To me it always had a tinge of the sovcit nonsense.
When I lived in eastern MA we just figured it illustrated how cheap NHers were.
Another story from the Governor Mel era - MA was losing liquor tax revenue because MA residents were driving across the border to buy lower priced booze in NH. Undercover MA troopers were placed in the NH State Liquor store parking lots to record the MA license plates and the cars were stopped when they crossed the border back to MA.
Mel had the undercover MA troopers arrested for loitering.
But Live Free or Die is pretty deeply cemented in the NH psyche. It’s changing as the population shifts with more people moving up from MA and other more liberal states. Northern NH is very different from southern NH.
From the late great Bill Morrisey, his take on Live Free or Die.
I’ve heard stories about Jehovah’s Witnesses being pulled over because of putting tape over the offending slogan.
Don’t know if it was a common occurrence.
Canadian license plates do sometimes contain political slogans, or at least “slogans” that can be interpreted politically. (Partly because almost everything can.)
I only know a couple people from Quebec, and not well, so I don’t have direct knowledge of this, but I do have friends and relatives in/from Ontario who tell me that a number of Anglophones in Quebec dislike the “Je me souviens” that appears on Quebec’s license plates. It appears to them to champion a French identity for the province that they’re not always real comfortable with. As I say, I’ve never had anybody say “I don’t like the plates because…” but I have no reason to doubt my sources here.
And then you have what happened in 1967, also in Quebec. To commemorate the hundredth anniversary of confederation, rear license plates in Quebec that year had a maple leaf, the dates 1867-1967, and the word “confederation.” Some separatists objected, not wanting to celebrate the union of the provinces, and placed panels reading “100 ans d’injustice” on their plates. The provincial government eventually told them to cut it out; whether people were fined or arrested for doing so I don’t know, but judging solely from this example it looks like @wolfpup is right and Canadian governments do not look leniently upon those who would deface a license plate. But certainly Canada is not immune from using license plates as proxies for political discussion.
Source for the 1967 story: Gale - Product Login.
I concur, and I was going to mention that in response to @Telemark’s comment about political slogans. We generally don’t have them, preferring instead innocuous slogans about beautiful geography and such, but as always, Quebec is the exception. The “Je Me Souviens” slogan packs a lot of punch in multiple ways. First of all the plates are solely in French, and thus a hearty fuck-you to the Anglophone minority. Granted that bilingual plates are probably not practical, nor a slogan that is readily comprehensible in both languages, but when you have a significantly bilingual community maybe the best solution is no slogan at all. But it goes much deeper than that.
The literal translation of “Je Me Souviens” is “I remember”, but in the context of a slogan the meaning is closer to “I will never forget”. Even if it’s not immediately clear just what it is that this angst-filled francophone community will never forget, it’s clear that they have a major chip on their shoulder. The general understanding of what they’ll never forget is the defeat of New France in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. From the Canadian Encyclopedia:
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham (13 September 1759), also known as the Battle of Quebec, was a pivotal moment in the Seven Years’ War and in the history of Canada. A British invasion force led by General James Wolfe defeated French troops under the Marquis de Montcalm, leading to the surrender of Quebec to the British. Both commanding officers died from wounds sustained during the battle. The French never recaptured Quebec and effectively lost control of New France in 1760. At the end of the war in 1763 France surrendered many of its colonial possessions — including Canada — to the British.
It would be sort of like a very British-oriented US state issuing license plates saying “We’ll never forget” how you American bastards beat us in the Revolutionary War. Not exactly patriotic.
IIRC, a group of agricultural interests wanted to change Maine’s “Vacationland” to something that reflected their interests rather than be tourism driven. I don’t think the campaign went anywhere. And then there’s the Famous Potatoes controversy. But I’d be hard pressed to call either of those political.
I always felt that “Oklahoma is OK” was a decent slogan accurately reflecting their inherent mediocrity as well as their aspirations for nothing greater. I spent a year there ~40 years ago (!?) while in USAF and once had such a plate adorning my car.
Starting about 2005 though they really need to change the slogan to “Oklahoma is not OK.” There is something going seriously wrong in their mental state of QAnon fantasyland. Not OK. Not at all.
