March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Citizens’ resolve

I just read Rob Huber’s [commentary], “Long live the citizen initiative” (BDN, Jan. 6), and I commend him for his insight and taking the time to let the people of our great state see the folly of individuals like Sean Faircloth’s undemocratic hyperbole, “Naughty secret about referenda” (BDN, Dec. 24). When I read Faircloth’s [commentary], I could feel my father, decorated with a Purple Heart in World War II, roll over in his grave along with all of our forefathers and mothers who have fought with their lives for our sacred constitutional rights of freedom.

For the people, by the people, not the corporations, for the corporations. In my mind, Faircloth is the voice of the corporate battle cry. Let us decimate the American countryside for the good of the shareholder and all else, especially the environment and the rights of the citizen, be damned.

There are many among us, like Faircloth, who are pushing similar ideas about American democracy. Did you know there were three bills last session (LD 89, LD 250, LD 380) that would have limited the collection of signatures for referendums at the polls? To my horror, two of these bills were co-signed by my representative. Had any one of them passed, the call to arms and revolution would once more send Paul Revere to the streets.

Do not discount the citizens’ resolve for direct democracy. Many have laid down their lives for American freedom. Dirigo. Democracy lives. Michael J. Good Bar Harbor


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