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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 2016)
2 Wednesday, October 12, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Rachel Marsden American Voices Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: The Second Amendment of the Constitution states “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” So why is it that Democrats continue to make every effort to infringe on law-abiding citizens’ rights under the Constitution? I’m completely baffled why Democrats think conservatives (deplorables) are violent because we own guns. When was the last time you saw a group of conservatives block a freeway, turn over cop cars, riot, loot, throw Molotov cocktails, and burn buildings? So far this year in President Obama’s hometown of Chicago there have been over 3,000 shooting victims. Guess how many have been attributed to NRA members. So what is the motive behind this insatiable drive by Democrats to disarm law-abiding citizens? We’ve witnessed firsthand (one of many examples) corrupt power at the highest level of our government and the justice system with the dismissal of Hillary Clinton’s violation of the law (18 U.S. Code & 793 subsection). Any military person that compromised our nation’s security even a fraction of what she had would be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1913. So, would Hillary as president select Supreme Court Justices that further the Democrats drive to disarm law-abiding citi- zens; the precise thing the 2nd Amendment was written to protect us from? Nah! After 40-plus years of scandal-free government service, 100% honesty with voters, and a See LETTERS on page 25 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Increasing clouds Rain Rain likely Rain likely Rain likely Cloudy 65/40 59/44 54/39 56/40 55/36 55/na The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson News Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Williver Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Advertising: Karen Kassy Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. PARIS — Why has real democracy become so elu- sive in developed nations? Sure, you can still vote and feel as if you have some kind of say, but genuine democracy is getting further and further out of reach. The current climate in Europe should serve as a warning to America about what lies ahead if U.S. citizens don’t reclaim power by choos- ing the anti-establishment candidate, Donald Trump, in November’s presidential election. Hungary held a ref- erendum last weekend on whether to allow the European Union to impose migrant quotas on the coun- try in an effort to resettle millions of refugees from the Middle East. According to the Associated Press, about 98 percent of vot- ers rejected the imposition, but because fewer than half of Hungary’s voters cast a ballot, the referen- dum is considered invalid. Even if the requisite 50 percent had shown up to vote, a 1964 decision of the European Court of Justice set a precedent establish- ing the supremacy of EU law over the laws of mem- ber nations. As a result, any anti-democratic quotas imposed on Hungary by European governance can’t even be canceled out by the overwhelming popular vote of Hungarians. The only way for an EU country such as Hungary to maintain national sov- ereignty is to officially escape the European straitjacket, just as Great Britain did earlier this year with the Brexit vote. But elected representatives are loath to give their people that kind of democratic freedom. At least two of the conservative candidates in France’s presidential primary, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, are calling for a referendum on merely “reformatting” Europe. In other words, the elites want to set up a false dichotomy under the pretext of demo- cratic choice. Voters would get to choose whether they’re satisfied with Europe in its current state, or if they want the same elites who made a mess of things in the first place to have another chance to make a different mess. If the issues of cultural and societal preservation, establishment cronyism and the erosion of democracy become more important to French voters than the choice between ideological right and left, then French voters are really left with only one electoral choice: Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen is the only serious candidate who has promised a Brexit-style referendum if she wins the French presidency in May. French elites are betting that voters won’t dare to vote for a far-right party in order to escape the clutches of the European Union. It’s quite a gamble. Is it any wonder that so many millennials in Europe and elsewhere are veering to the far right? When I was barely out of school in the early 2000s, trying to carve out a niche as a conservative voice in a North American media landscape dominated by the left, I felt that the leftist buzzwords being bandied about reflected social engi- neering on a massive scale. The counterculture genera- tion had come to power and were peddling the notion that society needed fixing because it was too sexist, too intolerant, not diverse enough and just simply too unfair. The establishment foisted these views and this way of thinking onto soci- ety and made it an offense to deviate from the left- wing point of view. If you didn’t conform, you were marginalized. Some of us checked out of the system altogether to forge an independent path and have been waiting decades for the pendulum to swing back in our favor. The cavalry has finally arrived, and it’s made up of our critics’ own children. © 2016 Tribune Content Agency Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.