Inexperience is the bane of every endeavor.  While to ensure the future stability of any entity youth must be trained, the process of passing on knowledge has often led the strength of mastery to the tenuous edge of destruction.   The responsibility of the master to teach and guide coupled with the student’s requirement to assimilate and emulate is an age old art form that has either flourished through time or crumbled causing plans and ideas to be mere footnotes in history, whispers of what could have been.

The Republican legislature has been plagued with a lack of leadership and, as a result, the freshmen legislators have been wandering around the people’s chambers listlessly tossed here and there with every nuance of outcry and debate from the minority party.  This has caused the people, who own those chambers by the way, to grow very impatient with the majority party.  Yes, Republicans, you are in the majority.  You don’t need to ask permission from the Democrats to pass legislation to free the people.

This confusion was on heightened display this past week when three freshmen Republican legislators quivered on their resolve to vote to pass LD 1534 out of committee, which would have been a strong step toward repealing LURC and returning land rights back to the people; instead, in keeping with the pattern established by Senator Katz and the Pretentious Eight, these frightened freshmen sold their votes to the Democrats for votes on lesser bills.  Because of their unholy alliance with the Democrats, the bill was placed on hold until next session and a commission was formed to study the effects of LURC and look at different options to deal with it.  What?  Forty years of wrecking havoc on rural Maine is not enough?

Since the Senate President and Speaker of the House are having trouble keeping the “kiddos” in line, this humble columnist….very humble….very, very humble columnist has a few specific points help these space cadets gain some focus.

1.     You are the majority.  Act like it.  The people of Maine had enough of forty years of Democrat policies.  They decided to give you a shot.  Why try and mix in what Mainers had forty years too much of?  If memory serves, the polls during the election showed the major concerns of voters to be budget, jobs, and landowner rights.  Yeah, bipartisanship wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen; neither was the Governor being nice and sweet.

2.     You represent the people that voted you in.  No, the Tea Party didn’t go away and by voting against this bill you went against private landowners.  I’m thinking the Tea Party may feel a little betrayed.  Just a little.   These freshmen may find a lesson in a primary election battle in their future primer.

3.     Grow up!  Take responsibility for your own actions.  No, you can’t blame it on the grumpy Governor anymore because the people of Maine are getting even grumpier and they make Governor Grumps look like the tea princess.

4.     Realize this is war.  An ideological war.  You were sent there for a reason.  The people have had enough.  They have forty years of big government shoved down their throats and they have drawn a line in the sand.  Unfortunately, you have not.  The people were expecting a counterattack to take back ground lost.  So far, there has been too much pacifying and placating of the party deposed.  You have been played for fools.  So then, freshmen, if you cannot pass muster, perhaps you should be replaced.

The recent victory for the State of Maine in the realm of health insurance is, perhaps, a sign of better things to come from the Republican Party.  There is a hope this momentous legislation will begin to arrest the precipitous fall from grace the Grand Old Party has been experiencing due to its sluggish and inept leadership in the legislative chambers.  What momentum the majority enjoyed when they took power quickly dissipated with an immediate return to the leadership that had kept them in the minority for 40 years.  Those voters who had shook off the shroud of apathy and distrust to come out and vote, specifically in rural Maine, with the hopes that the GOP had finally seen the error of their ways and would now represent, for a change, the true identity of Maine were quickly disappointed.  But with the passage of LD 1333, hope springs anew.

The Republican Party must come to grips with this truth; the public holds their Party on a much shorter leash than their very liberal opponents.  The people of Maine expect that Democrats will spend recklessly, live immorally and lead arrogantly.  They will not tolerate it from the Republicans.  They expect Republicans to lead the same way the people represented live, frugally.  Mainers will not stomach any more silly editorials from Senator Katz and his pretentious eight.  They cannot fathom the lack of work and accomplishment from the legislature to this point.  But we see signs of hope.

With the passing and enactment of health insurance reform, the Republican Party has taken a great leap forward but now stands at the crossroads of an issue that may very well decide who holds the majority after this next election cycle.   A law, which would abolish the Land Us Regulatory Commission, is before committee and in the midst of hearings.  In 1971, Maine established LURC and pulled the regulatory governance of landholdings out of local control giving unprecedented power to the State over private land.  It has failed and caused horrible economic destruction to rural Maine not to mention the violation of landowner rights.  It is interesting to note that no other State in the Union has an entity like LURC.  In the other 49 states, the County commissioners decide the land regulations for their own counties.  Hmmmm…sounds almost like common sense.

A contemporary of mine, Roger Ek has attended these hearings and testified eloquently before the committee.  He quoted from General Gage, who was the Governor for all English territories in America.  These are Gage’s words written in 1772, “Democracy is too prevalent in America, and claims the greatest attention to prevent its increase.  A large part of the problem arises from the vast abundance of cheap land.  The people themselves have gradually retired from the coast and are, already, almost out of reach of government.  It is in the interest of Great Britain to confine the colonists on this side of the back country.”  Roger then draws a compelling analogy and I will quote, “Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you today that Maine has established a new unelected aristocracy to rule General Gage’s ‘back country’. That ruling class is called LURC. Their goals are the same as General Gage’s; ‘to confine the Colonists on this side of the back country.’  I have spoken to the majority of county commissioners all across Maine. They want their freedom back. Coastal counties want their islands back. The people want their freedom back and Maine needs to recover from four decades of slavery. We need the authorities in Maine to get out of the way and let Maine people prosper again. We need to pass this bill and just retire LURC to the dust bin of history.”  The full transcript of Mr. Ek’s speech will be posted on my website at www.meconservativevoice.wordpress.com.

It sounds like Roger Ek agrees with The Maine Conservative Voice theme, Let’s Set Maine Free.  It remains to be seen whether Republicans have the strength and fortitude to do what is right for all of Maine.  You can help by going to this link http://www.maine.gov/legis/house/jt_com/acf.htm, contact all the members of the committee and tell them to support LD 1534 and vote “ought to pass”.  If you believe in landowner rights, then lets fight to set our land free.