As to Quebec and their license plates, I’m a bit confused.
Is bilingualism required of all provinces’ governmental stuff, or only the Anglophone ones? Or is it strictly the Federal government which must be bi-lingual in everything everywhere while each province is free to set their own language standards for their own government & businesses?
It’s the latter. The Official Languages Act applies only to the federal government and all its institutions. Provinces and territories can enact their own language policies. They can choose to be unilingual and a few have chosen to do so, in respect to government services which are English-only. Quebec is something of a mixed bag, with its bizarre language laws governing things like signage (the English text on a bilingual business sign must be smaller than the French) and the naming of dishes on restaurant menus. In recent decades traffic signs have gone from bilingual to French-only. The provincial government fiercely promotes and protects the French language. OTOH, as a matter of practicality all government services in Quebec are bilingual, including the government website.
But, on the third hand, many or most official documents are issued only in French, which, to the annoyance of many who venture outside the province, includes birth certificates and drivers licenses. I can just imagine the utility of a French-only drivers license if stopped by a trooper somewhere in rural Alabama or Georgia – it would be nothing more than an incomprehensible piece of plastic that looked vaguely official. Similarly, in using a French-only birth certificate for official purposes outside of Canada, like pretty much anywhere in the US, it may be necessary for the unfortunate ex-Quebecer to have to hire a court-approved professional translator to provide an official translation.
At the condo where I lived until recently we had a married couple who spilt their time between Quebec & Florida. She was native Francophone Quebecois and he was native Anglophone Ontarian. They’re aged late 60s now, had been married forever, and lived in Quebec most of that time.
He could hack away at badly done French and her English was that endearingly awkward word order but heavily accented mellifluous sound one could happily listen to all day. I’d pay to have her read the phone book to me. While with eyes closed you’d imagine she looked like Brigit Bardot instead of her actual Rosy O’Donnell. But damn was she a sweet human being and an excellent cook. Him too; his sous vide was legendary.
Anyhow, their relevance to this thread …
Their battles with both US & Canadian bureaucracy were legendary. He had been an insurance broker and she had been a high school teacher, so not illiterate / innumerate idiots. They had a goodly supply of money & new fancy cars at both ends. But trying to get the USA to accept their French Canadian documents and vice versa was the stuff of local legend. Shit Just. Kept. Happening.
Nobody said this was easy.
I lived in NH from 2001 to 2018. I loved it. And I loved the motto. I never took it as terribly kooky.
Maybe 2010-ish they put a new “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign on 93 at the border with Mass. Initially the sign said something like “You’re going to love it here” and people lost their minds. Pretty quickly it was updated to say “Live Free or Die.”
United States Pharmacopeia?
Live Free Or Don’t
Thanks for the explanation. I thought it had something to do with the Plains of Abraham bu I wasn’t sure and didn’t feel up to the task of looking for it!
Was it Thompson or Evan Mechem (sp?) in AZ who wanted the government flags lowered to half-staff on Good Friday?
Or maybe both?
Wouldn’t put it past either of them.
I’m sure NH still has a large assortment of loons, both human and avian, but it is a good deal less conservative than it used to be. Both its senators and both its representatives are currently Democrats, and with the exception of 2000 (when Bush won a narrow plurality, with almost 4% of the vote going to Nader) it has voted Dem in every presidential election since the Dukakis Debacle in 1988.
Though I suspect “Live Free Or Die” isn’t gonna change any time soon…
Live free or pay cash, no credit
I was going to ask about this. Having been born/raised on the East Coast of the US, Iwould occasionally see Quebec plates. Strangely, or not, I see them often enough when I visit family in Arizona, that the question’d been in the back of my mind.
My home state was New Jersey. Do you know why ‘The Garden State’ was on our license plates?
Because ‘Oil-petrochemical-manufacturing State’ was too long a slogan![ (Disclaimer: I stole this joke from a stand-up comedian in the eighties)
I have heard that my New Mexico plate has ‘USA’ on it, to dissuade confusion that New Mexico is, in fact, a State within the Union. I once, did have the oft-fabled moment where someone wasn’t convinced at looking at my drivers’ license.
Tripler
Ahhh, lovely New Jersey . . . Where the birds don’t chirp–they cough.