“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Proverbs 18:21.
What are your leaders telling you are? I have found that
the most telling difference between my message as a Republican
and the message of my Democratic opponents is in our belief
of who Mainers and Americans are and what we believe we are
capable of.
I believe Mainers and Americans are ruggedly self-reliant.
The people I meet on the campaign trail believe in the ability
of our families and communities to help each other along.
There is a shared belief in a deep, inherent power of the
individual to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.
A strong belief in self, family and community invariably translates
into liberty, freedom and less dependence upon the state.
Individuals with a healthy sense of self tend to be much too
proud to take hand outs in perpetuity from the state.
My eventual opponents on the Democratic side of the aisle
instead propose policies that encourage people to believe
otherwise. They suggest that it is business and capitalism
that corrupts and steals. Progressives would have you believe
that the word ‘family’ is an ambiguous and relative term,
loosely defined according to the times. They would have you
believe that only the government can liberate people from
their hardships. I have heard both Maine State Senator Ethan
Strimling and U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton suggest, “The economy
is not working for some people.” This claim not only belies
a poor understanding of economics and free markets. Such a
claim reveals an extremely cynical view of the human spirit.
We are approaching nearly forty years of Democratic leadership
in this state. In that brief period we have seen Maine’s traditional
reputation of rugged independence and feisty leadership squandered.
Maine’s sense of self has been degraded into one that is more
suited to an entitlement state. No longer too proud to take
handouts, an increasing number of our residents have become
expert at playing the system to maximize their benefits. It
has been said by others with more expertise than me that more
people are coming to Maine because of our generous social
programs than for our economic opportunities. As Voltaire
said “Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter.”
To say that the prevailing Democratic views that have ruled
the political roost in Maine since the early 1970s have had
a deleterious effect on our state would be an understatement.
The prevailing political philosophy that business needs to
be heavily regulated, that families are nebulous and evolving,
that people must depend on the government for their survival,
have more than nearly bankrupted the state. It has threatened
to morally corrupt the state as well by fostering a belief
in the power of the state over the ability of the individual.
Day after day, from Kittery to Camden I hear stories of how
the state is actually creating dependency. I’ve heard from
business owners who can’t compete with the state any longer.
I’ve met otherwise productive people who have succumbed to
the incentives of the state, incentives that are so rich that
they attract many from other countries and other states to
come to Maine and live off the backs of the remaining hardworking
folks and the taxes levied on the tourists. This year, for
the first time, personal incomes in Maine derived from government
sources surpassed incomes earned in the private sector. The
tipping point is here.
When an individual can stay in subsidized housing and receive
upwards of $50,000 per year in governmental assistance, what
would be their incentive to get honorable work at a dairy
farm that requires them to show up before dawn? I have heard
many senior Mainers, people who have witnessed the state’s
transformation firsthand and in slow motion, attribute this
to a generational difference. A woman in South Thomaston this
past weekend told me she remembers her father waiting out
side the factory gates, hoping for work. If that day they
didn’t need his help, he looked around until he found something
that he could do to help provide for his family. He never
gave up. Back then she shared, people were too proud to take
handouts in perpetuity. Now, it seems a way of life.
Politics is a powerful force in modern life. Perhaps more
for the words we say than the laws we pass. In his book “Tipping
Point,” acclaimed author and sociologist Malcolm Gladwell
writes about the ability of people to conclude truths from
their perceptions. The most notable example is the much-acclaimed
decline in crime in New York City in the 1990s. As the city
was scrubbed clean of graffiti, as the panhandlers were sent
packing, the city’s self image adjusted accordingly and crime
rates plummeted. Certainly there were additional factors,
but the strong belief in self that the city felt should not
be underestimated.
So, what happens to a society when we continue to send the
message that industry is bad, that the individual is weak,
and that the government is only here to help? What and who
we tell ourselves we are or are not eventually becomes reflected
in society. The power of positive thinking, on a statewide
level! Yesterday I proudly converted a Democrat in a convenience
store in the mid coast region. We were sharing the collective
stories of our parents and grandparents when he realized that
a belief in the human spirit, not the state, is powerful stuff.
That is a vote I will long cherish.
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