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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 14, 2018)
2 Wednesday, November 14, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N 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. 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: While it wasn’t reported, there was a fire at Zimmerman Butte gun area, Friday, October 26, at 5:30 p.m. Fortunately one of my neigh- bors called it in and the Sisters Fire District responded and extinguished it. Several people reported “explosive noise” — likely Tannerite — before the fire was reported. A similar fire was reported two years ago. This should make all in Sisters nervous. While we have seen an increase in popula- tion and visitors coincident with increased fire danger, the Forest Service has not changed its management practices of these gun ranges. The law is clear on gun use, especially on federal land, and I am not debating gun use, but corralling shooting into one location for hours a day causes noise pollution, physical harm for people with PTSD and potential fire danger, within a mile of Sisters. I would urge the Forest Service to do a bet- ter job of managing these areas. They neither detected or extinguished this fire and do noth- ing to be good neighbors and manage what they describe as Sisters’ recreational gun area, nor have they investigated the unlawful use of Tannerite according to their dispatch center. Stephen King Editor’s note: The Nugget has contacted Sisters District Ranger Ian Reid regarding this incident and will report on it next week. s s s To the Editor: Thank you, Jim Anderson, for your won- derful words about our amazing country. To my fellow Sisters-Americans: Please, let’s remember that deep down we want most of the same things, life, liberty and the right to be happy. We have so much, just being blessed to live here. Let’s smile and say “hi” when we see each other and keep Sisters the friendly town I moved to 29 years ago. Have a great day, Jean Nave Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Mostly Sunny Mostly Sunny Mostly Sunny AM Clouds/PM Sun Mostly Sunny 59/64 59/32 56/32 46/22 51/24 Monday Mostly Sunny 51/25 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC 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. Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Graphic Design: Jess Draper Community Marketing Partners: Vicki Curlett & Patti Jo Beal Classifieds & Circulation: Lisa May Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Owner: J. Louis Mullen 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. ©2018 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. 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. It is perhaps the cen- tral irony of our politics today: We live in an incred- ibly polarized and partisan moment, but our political parties have never been weaker. As odd as it sounds, political parties in democ- racies have an important anti-democratic function. Traditionally, the parties shaped the choices put to voters. Long before vot- ers decided anything in the primary or general elec- tions, party bosses worked to groom good candidates, weed out bad ones, organize interests and frame issues. In the modern era, the story of party decline usually begins in the aftermath of the 1968 presidential election. The move toward primaries and the democratic selec- tion of delegates took power away from the bosses. After Watergate, there were more reforms, curb- ing the ability of the parties to raise and spend money freely. This led to the rise of political action committees, which raise cash independent of the formal party structure. As Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said during the floor debate over the McCain- Feingold campaign finance bill in 2001, “We haven’t taken a penny of money out of politics. We’ve only taken the parties out of politics.” Outside groups —the National Rifle Association, Planned Parenthood, unions, etc. — often do more to effectively organize vot- ers around single issues or personalities than the par- ties do. The Kochs, Tom Steyer, George Soros and Sheldon Adelson serve as party bosses, only outside the parties. Technology is another, less obvious, force siphoning power from the parties. As political historian Michael Barone has noted, the tele- phone dealt a grievous blow to political conventions, where insiders have outsize power. “Until the 1960s, the national convention was a communications medium,” Barone writes. “Political leaders in the various states seldom met each other, out- side of sessions of Congress, during the four years between presidential elections.” The telephone eliminated the need for the face-to-face negotiations. Today, political conventions are little more than infomercials for presi- dential candidates. The internet and cable TV have accelerated the eclips- ing of parties. Opinion web- sites and TV and radio hosts now do more to shape issues and select candidates than the parties do. And yet, Americans keep talking about partisan poli- tics as if the parties are in charge, and base voters on the left and the right keep railing against the party establishments like mobs unaware that they’re kicking dead horses. When you take politi- cal power out of the par- ties, other actors seize it. When wielded by people who aren’t supposed to be in the politics business, that power corrupts. This is why every Academy Awards cer- emony is peppered with asi- nine political jeremiads, and why late-night comedy hosts serve as de facto Democratic Party organizers. It’s why people like Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, act like social-gospel ward heelers. It’s why the cable news net- works spend so much of their time rallying voters in one direction or another. And it’s why countless pundits and allegedly objective reporters serve as unofficial political consultants. It’s also why Donald Trump could leverage his celebrity to seize the GOP nomination, and why some- one like Oprah Winfrey could be next. There are other, larger forces at work. The decline of strong independent insti- tutions—religious, civic and familial—has people searching for other outlets to find a sense of meaning and belonging. Identity politics, populism and nationalism are filling that void. That’s happened before, but when it did, the parties were there to filter, constrain and channel those passions in a healthy direction. The Potemkin parties can’t, or won’t, do that anymore. The result is a nation of partisans decrying partisanship. © 2018 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.
