Those signs we’ve been seeing, “’Yes’ on 1: Reject Big Pharma” exploit the common hostility toward pharmaceutical companies. None of the Democratic candidates have a good word to say about Big Pharma and some Republicans share this hostility. I don’t share this feeling. This is not because I’m a conservative first, Republican second. It’s because the pharmaceutical companies produce a half dozen pills to help stave off the effects of 74 years of bad habits. These began with the black licorice purchased at the Hometown Market in East Wilton at age five (I was a late bloomer). And it has been only 10 years since I went from three packs of cigarettes per day to zero tobacco.

Since these companies are seen as villains, targeting Big Pharma makes political sense. But the formal name of the referendum question – “Religious and Philosophical Vaccination Exemptions Referendum”– gives us a more accurate description of what’s really at stake when we vote on Tuesday, March 3. Maine’s predominantly left-tilted editorialists and pundits, who seem to be incapable of objecting to expansions of governmental power, are not very interested in religious and philosophical objections. They concentrate their criticism on what they call the “anti-vaccination movement.” I haven’t so far seen the advocates of LD 798 signed by Governor Mills in May discuss the “philosophical” objections. I’m not familiar with the religious objections but I share the philosophical objections to government taking over responsibility for children from their parents.

This is not an isolated example. It’s part of a continuing trend. Programs for expanding public education to include early childhood, hostility to home schooling and all varieties of private education fit this pattern. What’s worse are the pedagogical schemes designed to insure that students acquire prescribed opinions favored by liberals. Having spent 32 years as a chalked-smeared foot-soldier in a New Jersey community college I’m familiar with the products of one of the most expensive public education establishments in the United States.

These “products” were not, on the average, impressive. A common question among the faculty at the beginning of each semester – “Are they growing more ignorant and less inclined to work?” The answers were not very cheerful. Perhaps it is enough to mention that most of the math classes were remedial. And I remember Middlesex County College’s president remarking in a faculty meeting that none of the students in the lowest remedial English class, RDG010, ever graduated. To be strictly accurate, she said “almost” none, but college presidents tend to be a mite deceptive, so I’ve corrected for accuracy.

I’m arguing that, on the record, there isn’t a lot of evidence to encourage a belief that the government should make all the decisions about bringing up children.

Cara Sacks, campaign manager for Mainers for Health and Parental Rights (MHPR) has explained that she opposes LD 798 because it negates personal and religious reasons for exempting schoolchildren, as well as employees of nursery schools and health care facilities, from mandatory vaccinations. The means for abolishing this right are harshly coercive. Children, whose parents refuse to abandon their objections, will be excluded from participation in schools. This fits neatly with the liberal objections to any alternative to public education.

Objections to coercing vaccination rest on respect for parental rights. The argument for coercion rests on protection of public health. These arguments deserve attention, but they are tainted by deception and dishonesty if they don’t include an explicit statement that parental rights must be terminated.

More, it is dishonest to create the impression that Cara Sacks is some kind of anti-science faith-healer or religious zealot. Like me she has been vaccinated repeatedly over the years. Her children have received vaccinations. Unlike Cara I have no children, but my cats have all been vaccinated more than once.

Cara has a Master’s degree in social work. I’ve spoken with her and saw no sign of demented zeal. Her motives were clear and rationally expressed. Although many conservative Republicans support her efforts, she has never identified as an explicitly conservative activist. She, and her co-chair and a group of dedicated, industrious volunteers collected 93,000 signatures from voters in 456 Maine towns. It seems to me that this effort comes as close to the ideal of the peoples veto power that we’ll ever see. Money was not the dynamo that produced that mass of signatures, but individual dedication. See if you can find one that those pundits who are forever wronging their hands about the influence of money on politics have anything to say.

The latest data provided by the state shows only modest funding from groups supporting and opposing the “‘Yes’ on One”. The supporters of  “‘Yes’ on One” received more donations until the Maine Street Solutions lobbying firm showed up on February 10 to spend $476,000 from pharmaceutical manufacturers on TV ads in southern Maine.

My $1,000 check makes me one of the “Yes” on one big backers. That gives you a idea of the scale of financing so far.

John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070@aol.comof public health.