Majority rule

Was it happenstance or a macabre sense of editorial humor that placed the first-page article titled “Who owns our coast?” next to the article titled “Aquaculture’s future debated”? Those who debate the latter should consider the former and vice versa.

The landowners that are driving up the prices of Maine coast real estate, by and large, don’t want to look at fish pens and they have the clout to do something about it. Even in Lubec, the people “from away” feel they now have a critical mass allowing them to decide marina issues.

Somehow the dots have to be connected, regardless of how long they have lived in Maine. People shouldn’t have to forfeit their land because they can no longer pay the taxes, and people who work in the aquaculture industry shouldn’t lose their jobs because a recent wealthy transplant doesn’t like looking at fish pens from his living room.

I believe in property rights, I believe in jobs, I believe in democracy and I believe in capitalism, but I worry about what Madison, in the Federalist Papers, called “the tyranny of the majority.” If that majority has wealth, they have even more economic clout.

Walter Plaut

Trescott