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Diana Page retired to her family home in Blue Hill after 40 years observing dictatorships mostly in Latin America as a Peace Corps volunteer, foreign correspondent and diplomat.
This Memorial Day we remembered those who gave their lives to defend our democracy. How then can we ignore the violations of the Constitution, the basis of our democracy?
A constitutional system is built on the rule of law. Without the certainty that laws will be enforced, people cannot trust the government with their lives and liberty. Our Constitution gave the Congress the power to make the laws, the executive the power to carry out the laws, and the judiciary the final interpretation of laws.
Today the constitutional separation of powers is ignored by the president. Despite the authorization for agencies and budgets passed by Congress, this president essentially rules by decree, freezing and cutting funds and firing civil servants. Even worse, judicial decisions are not respected; judges are threatened, and politics overrules legal precedent.
If the president breaks the laws, then by definition I believe he’s using the power of a dictator. I fear the fundamental rights that should keep democracy alive — freedom of speech, fair elections and due process in the courts — can no longer protect us from this dictatorship.
The Declaration of Independence, nearly 250 years old, sounds as if written for this moment. The first paragraph recognizes that when it “becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them” that they should declare the causes. Then and now it was the “inalienable rights” to life and liberty that are in danger, just as they were under King George III in 1776.
The Declaration states “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.” We should follow the logic of our founding fathers, learning from history.
The state of Maine only became part of the present constitutional government in 1820, despite its misgivings about the laws allowing slavery; but citizens believed that their government “of the people, by the people and for the people” would lead to a “more perfect union.”
Now we have a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich, probably not the ideal for most Mainers.
So 205 years after becoming a state, I believe Maine should dissolve the bonds connecting it to Washington. We need a modern form of government that protects individual rights, establishes how the rule of law should be, and works in the best interests of all people.
Can Maine go it alone? Maybe, as small countries our size, with high standards of living, already exist in the world — Luxembourg, for example. But it might be better for Maine to ask Canada to admit us as a Maritime province. Our ties with Canada are already strong.
Perhaps other states will be declaring their independence soon. Together these states with a vision for a democratic future could create a North American system modeled after the European Union.
There is no reason for civil war when negotiations can set up a constitutional convention; one that I think is long overdue. After all this time, how could an 18th-century constitution provide what a 21st-century democracy needs? We’ve learned some lessons; it’s time to move ahead.
