In response to Heather McClure McKinney’s May 30 letter, (“Government subservience”), I offer, at her invitation, several thoughts and factual corrections.

While we can debate President Wilson’s unrealistic notion of American neutrality, we know that the spiral into World War I had begun in June 1914 with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia a month later. The United States didn’t enter the war for nearly three more years — in April 1917.

Now looking at something more contemporary, we certainly have had enough of the babbling birthers. President Obama was born in Hawaii to a complicated family more representative of the American melting pot than most of us can imagine.

Incidentally, Heather, my and Kate’s families immigrated to this country across nearly 300 years from the 17th century clear through to the early 20th. I hope you will find this sufficient to consider my son an allowable candidate for the presidency should he wish when he turns 35. He was born in Philadelphia, where we wrote the Constitution, inclusive of Article II, Section 1. It’s all there in short, simple sentences.

Unless there is something afoot about which we are all unaware, our Constitution shall continue to exist, providing the protections and benefits of liberty that it has since 1787. If you have verified details to the contrary, please do share.

Regarding your comment about “virtue,” I’ll kindly decline to answer as The Times Record is a family publication and I would like to be published.

As for the “IRS agents, leftists, socialists, Marxists and (egads) Communists,” along with Sens. Collins and Snowe, I list the following:

— The Internal Revenue Service dates from an act of Congress during the 1863 administration of President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican.

— It was the Conservative member from Epping, Winston Churchill, who said that “Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried…”

— We live in Maine. Aren’t we the folks most defensive of our independence? Do you really believe that we would be better off with ideologues rather than independent thinkers? Or is it that you’d prefer to avoid the practice of that pesky last part?

Heather, I have read my Constitution from cover to cover and I don’t leave home without it. The Constitution, unlike your letter, it is an inherently optimistic document, if for no other reason than that it guarantees my right, indeed my duty, to dissent from my government.

It ensures that, in perpetuity, I can vote, we can disagree publicly and all the while engage in this ridiculous conversation!

And, yes, I do enjoy “day-today life in America.

You can continue to darken my doorstep, and I’ll say, “Bring it.” You can attempt to replace fact with non-fact and I’ll answer by saying, “Bring it.”

You can attempt to roil up the haters and the uninformed and I will say, “Bring it.”

Despite your best efforts, I intend to continue enjoying my life because I live in a representative democracy, a country of laws that guarantee that my rights are protected by the single most enduring tool of a free people — the Constitution.

Any other questions?

ROO DUNN lives in Bath.