Category Uncategorized

Jan 12 2017

So You’re Scared Now?

 

The recent rants of fear and even some hysteria coming from the left over the inevitable Trump presidency has many of my conservative colleagues gloating in the anticipation of at least four years of retaliation. I cannot embrace this new normal as the swings of the political pendulum are becoming dizzying at best. This is not what our Forefathers envisioned.

While I do not concur with Diane Feinstien that the whole world is living in fear at the looming shadow of a Donald Trump, I should remind said conservative colleagues that it was not but a few years ago that we were fearing and prognosticating the demise of this Republic at the hands of one Barack Obama. It didn’t happen. Though shaken and weakened, the Republic has survived. (At this point I’d like to ask those same said conservative colleagues if they could kindly reexamine the title “conservative” they have affixed to themselves and help me understand what their new version is because there is a whole lot of stuff now that is “OK” for “conservatives” to advocate for that was not “OK” for conservatives to advocate for before that flaming display of idiocy, otherwise known as the Republican Presidential Primary, occurred this past summer.)

So whatever tired, tortured, melded, manipulated, rehashed, regurgitated version of conservative you are, we need to remember that a large portion of the nation is feeling the same fears we felt for 8 years. Yes, even some of us conservatives, pre-primary conservatives, have very real concerns with this President. It’s true that thus far, with the exception of Rex Tillerson, I have been thankful for the sake of my nation to be proven wrong with Trump’s cabinet picks. But with the handful of pre-primary conservatives left who have concerns about Donald Trump’s ego and overreaches combined with the litany of liberals who are hand wringing distraught with visions of dire calamities with the second coming of Hitler, it’s safe to say that a large portion of the American populace are at best suspicious of the incoming administration.

So to my liberal friends I ask this question: Have we come to a common place of understanding? Do we understand now why the Constitution was intended to be a document of “negative liberties” as President Obama so famously accused? Can we see now why the Executive Branch should never wield unchecked power and ignore Congress as it has under both Presidents Obama and also Bush?

With our Republic’s system of checks and balances in place and obeyed, no people’s should need fear the election of a President. No persons should fear that the President will use the power of his office to target them based on their faith, ideology, ethnicity, or political persuasion. If a dressmaker refuses to design or sell the First Lady a dress or a baker refuses to bake a cake because it violates their personal beliefs, let them face the repercussions of their decision on the market where they compete, not underneath the whip of government.

Are we all now starting to see why our Founders believed so strongly in severely limiting the power and scope of government? Can we all now see the value of a government that fears the people rather than a people that fear their government? Can we all now see, both conservative and liberal, that looking for a one man solution, a king, is lazy dangerous solution?

It is time for the pendulum to stop its swing before we truly do the damage we fear to the Republic. Our Founders did not fear so much the ideology of those in the Presidency as much as they feared a President who would not honor the restraints of the Constitution. President Trump and the Republicans have this opportunity to restore the Constitutional system of Checks and Balances to this Republic, which it desperately needs. If these so-called conservatives do not work to stop the pendulum’s swing, then shame on them, for history will recall their names as the catalyst to the demise of this great Republic when the Nation called to them for peace and they heeded it not.

Jan 4 2017

Yonder

I recently read an article which documented the little known relationship of J.R.R. Tolkien and the love of life, his wife Edith. Tolkien, along with the other “Inklings” were noted for one liners and titles intended to shock, pique the reader’s interest, and demand thought. Tolkien’s letter to his son on the eve of the young man’s wedding was no exception with the first sentence being, “Men are not monogamous.” The elder Tolkien’s subsequent explanation of that statement is the inspiration for this poem, but if his introductory statement has you thinking, “What the…?”, please read the article.

Yonder

If its pleasure you seek
Sole in the company you keep
Insatiable will be your desiring

Soon you tire of the now
Convinced the here is the how
All delights for you are denying

Yonder lights are much brighter
Their garden yields sweeter
If he could find “Yonder”
Always dreams there are fonder

He chaffs at the yielding
To the needs of his building
He sees the work now as his fettering

He curses his gifts
He builds instead rifts
And looks away far for his bettering

Yonder lights are much brighter
Their garden yields sweeter
If we could find “Yonder”
Where dreams are much fonder

To win we find losing
To love we face choosing
It is not for the weak and the reveling

For in our natural state
We tug, champ, and debate
As to love’s here and now are just meddling

Yonder lights are much brighter
Their garden yields sweeter
If I could find “Yonder”
Whose dreams are much fonder

For I am the causing
For a future that’s rousing
I miss what is real and is happening

For here there is pleasure
But I make the measure
By embracing the work that is beckoning

I am building a family
To neglect that is tragedy
This my choice and my reckoning

My choice is to love
Yes, its taught from Above
To love here and now is not settling

Yonder lights are not brighter
My garden here is much sweeter
The learning if we ponder
To love here and now and not “Yonder”

                                               – Andy Torbett

 

Dec 29 2016

Geographical Prejudice Part Two

 

It is called “The Great Compromise”. A fragile new Nation was on the brink of disaster. The states could not agree. The contention was so sharp between them that the Constitutional Convention was “on the verge of dissolution, scarce held together by the strength of a hair,” so recounted by Luther Martin, one of the delegates to the convention.

The schism developed over the proposed plan for government first presented by Virginia’s Governor Edmund Randolph, drafted by James Madison also of Virginia, which would select representation based on population. This would be called “The Virginia Plan.”

Quick to see this would greatly encumber the small states’ access to government and be weighted heavily in the favor of larger more populated states, New Jersey’s William Paterson countered with a “one state, one vote” concept. This plan, “The New Jersey Plan”, would protect the interests of small states, ensuring equal standing and representation at the table of governance. There was no small dissension between the factions and the convention was on the verge of implosion.

