to be full of (department stores | hockey teams | white people), are now shells of what they once were. Companies are fleeing to low-tax states like (New York | Massachusetts | California), taking their jobs and, more importantly, their CEOs with them.
This sad state of affairs can be laid directly at the feet of (public employee unions | liberal weenies | Bolsheviks) and Governor (Malloy | Lamont | whoever was in charge before that, I don’t remember). Decades of failed policies, including (taxes I don’t like | giving state employees pensions only people like me should be entitled to | that pothole outside the Big Y) have broken this once proud state, reducing us to a laughingstock.
We have had chances to change our course, and we have not taken them. We could have elected solidly middle-class people who are in touch with the concerns of the working man, like (Bob Stefanowski | Tom Foley | Linda McMahon) to high office, but we did not do so. It is a mystery to me why the tax-burdened people of our cities do not vote Republican, and my fellow Republicans and I can only assume it’s because they are too (lazy | high | brown).
And now the state is proposing to do something much worse: put tolls on the highways. Oh, cruelty! I (weep | clutch my wallet to my chest | check my stocks) just thinking about it. Is there nothing this state won’t do? Is it any wonder people are fleeing Connecticut for states without tolls, like (Pennsylvania | Indiana | Florida)?
And so I take my leave, and I am encouraging all like-minded people to do the same. I have not yet lived in the place I am moving to, but I am certain life there will be (as free as the eagles wheeling in the sky | a fairy story where I shall dance with the elves | definitely not inconvenient in some way I haven’t anticipated). This cursed state will not learn its lesson until (we take our toys and go home | enough editorials like this are published | the state is burned to the ground and we rejoice upon the ashes).
The only thing I will miss will be (complaining about Connecticut | lecturing people about Connecticut | obsessing about Connecticut). But that is no small price to pay … for freedom.
So long, (fellow citizens | Connecticut-ers | suckers)!
Susan Bigelow is an award-winning columnist and the founder of CTLocalPolitics. She lives in Enfield with her wife and their cats.
DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions, positions, or strategies expressed by the author are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of CTNewsJunkie.com.
