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Wednesday, June 21, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Jonah
Goldberg
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.
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To the Editor:
My husband, Michael Hooey, was seri-
ously injured in a motorcycle accident May 28
on Indian Ford Road in Sisters. He fractured
both his femurs — one compound — fractured
his neck and pelvis, and required 10 units of
blood.
It is because of the first responders’ quick
arrival and their split-second decisions, as
well as the work of the trauma team at St.
Charles Medical Center, that saved his life that
morning.
My husband, and our family, would like
to thank all of you. You will always be in our
thoughts and prayers.
Our community is truly blessed to have that
level of emergency care here when needed. As
we continue to piece together the events of
that morning, we ask if anyone saw or heard
anything relating to the accident would you
please contact us via email at deehooey@
yahoo.com.
Dee Hooey
s
s
s
To the Editor:
Last night I attended the Sisters Dance
Academy Spring dance recital. It was amaz-
ing. The choreography was creative and
really showed off their talent. The cos-
tumes were so creative and colorful. I went
to see high school students, but was treated
to age 4 on up. Lonnie Liddell and the
rest of the staff did a fine job. I highly rec-
ommend going to her next recital. I know
See LETTERS on page 14
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There’s a tension so deep
in how we think about free
expression, it should rightly
be called a paradox.
On the one hand, regard-
less of ideology, artists and
writers almost unanimously
insist that they do what they
do to change minds. But
the same artistes, auteurs
and opiners recoil in horror
when anyone suggests that
they might be responsible
for inspiring bad deeds.
Hollywood, the music
industry, journalism, politi-
cal ideologies, even the
Confederate flag: Each takes
its turn in the dock when
some madman or fool does
something terrible.
Hollywood activists
blame the toxic rhetoric of
right-wing talk radio or the
tea party for this crime, the
National Rifle Association
blames Hollywood for that
atrocity. Liberals decry the
toxic rhetoric of the right,
conservatives blame the
toxic rhetoric of the left.
When attacked — heed-
less of ideology or con-
sistency — the gladiators
instantly trade weapons.
The finger-pointers of five
minutes ago suddenly wax
righteous in their indigna-
tion that mere expression
— rather, their expres-
sion — should be blamed.
Many of the same liber-
als who pounded soap-
boxes into pulp at the very
thought of labeling record
albums with violent-lyrics
warnings instantly insisted
that Sarah Palin had Rep.
Gabby Giffords’ blood on
her hands. Many of the con-
servatives who spewed hot
fire at the suggestion that
they had any culpability in
an abortion clinic bombing,
gleefully insisted that Sen.
Bernie Sanders is partially
to blame for Rep. Steve
Scalise’s fight with death.
And this is where the
paradox starts to come into
view: Everyone has a point.
“The blame for violent
acts lies with the people
who commit them, and
with those who explicitly
and seriously call for vio-
lence,” Dan McLaughlin,
my National Review col-
league, wrote in the Los
Angeles Times last week.
“People who just use over-
heated political rhetoric,
or who happen to share the
gunman’s opinions, should
be nowhere on the list.”
As a matter of law, I
agree with this entirely. But
as a matter of culture, it’s
more complicated.
I have always thought
it absurd to claim that
expression cannot lead
people to do bad things,
precisely because it is so
obvious that expression
can lead people to do good
things. According to leg-
end, Abraham Lincoln told
Harriet Beecher Stowe, “So
you’re the little woman who
wrote the book that started
this great war.” Should we
mock Lincoln for saying
something ridiculous?
As Irving Kristol once
put it, “If you believe that
no one was ever corrupted
by a book, you have also to
believe that no one was ever
improved by a book. You
have to believe, in other
words, that art is morally
trivial and that education is
morally irrelevant.”
Ironically, free speech
was born in an attempt
to stop killing. It has its
roots in freedom of con-
science. Before the Peace
of Westphalia in 1648, the
common practice was that
the rulers’ religion deter-
mined their subjects’ faith
too. Religious dissent was
not only heresy but a kind of
treason. After Westphalia,
exhaustion with religion-
motivated bloodshed created
space for toleration. As the
historian C.V. Wedgwood
put it, the West had begun
to understand “the essential
futility of putting the beliefs
of the mind to the judgment
of the sword.”
This didn’t mean that
Protestants instantly stopped
hating Catholics or vice
versa. Nor did it mean that
the more ecumenical hatred
of Jews vanished. What it
did mean is that it was no
longer acceptable to kill
people simply for what they
believed — or said.
But words still mattered.
Art still moved people. And
the law is not the full and
final measure of morality.
Hence the paradox: In a free
society, people have a moral
responsibility for what they
say, while at the same time
a free society requires legal
responsibility only for what
they actually do.
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Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.