As an elderly former Republican who has held elective office, I was pleased someone had thoughtfully posted on Facebook the personal contact information for our Secretary of State in Maine, Shenna Bellows, allowing me to easily send her my compliments for the way she handled a difficult part of her job. Not sure why I would need her husband’s name or location of her home.

It is obvious to me that Secretary Bellows has an understanding of how our government works closely with the layers of our legal system to get at the intent of words on paper, allowing our society to function in an orderly and peaceful way, avoiding the social unrest none of us want.

Our Supreme Court of Maine is referred to as the Law Court; no matter what our Legislature passes for law, it does not truly become the final law until it is put through the test by being challenged in the Supreme Court of our state. And the biggest law court of our land is the federal Supreme Court, which has the job of declaring the intent of our Founding Fathers, who put the words in our Constitution in the 1700s.

Never before has there been a more urgent need for the Supreme Court of our country to hear any arguments having to do with removing a candidate’s name from any upcoming election. The Constitution of our country may only be printed words on paper — if put there by brilliant minds of the time — but the intent of some words has never yet been assessed, as it should be, and now hopefully will be thanks to Secretary Bellows and others.

A few of my ancestors participated in Revolutionary War, including Lt. John Gilpatric (1712-1803), who is buried in a marked grave in Kennebunk. Creation of our democracy took brains, guts and determination of men and women of 1775 to give us freedom and liberty that we have been privileged to have since 1783; knowing that preserving it into the future would require everlasting vigilance against all enemies within and abroad, and all must rest on a solid foundation of written words and their intent.

Winston Churchill said it best. “Democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others that have been tried.”

So far, the vast majority of Americans have never lived under any other type of government. This partially explains the willingness of some to now willingly and openly flirt with a change in government similar to what the German democracy was faced with in 1933 and cleverly taken from them by Adolf Hitler, then using “legal” means of the time, who then set the world on fire.

The dictator type has existed prior to Genghis Khan (1162-1227) and has continued to Russian President Vladimir Putin and more than 50 other dictatorships in the world, defined by Freedom House as countries being ruled that are rated “not free.”

Us older members of our tribe ask all able to vote in 2024 to think about what the words “not free” mean, and add to those words that we would also be faced with a loss of liberty, to be no longer free as we have been since 1883, after a hard-won war.

Hitler could not have destroyed the German democracy were it not for the many who willingly enabled him to do so. A lot of Germans did not think it possible, but it was done; my guess is that one of Hitler’s many lies to his people was not that he would only be a dictator for one day.

The suggestion that the ballot issue should be settled by the voters is nonsense, as the Electoral College could become involved – which may be the curse on us for slavery.

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