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Wednesday, April 10, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I
N I
O
N
TURNing toward
localism
By Jim Cornelius
Editor in Chief
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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:
As I just finished reading the commentary
<Goodnight Molly= by Tom Donahue (The
Nugget, April 3, page 8), I knew I had to write
this little note. It touched me so, because I
knew Molly slightly as Tom and Molly are
my neighbors. You never saw one without the
other (except for a few times Molly decided to
come over and visit me, or the time Tom was
relaxing on his lawn chair by the creek, and
I saw Molly decide she would go and check
things out, I hollered to Tom, <Molly9s taking
a hike.= Tom had fallen asleep. She didn9t get
very far).
Having been a vet tech in California, I
could see Molly having more and more trouble
going on their morning walks, then one day
Tom was walking alone. He came by and said
yes, Molly had left him.
I had tears reading Tom9s tribute to Molly,
having had a wonderful Sheltie dog named
Boy that took care of 200 head of sheep on our
ranch in California and losing him to a drunk
driver, I can fully understand how Tom feels
on losing not only a pet but a friend. I9ll miss
seeing Molly and Tom going for their walk
every morning.
God bless you, pretty Molly, for all the joy
you brought to Tom; and to you, Tom, for all
the love and care you gave your girl. I9ll miss
seeing you together.
Sylvia Cara
s
s
s
To the Editor:
This letter is in response to the April 3
edition of The Nugget article titled, <Cold
Weather Shelter organizers address concerns.=
See LETTERS on page 20
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Cloudy
AM Showers
Partly Cloudy
Cloudy
Cloudy
AM Snow Showers
49/38
49/35
53/33
55/36
46/33
47/35
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I have become mildly
obsessed with the AMC
show <TURN: Washington9s
Spies.= I got sucked into this
Revolutionary War espio-
nage drama on Netflix and
have now made it nearly
through its four seasons,
sneaking in an episode
almost every day in the early
evenings.
The show is histori-
cally challenged in many
respects, but 4 taken on its
own terms and merits 4 it
is compelling. It represents
18th-century America quite
well in several ways.
<TURN= visually cap-
tures just how rural Colonial
America was. Long Island
wasn9t a suburb; it was the
boondocks. And, while New
York and New England c.
1776 were no longer a wil-
derness, the landscape was,
in many places, still heav-
ily wooded and semi-wild.
Distances were great; roads
were mostly poor and com-
munications slow.
And the human popula-
tion was small and local-
ized. This point is critical to
understanding the evolution
of the republican principles
that imbued the founding of
the United States. (Hat-tip
to historian and author Dr.
Brion McClanahan for artic-
ulating this nicely in a pod-
cast on TURN 4 link in the
online version of this story
at www.nuggetnews.com).
The largest city in the
American Colonies in 1776
was Philadelphia, with
40,000 residents. Bustling
New York City was home
to 25,000 souls; Boston,
the hotbed of the rebellion,
boasted a population of
15,000 people.
As of 2017, the popula-
tion of Bend, Oregon was
94,520. Sisters, Oregon,
had a 2017 population of
2,701 4 but counting its
outlying residential areas,
it has a population roughly
the size of Colonial Boston
or maybe Newport, Rhode
Island (11,000).
The aphorism that <all
politics is local= was genu-
inely true in Colonial and
Revolutionary America. The
republican form of govern-
ment designed by the found-
ers operates optimally when
it is operating at a manage-
able scale. The structure has
actually been remarkably
adaptable to massive growth
and change, but it was never
designed to be a centralized
bureaucracy responsible for
managing 320 million peo-
ple9s lives on a continental
and transcontinental scale.
It was, in short, supposed to
remain a Republic, not an
Empire.
Politics was never meant
to be a full-time obligation
or occupation 4 it was sup-
posed to be a matter of pub-
lic service to deal with the
public business, with long
and frequent retreats back
into the private sector.
We should not wax
romantic about localism
4 local politics can be
mean and petty (as anyone
who has been involved in a
neighborhood beef or local
land-use tussle can attest).
But, allowing for the nec-
essary evil, political action
should rightly be as <local=
as it can be made. This is
the principle of subsidiarity:
Matters ought to be handled
by the smallest, lowest or
least centralized competent
authority. Political decisions
should be taken at a local
level if possible, rather than
by a central authority.
This means that, instead
of seeking political saviors
to sit in an imperial Oval
Office, we should be wor-
rying a lot more about who
is running for school board
or city council or planning
commission or county com-
mission. And we should
be taking advantage of the
politics of scale to wield
our individual influence at
that level, where our voices
might actually be heard and
heeded.
The local group
In d iv isib le S iste rs is
hosting a gathering on
Thursday, April 11, from 6
to 8 p.m. focusing on <Local
Government in Our Daily
Lives.= Those attending can
explore the role of Sisters
City Council with City
Councilor Andrea Blum and
City Manager Cory Misley.
Learn how to run for elec-
tion (there will be three
openings next year).
The group will gather at
the Sisters Public Library
conference room, with a
half-hour social kicking off
at 6 p.m. For more informa-
tion call 541-760-5320.
This might be a nice
opportunity to make a
TURN toward localism. The
founders would approve.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by The Nugget Newspaper.