The salvation of the fledgling nation, teetering on demise, came in the form of an agreement which would create a bicameral Congress. The House of Representatives would be elected by popular vote and weighted by population, The Virginia Plan. The Senate would follow the concept of one state, one vote, The New Jersey Plan.

With the confidence that small states’ rights were protected, the Constitution of the United States was ratified. The idea that one geographical area could dominate the governance of a free people simply because of its population, the travesty of that idea of geographical prejudice was corrected and those fears allayed. Still, for all their fore site and amazing sense of fairness for all, the Founders neglected to see the need to remodel the states’ structure of governance to mirror the national template.

Perhaps despite all of their towering foreknowledge, the Founders could not envision a time when urban areas would be so large that the counties which held that cities boundaries could dominate the political landscape of a state in much the same way that Virginia could dominate the political influence in the days of the Thirteen Colonies. But that day exists and we see it here in our state of Maine. Yes, the division of the two Maines exists and the tension continues to grow.

The southern part of the state prefers “The Virginia Plan”, which is how our state and all 50 states are governed. Dominated by Cumberland County which encompasses Portland and all the surrounding suburbia, the South holds the majority of legislators in both chambers; in fact, Cumberland County alone holds a dominant majority of legislators in comparison to Maine’s other fifteen counties because of the majority of the population that resides in that geographical location. This flies in the face of everything our Nation was founded upon and specifically “The Great Compromise”.

Because of this inequity, the smaller rural counties of Maine are afforded no system of check and balance in the current form of governance that exists in our state. In recent political cycles, rural Maine has eked out some political victories by driving record breaking voter turnout, over 80% in some locals, and then waited in hopes of lower turnout in southern Maine to gain slim victory. The political climates of each of the Maines are polar opposites, yet southern Maine, due to “The Virginia Plan”, is able to often legislate the governance of northern Maine, despite their protestations.

In an effort to remedy this wrong in much the same way our Founders did, both Senator Paul Davis and Representative Heather Sirocki have proposed at different times separate legislation which would have amended the state Constitution to in essence apply “The New Jersey Plan” and give every county two Senators mirroring the United States Constitution. Predictably, southern interests defeated those bills. Simply put, big government has a vested interest in keeping equitable representation out of governance.

Often when the subject of this legislation is discussed with politicians they will respond that is too difficult or too complicated, which is code for too lazy or too cowardly. Many legislators have forgotten the basic tenet of a Republic that is for the people by the people in that all people regardless of where they live should have equal standing with our government. I would strongly encourage Senator Davis and Representative Sirocki to reintroduce their legislation. This was the spirit our Founders understood in “The Great Compromise” and must be the goal of our legislators if they truly believe in fair, equitable, and unprejudiced representation of the people.

Dec 15 2016

Geographical Prejudice Part One

 

The recent debate (I’m being kind. Tantrums is the more accurate term.) concerning the electoral college has brought into sharp clarity the desire or belief by some that only certain areas, and those that reside there, should decide the political fortunes of the rest of the Nation. It would seem if you follow this line of thinking (Again, I’m being kind), that a mere residency in certain enlightened geographical locations endows said resident with more political fortitude than those from less desirable locals, and therefore, those residents who reside in the “cool place” their votes should have more import,clout than those who reside in the “not-so-cool place”. Embracing this form of reasoning (I’m not even being kind here, I’m just throwing out nice terms in vain attempt to gloss over reality.) results in a form of governance called Pure Democracy, historically defined as Mob Rule.

To say that this columnist takes a dim view of geographical prejudice could probably be characterized as the understatement of the century…in some corners of humanity….somewhere… Still, our friends (I’m not going to help you through these “kind terms” anymore.) need to be reminded that despite all the work of politicians, media elites, educators, and actors, who live in those “cool places”, despite their efforts to convince us that we are a democracy, this election proved this time proven point. Self-absorbed, elitist, and “way cool” people are so blinded by their own arrogance that they rarely know anything of what their talking about.

Yes, elitist have been shocked to find out that despite their barrage of indoctrination attempts, the United States is still not a democracy and is still a Constitutional Republic. Our Founders chose a Constitutional Republic rather a Pure Democracy to protect us from “cool people” who live in “cool places” and think their opinion by virtue of their place of domicile should have more value than those in other geographical locations. They had seen throughout history that within a Pure Democracy instigators had merely to target high population areas where people tend to herd rather than think (IE. “How is Joe Cool voting? OK. That’s the way I’m voting.”), work up the mob to overthrow whatever perceived or real injustice, only for the people to find they had been used for a hidden agenda, and the cycle would start again. Civilizations under Pure Democracy are kept in a constant state of revolution until a dictator takes power that can rule the mob through brute strength. Remember, all dictators are voted in, yes, like Castro, Hitler, and others all shouting “Democracy”.

The Founders chose a Constitutional Republic to prevent this. By instituting the Electoral College and selecting two Senators from each State, no matter the population, the framers insured that the more rural States, whose residents tended to be less effected by populace swell, had an equal voice in the governing and electoral process. Furthermore, the Senator’s were elected by State’s legislature, leaning towards a Republic style of government, and the Representatives were elected by popular vote, a use of Pure Democracy.

Our Founding Fathers installed a Constitutional Republic with pieces of democracy to insure the fairest way that all areas of our Nation could have a equal voice. Which begs the question, why haven’t the States figured that little piece of common sense out? In the next installment, we’ll look at how Maine’s political system is entrenched with geographical prejudice and the steps we as citizens can take to make our voices heard and change this travesty which has oppressed this State for too long.