To the editor:
In a recent piece in Viewpoints, entitled, “If I woke up in a place called Lyndon, I’d move home to Caribou”, Mr. John Albert-Murchison summed up his emotional argument against the Caribou secession with a philosophy of life that consists of “making do and calling it good.” By way of full disclosure, he is also the brother of Ken Murchison, who was the previous mayor of Caribou for 12 years.
During Ken Murchison’s administration Caribou’s municipal spending spiraled out of control and real estate valuations went through the roof. The city government of Caribou has never seriously considered a policy of “making do and calling it good.” On the contrary, the policy of Caribou’s city government is to spend its way into prosperity and then force the taxpayer to pay for the city’s extravagancy with overly high tax bills.
Poor Mr. Albert-Murchison apparently suffers from a severe case of blind-faith in Caribou’s governance. The cause of this malady appears to be his over-sentimentalization of and his pining for the bygone days of yesteryear.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines “making do” as, “to manage to live without things that you would like to have, or with things of worse quality than you would like.” So, Mr. Albert-Murchison, if there is any logic to your argument and if you are truly sincere in your beliefs, sir, why don’t you just march down to Caribou City Hall, in a state of high dudgeon, and tell those spendthrifts to just “make do” with their current offices instead of spending $143,000 for their renovations, and tell them to call what they have “good”?
Many of the folks living in the 13 colonies at the time of the American Revolution did not think that they could possibly get along without the British Crown telling them what to do and how they were supposed to live their lives. These people were known as Loyalists, and they were considered cowards and traitors by those who were fighting for the cause of American Independence.
True American patriots were tired of British tyranny and they had had enough of “making do and calling it good.” They were not afraid to risk their lives in order to forge a future that was free from the unjustness of over-taxation, over-regulation, and non-representational government. In short, they did not hide behind a skirt and “make do” with a glass half full. On the contrary, they were inspired by a future wherein they could fill that glass to the brim and make it overflow.
“Make do” indeed! Red-blooded Americans don’t “make do and call it good”, sir. America would not exist, if such a fainthearted philosophy, as you propose, had prevailed. Would slavery have been abolished by such a craven attitude? Would there be an eight-hour work day? Would child labor have ceased? Not if Americans had opted for such a sniveling attitude as “make-do and call it good.”
Try telling the elderly, the disabled, the truly needy, the homeless, the mentally ill, women, ethnic minorities, the LGBT community, or other members of society who have been underserved or who have been discriminated against that rather than having stood up for their rights that they should have just “made do and called it good.” They would likely laugh in your face!
Ironically, sir, if you did “wake up in a place called Lyndon” you would actually be able to sell your home and move back to your beloved Caribou because the property taxes in Lyndon would be 28 percent lower than they currently are in Caribou — that beneficial consequence of secession would make your home more attractive to buy.
Conversely, if you were to attempt to sell your home, while residing in Caribou, you could wait for as long as a year or more to sell it, that is, if you could sell it at all. As one Caribou homeowner recently commented online: “If I could sell my home for half of its assessed value, I would take it in a heartbeat and leave town.”
Mr. Albert-Murchison you appear to have blinded yourself intentionally to reality around you. Yes, Caribou is dying and atrophying but the cause is not a lack of unity. People are leaving because of the high property valuations and unaffordable property taxes. Too many of Caribou’s citizens cannot afford to both pay their property tax and also pay for the basic necessities of life, such as food, heat and medicine.
Real people, the elderly, the disabled, veterans and the underemployed are actually losing their homes in Caribou. Are you going to tell them to their face “to make do and call it good”, sir, because I really want to be there, if you ever do?
