Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of a different ride than Revere’s this year.
No redcoats marched and no king gave decree.
The threat arrived through a vote on Beacon Hill, quietly.
One If by Land, Two If by Sea, and Three If They’re Already Inside the State House
By Maureen Steele
Special to Boston Broadside
There is something uniquely tragic about watching a great place forget what made it great.
Massachusetts was not just another state. It was the spark. It was the fishermen, merchants, farmers, and tradesmen who stood on principle and dumped tea into Boston Harbor. It was Lexington and Concord. It was the birthplace of the idea that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed, not from the whims of those temporarily occupying public office.
The people of Massachusetts once looked the most powerful government on earth in the eye and said, “No.”
Today, it appears they are being told the same thing by their own government. “No.”
Not by a king.
Not by Parliament.
By Beacon Hill.
The issue itself should not even be controversial. Seventy-two percent of Massachusetts voters approved an independent audit of the Legislature. Not 51 percent. Not some razor-thin margin that could be interpreted six different ways by lawyers and political consultants.
Seventy-two percent.
In a functioning republic, that should have ended the discussion. The people spoke. The government obeyed. That is how self-government is supposed to work.
Instead, according to critics of the legislation now moving through Beacon Hill, lawmakers have responded by narrowing the audit, defining its limits themselves, controlling which records can be reviewed, and restricting outside enforcement when disputes arise.
Think about how absurd that is. Imagine a bank being allowed to decide which records an auditor can see. Imagine a corporation under investigation being allowed to define the scope of the investigation. Imagine a criminal defendant deciding what evidence prosecutors are permitted to examine.
No reasonable person would call that an independent audit.
Yet somehow, we are being told this is a “transparency package.”
The language itself is revealing. Whenever government starts calling secrecy transparency, censorship safety, or control accountability, citizens should become very nervous. Because words matter. And when institutions begin redefining words, it is usually because they can no longer defend their actions.
What strikes me most about this story is not the politics. It is the sadness. Massachusetts was once the state that taught the world how citizens restrain government. Now it increasingly feels like a state where government restrains citizens.
Every week brings another story. Littleton residents fighting over water resources and data center expansion. Local controversies over public funds. Questions surrounding public records. Questions surrounding legislative accountability. Questions surrounding who is actually being served by the people supposedly entrusted to serve the public.
Individually, each controversy can be debated. Collectively, they create something more damaging. They create distrust. And once trust is gone, everything else begins to unravel. People stop believing elections matter. They stop believing hearings matter. They stop believing their voices matter. That is a dangerous place for any society to arrive.
The defenders of the status quo always respond the same way. They say critics are exaggerating. They say government is complicated. They say ordinary people do not understand the nuances.
Perhaps. But there is nothing complicated about a 72 percent vote. There is nothing nuanced about a direct mandate from the people. There is nothing difficult to understand about the concept of an independent audit. The voters were not confused. The language was not unclear. The intent was not mysterious.
The people wanted an audit of their government. Their government appears determined to audit itself. Those are not the same thing.
What makes this especially painful is that Massachusetts possesses some of the most educated citizens, most beautiful towns, most important historical landmarks, and richest civic traditions in America. The state that gave us Adams, Hancock, Revere, and Quincy should be leading the nation in transparency. Instead, it increasingly finds itself producing headlines that leave ordinary citizens asking whether anyone is actually in charge, or whether the system now exists primarily to protect itself.
There is a phrase often repeated in politics: “The government works for you.” Most politicians love saying it. Far fewer seem willing to live by it.
Because if government truly works for the people, then when 72 percent of voters issue an instruction, the answer is not negotiation. It is compliance. Public servants are called servants for a reason. They are not owners. They are not rulers. They are not a permanent political class entitled to reinterpret the public’s wishes whenever those wishes become inconvenient.
The Founders understood this. The revolutionaries who stood in Boston Harbor understood this. The farmers who left their plows to stand at Lexington Green understood this. The government serves the people. The people do not serve the government.
That principle is the entire American experiment. And when elected officials begin behaving as though voter mandates are merely suggestions, they are not just undermining a ballot initiative. They are undermining the legitimacy of the system itself.
The saddest part is that Massachusetts already knows better. Its history knows better. Its founders knew better. Its citizens know better. The question now is whether the people who govern there still do.
Because if a government can simply redefine the will of the people after the vote is over, then the audit is not the real issue. The real issue is whether Massachusetts still remembers why the Boston Tea Party happened in the first place.
My advice: Hang a lantern in the Old North Church. Not because the British are coming. But because the red-coated devils never left.
Maureen Steele is a writer, speaker, and activist known for her blunt, unfiltered style that mixes sharp commentary, patriotism, and raw honesty. She co-founded American-Made Foundation, which produced the powerful documentary, TAKEN: State Sanctioned Kidnapping, and co-wrote the book The CPS Pipeline: State Sanctioned Kidnapping. (AI Courtesy Images)
