the Volvo line.... (Bangor, Orono, Wayne: house, land, population)

[Northern Maine Land Man]

We all live where we choose to live. The problems arise when people who choose to live in one area want to control those who live in another area. Fully 52% of Maine is governed by unelected functionaries. The people they govern don't even get to vote for those who govern them. There is an editorial in the Bangor Daily News today that essentially says something needs to be done about it. They make no specific recommendations. This is not surprising since the publisher of the BDN is on the board of The Nature Conservancy.

Absent any constructive solutions from that quarter, let me propose a one word remedy for all their perceived "problems"; Freedom! Private landowners for the last four centuries have made Maine the place so many people love. A full 95% of Maine was privately owned up until 10 years ago. In the last 10 years the state has doubled its ownership of land. Now they claim they have a $200 million shortfall. Ya think?

We are supposed to be thankful when Augusta send in crisis teams when our mills shut down. These teams get publicity in the newspapers for a day or two and then it is all forgotten. We don't need response teams from Augusta after the horse has left the barn. We need freedom to grow our businesses in the north country. If we didn't have economic crises we would not need crisis teams.

We who live in Northern Maine can do a fine job of managing our land without any "assistance" from Augusta. A little understanding is called for here. When a people has been under attack for 35 years they are understandably angry. Oppression never lasts in the long term. Even the Soviet Union could not last forever when people wanted freedom. We need to replace the people who have been driven away by economic forces beyond their control. Augusta calls these the effect of returning Mainers sprawl. It is not sprawl. It is economic recovery. You Mainers who left for greener pastures, come on home. We left the light on for you and we need you. Never doubt that you'll be welcome. And you folks who have a dream of living in Maine; you come on home too. We are in a struggle for freedom, but we try to have a good time doing it.

[schizuki]

Originally Posted by elston

Some of the remarks and sentiments on this thread are so hateful and negative that I am not reading anymore

I didn't see anything "hateful" at all. I see impassioned debate.

[schizuki]

NMLM, you are the embodiment of the Maine spirit that is sadly fading.

I will never understand the compulsion people have to fall in love with a place and then try to change it. It's happening to Maine and it seems to be underway in New Hampshire as well. Very sad and puzzling.

[Unhappycamper]

Originally Posted by schizuki

I didn't see anything "hateful" at all. I see impassioned debate.

Originally Posted by you

And if you're a Massachusetts environmentalist who wants to keep Maine your weekend playground in the image that you, in your infinite wisdom, deem is appropriate - well, Old Orchard Beach has a 300-foot pier. Take a 301-foot walk.

Riiiiiiiiggggghhhhhtttttt

[Submariner]

I am new to Maine.

I am trying to observe and see what is going on.

Talking to locals I find that some are tuned in to these things, while others are not. And that is okay, everyone is different.

As I learn more about LURC, as I read the new proposed CLUP, as I hear about Moosehead Lake, I think that NMLM brings up very valid points.

I have been shocked by a few locals that I have met. Who complain miserably about their taxes, and yet within the same conversation they demand more services, more social programs, and more government control.

In the cases of folks that I have heard voicing these opinions [complaining about their taxes, demanding more services, more social programs, and more government control] they are the people who are the most active in local politics [fund raisers for political parties, school board members, political party staff, etc]

These people scare me, in the context that they are forcing their voices to be heard, and their desires seem to be to destroy the Maine that I enjoy.

I do apologize if I am offending anyone here. I do not intend to be saying any of this out of hatred.

I think that NMLM is mostly correct in his observations.

[schizuki]

Originally Posted by Unhappycamper

Riiiiiiiiggggghhhhhtttttt

Yeah, I'm practically Hitler, aren't I?

Grab a Webster's. Look up "figurative" and "literal." Compare.

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by Unhappycamper

Riiiiiiiiggggghhhhhtttttt

Wrong. If you are a Massachusetts environmentalist who wants to "fix" all that we've done wrong in Maine, you might be offended by being invited to jump off a pier. elston is not an Massachusetts environmentalist. It wasn't said to or about him.

If the worst thing ever said to a Massachusetts environmentalist was to go jump off a pier that's very mild. We have one of these people on our lake. He's been there for 25 years. A minor example of what these folks can do - he didn't know the difference between tannic acid in a puddle and an oil spill. He made so many complaints to the EPA about skidder oil being dumped in puddles that they refused to keep coming out to the lake for those reports. He trespassed so many times land owners started threatening to have him arrested. He's still at it after all this time. I saw him last fall on the way home from camp. I pulled over so that he could get by but he parked in the road so I couldn't get by without talking to him. He started griping about the super highway the camp road was going to be turned into and how the moose and deer were all going to be killed by speeders and what about the run off and the road was going to be the cause of silt in the lake. After all, that's how it all was 25 years ago (insert false importance over 25 years) when he started to come here and dammit, he was going to sue and have it stopped. I said I'd been there every year for 43 years and never had there been a super highway. I didn't recall more than a couple of deer being hit, and the silt in the lake happened when the Indians had the ridge across the lake harvested. He shut up and I drove away. These are the kinds of people I wish would take a walk off the pier. He's a minor case.

There are environmentalists who would have everyone move off their private land and into a suburb. They'd like to turn northern Maine into a national park without any regard for northern Maine's people and their culture. (Culture is more than movies, museums and malls.) They can jump too. And if they're offended because I said that they're welcome to sit down over a cup of coffee and listen to why I find them offensive. It's not hatred in any way. It's being offended by people who think they have the right to control people and land they don't own. It's disgust and dismay for those same reasons, but it's not hatred. Give people more credit than that.

[Submariner]

MW -
Dont you know that you must first live in a city of 4million+ before you can have culture?

[Maineah]

Ask the lobstermen what they think of the Massachusetts envrionmentalists suing all the way to the US District courts to stop them from using rope to haul their traps in some lame effort to save the Right Whale. Our esteemed Senator Collins signed on with this bunch and now lobstermen will have to use some kind of dissolving pot warp that will cost them tens of thousands of dollars in refitting their lines. Why?? because one whale every five years gets caught in a trap line??. These same nuts wanted to hault the entire shipping industry because ships were hitting these whales occasionally. I'm all for the ban on hunting whales but I don't think we have to stay away from the ocean completely to preserve them. A clean envrionment helps us all though taking it to the extreme AFTER people have already tried in a good faith effort to make reasonable change is the radical in your face attitude that breeds REAL hatred. These people are extremists and by definition are unreasonable. If it isn't this cause it will be something else. They firmly believe that everything in the world is their business and they have the right and obligation to mold the world into their interpretation of utopia regardless of anyone's else' feelings, thoughts,deeds, property rights, or morality.
We could all take a lesson from Hank Williams: "If you mind your own business then you won't be mindin' mine!"

[island mermaid]

nice post maineah, can't rep you just yet, need to spread some.