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Wednesday, September 13, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Editorial…
We are our own disaster relief program
Sisters has had a tough year. A hard win-
ter has been followed by a brutal fire season
that cut summer short and choked up the local
economy.
Smoky conditions ripped the heart right
out of the busy summer season, which is when
most of our local businesses put together the
bankroll that gets them through the winter.
The eclipse didn’t pan out to be an economic
boon; Labor Day was smoky and slow and
the Sisters Folk Festival was cancelled due to
air-quality concerns. Those are tough blows to
take for local shops and restaurants.
There may be some programs to help out
those hit hard by what can only be termed a
slow-rolling economic disaster, but in all like-
lihood, Sisters is on its own.
And we can handle that. We can pull
ourselves up by our bootstraps and be our own
disaster-relief program. It doesn’t have to be
arduous, either. A little extra effort to dine
out locally more frequently; a little extra sus-
tained effort to shop local instead of buying
online or at the box store will go a long way
toward filling the hole left by the great sum-
mer smokeout.
Most shops in Sisters can order quickly
what they don’t have in stock, and Sisters is
full of dining options for breakfast, lunch and
dinner. Maybe this is a good opportunity to
rediscover our hometown and keep our dollars
at work in our own community, while reaching
out a hand to help our neighbor.
Jim Cornelius
Editor
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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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:
A recent visit during “Solar Eclipse” week
to Camp Polk Cemetery found the flagpole and
American flag posted by local Sisters VFW
and American Legion Posts, to honor veterans
buried there, on the ground. The pole had been
bent at the base and the flag ruffled in the dirt.
On Wednesday, first day of school, the flag and
pole at Sisters Christian Academy was lifted
from the mount, and tossed into the parking
lot, smashing the solar light system. The flag
was stolen.
Both flagpoles honoring veterans have been
repaired/replaced by an anonymous donor, and
are proudly flying again. If anyone has any
information concerning the two flagpoles,
or knows of any other flags being damaged,
please call 541-549-1132 and leave a message
as VFW and American Legion would like to
remedy the problem as soon as possible.
Bill Anttila
VFW Post 8138 Service Officer
s
s
s
To the Editor:
Thank you, Sisters Folk Festival Board
of Directors. This was a very difficult and
courageous decision (to cancel the event),
and it was the right one. The renowned qual-
ity of the festival would have been com-
promised, and many who could not have
enjoyed their tickets would have been
forced to forfeit the value because of the
smoke.
For these reasons, and in appreciation
of what the festival has brought to my com-
munity, musically and financially, I will not
accept a refund for my tickets. Use the money
to put the festival back on its feet for an even
better event next year!
Erik Dolson
s s s
See LETTERS on page 28
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Jonah
Goldberg
The Obama Department of
Homeland Security concluded
that left-wing “antifa” forces
were engaged in “domestic
terrorist violence,” accord-
ing to documents obtained by
Politico.
Who am I to argue with the
fine men and women of for-
mer President Obama’s DHS?
In fact, as someone who
has been fighting with antifa
defenders for a good while,
I feel a bit like the defense
lawyer in “Miracle on 34th
Street” when the U.S. Post
Office confirms that his cli-
ent is actually Santa Claus:
Hey, don’t take my word for
it; “terrorist violence” is the
term chosen by profession-
als working for a Democratic
White House.
With this moral victory
secured, let me now break
with some of my friends on
the right and say that I think
it’s a bad, or at least prema-
ture, idea to go all the way and
label antifa an actual terrorist
organization.
Many defenders of the
antifa cause insist these
loosely organized activists are
simply anti-fascist, and that
fighting fascism is some kind
of get-out-of-jail-free card
for lawlessness, violence and
intimidation. That’s nonsense.
The state has a monopoly
on all violence save for self-
defense. In a nation of laws,
people cannot exempt them-
selves from the rules because
they don’t like someone’s
ideas.
Giving a bunch of adre-
nalized anarchists unilateral
authority to designate fascists
strikes me as an incandes-
cently stupid idea. Antifa’s
understanding of what quali-
fies as fascist includes con-
servative campus speakers,
defenders of free speech and
even plain old Republicans.
And yet, college adminis-
trators, local politicians and
police departments, particu-
larly in places like Berkeley,
have given antifa protest-
ers a kind of benefit of the
doubt. And so have some in
the media who think there’s
something romantically heroic
about direct action and, in the
Trump era, resistance.
This isn’t to say that there
have been no arrests. But uni-
versity officials and local poli-
ticians have been intimidated
on numerous occasions. In
Portland, a parade was can-
celed because an email threat-
ened violence if Republicans
were allowed to march in
it. In Berkeley, Mayor Jesse
Arreguin urged UC Berkeley
to cancel “Free Speech Week”
for fear of violence, giving
antifa a heckler’s veto. So
much for the home of the free
speech movement. Predict-
ably, such responses have only
emboldened the goon squads.
Still, the local authorities
that are contributing to the
problem are also the best solu-
tion for it. In fact, Arreguin
has the right idea when he
says antifa should be labeled a
gang. Like many gangs, antifa
is less of a sophisticated crim-
inal enterprise and more of an
excuse for hooligans to make
trouble. Maybe local police
departments aren’t up to the
task of combating them, but
we won’t know until they stop
appeasing them.
Meanwhile, officially des-
ignating antifa a terrorist orga-
nization would most likely
be opening a Pandora’s box.
There is a huge difference
between countering foreign
terrorists, who have no consti-
tutional rights, and domestic
ones. The federal government
is constitutionally empowered
to fight foreign threats. The
states are supposed to fight
crime, even domestic-terrorist
violence.
The groundswell behind
the label “terrorist” for antifa
is a call to blur that dis-
tinction. Although treating
American radicals and vigi-
lantes the way we treat for-
eign members of the Islamic
State or al-Qaida might play
well in certain corners of the
populist right these days, seri-
ous conservatives should be
very skeptical about granting
the federal government new
police powers, which could
be used to other ends in future
administrations.
Elevating antifa to the cat-
egory of terrorist organization
would fuel the worst trends in
our politics. It would entice
President Trump to indulge
his strongman shtick, and it
would give antifa the stature
it clearly craves. It would also
likely accelerate vigilante
violence among the white
nationalists. Launching a fed-
eral crusade against domes-
tic enemies would only fuel
the fallacy that anyone antifa
attacks is a fascist. We should
fight crime, whatever guise it
takes, on the local level — as
the founders intended.
© 2017 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.