Letters to the Editor

Watching the

money roll in

It’s rolling in on both sides — left and right — astronomical amounts of campaign cash.

A good deal of it comes from middle- and lower-middle class individuals, who can afford such donations — but only to a point. When all is said and done, the weight of their political contributions will be modest.

Then there are the mega-donors, individuals and corporations, to whom the Supreme Court gave its blessing in its 2010 Citizens United decision. They come with their checkbooks open and their hands out, e.g., the gathering of oil executives to whom candidate Trump promised tax cuts and regulation roll-backs … for a modest $1 billion contribution to his campaign. Now there’s a win-win, if ever there was one, at least for candidate Trump and big oil to which he panders. Or is it big oil that’s doing the pandering.

Does it even make a difference?

What does make a difference is that we are on the doorstep of the most expensive campaign season ever … all for the benefit of the mega-donors whose wealth shapes the discussion at the expense of all those lesser, often cash-strapped, run-of-the-mill donors … remember them? The one man, one vote crowd?

Given that it’s one of the underlying principles on which our democracy is founded, one has to ask why we are so willing to give it away … and why we can’t manage this most important part of our way of life, like the British, on a combination of limited public money and limited campaigning.

John Forssen

Kennebunk

What are limits

for public schools?

This is in response to the letters to the editor in the June 21 Post that framed my encouraging people to contact the RSU 21 superintendent over concern about the book, “Genderqueer: A Memoir,” as book banning. The question is what are the limits for what the public school teaches, promotes, or prohibits.

Public schools provide limits on what speech and behavior is and is not allowed in school, and what clothing students may or may not wear in school. I’m sure there are viewpoints the RSU 21 schools ban from promoting in school and some they promote. Deciding what books to make available or not available to students and what ideas to promote or not promote requires a limiting principle of good judgment and discernment. Decency is another limiting principle.

For example, RSU 21 would prohibit pornographic magazines, books and movies from the school library. Biology also
involves the limiting principle that there are only two human sexes, male and female, and they are irreversible. Expressing concerns to the high school or to the superintendent about the book “Genderqueer” is not book banning, but rather it is about choosing wisely the educational materials made available to students.

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