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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (July 31, 2019)
2 Wednesday, July 31, 2019 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 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: A sheriff9s deputy came to my house July 24 with the remains of three bills I9d put into the outgoing mail slot. What was returned was the envelopes of the three, one of the checks and two of the pay- ment vouchers. Two checks are missing and one voucher which also contained my SSN. Whoever did this now has my name, address, SNN and bank information. This is not a petty crime; this is a federal offense as well as a state felony. My clus- ter mail unit is across the street from the new Ponderosa Heights apartment complex on Brooks Camp Road. There has been an increase in crime since these apartments have been occupied, the deputy had another stolen envelope besides the three mentioned above, the club house property for the Pines adja- cent to this cluster mail unit was vandalized in May, there has been other instances as well. Is this the new face of Sisters? Can we no longer feel safe about putting our mail into the outgoing mail slot? What9s next? This clus- ter mail unit is used by the Pines community which includes 50 homes in the 55 and over section known as Brooks Camp Village, most of the residents of BCV are well into their 70s and many in their 90s, are we putting our senior community at risk when they simply want to collect and send mail? This is a sad state when one can no longer feel safe in a small town such as Sisters. Chris Carr Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Sunny Sunny Mostly Sunny Sunny Mostly Sunny Sunny 88/55 88/53 83/51 88/56 91/56 91/55 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. ©2019 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 Newspaper9s 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. I want to put in a good word for partisanship. This might sound strange to some readers. I9ve written a lot about our problem with tribalism, including hyper-partisan- ship and political polariza- tion. It was a major theme of my cheerily titled book <Suicide of the West.= So I9m happy to concede that too much partisanship 4 or partisanship of the wrong kind 4 can be very bad. But unity can be bad too. Excessive unity cul- tivates groupthink and breeds contempt for dis- sent. It tends to ride rough- shod over minorities, and not just in the sense of racial, religious or sexual groups. Ideological minori- ties 4 including the small- est minority, the individual 4 can get trampled by the unity stampede. Self-described national- ists insist the country needs more unity 4 around their ideas. Self-described socialists also crave unity, but only around their agenda. At various times and places, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Hindus have all strived for unity, but only on their terms. In any large soci- ety, the demand for unity is usually the demand for power in a winner-take-all contest between different groups. Our Constitution is set up around the idea that unity is scarier than disunity. The founders designed a system that pre- vented any one group, or <faction,= from imposing its one-size-fits-all unity on everybody. Ironically, the founders never envisioned political parties as a major com- ponent of this system. James Madison eventually embraced parties, but most of the founders were closer to Thomas Jefferson9s view that if the only way he could get into heaven was by joining a party, he wouldn9t go. Think of it this way: Courtrooms are partisan battlefields. The defense attorney is a zealous advocate for acquittal. The prosecutor is equally passionate about convic- tion. Both sides must deal honestly, but it is the com- petition between the two sides, the questioning of evidence, the inquiry into motives and methods, that produces a just outcome. Of course, sometimes it goes wrong. But it9s the best system we9ve got. This is how the good kind of partisanship is sup- posed to work. Partisans have all manner of incen- tives to poke holes in the opposition9s arguments and proposals4some patriotic and principled, some more base and self- ish. But the process of political combat, which is supposed to take place in Congress, not on cable TV or Twitter, should get us closer to both the truth and a consensus about the way forward. The public is supposed to be the jury. Unfortunately, too many jurors only want to hear arguments from either the defense or the prosecution. It9s a cliche to note that the party out of power only cares about deficits and debt when it is out of power. This hypocrisy is annoying and at times dis- honorable. But it9s better than the alternative. If it9s true that unlimited borrow- ing, mostly from China, to pay for things we can9t afford is bad, better to have someone saying so, even if they9re doing it for cynical purposes. Such complaints at least serve to check run- away deficit spending. Last week we crossed a Rubicon with the new bipartisan budget deal pro- posed by President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It marks the end of either party even pretending to care about such things. It9s a victory of the sort of bipartisan- ship and unity so many claim this country needs. And it is a perfect example of how unity around a bad thing is worse than dis- unity over what constitutes a good thing. ©2019 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.