2
Wednesday, November 6, 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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:
When does freedom of speech become
defamatory, partial truth and disrespect-
ful? Craig Rullman harms his credibility by
painting every Democrat or maybe every
Rebublican with the same brush. Rullman sug-
gests that all Democrats are guilty of fighting
tirelessly for slavery and on he goes ad-nau-
seum to support his generalizations.
My great-grandparents, dyed-in-the-wool
Southern Democrats, were a historically doc-
umented part of the Underground Railroad,
helping to shelter, clothe and feed countless
slaves seeking freedom.
Rullman9s column, September 25, does
nothing but create further divisiveness between
political parties. Where is the respectful dis-
course in such a short-sighted and narrow-
minded article? I expect more from him than
mean-spirited, disrespectful generalities. Let
us live to respect others and recognize that all
of us want the same things for our community,
our families, our world.
The pen may well be mightier than the
sword 4 but when you wield it, be ever mind-
ful of the wounds you inflict.
As for the main gist of his column, the right
to keep and bear arms, he went for the humor
with the mental picture I had of Elizabeth
Warren arriving to kick down my mom9s door
and take her firearm. My 80-year-old mom
claimed to be Charlton Heston9s best friend
and staunch member of the NRA. Nobody
would take her firearms, but then my mom
didn9t sport an UZI!
Karen Keady
s
s
s
To the Editor:
In reaction to Roger Engstrom, who wants
to help prevent bee extinction and evidently
was surprised from the Science Club lecture
See LETTERS on page 30
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Partly Cloudy
Partly Cloudy
Partly Cloudy
Mostly Cloudy
Partly Cloudy
Partly Cloudy
56/29
59/37
72/40
67/42
63/35
60/40
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.
Primaries are a lot like
Christmas: The shopping
season begins way before,
and things rarely live up to
expectations.
I still like Christmas,
but I9m happy to play the
Grinch with the primaries.
We should get rid of them.
If I could, I9d sneak into the
Whovilles of Iowa and New
Hampshire and steal the vot-
ing machines, ballots and
bad coffee.
I n t h e p a s t , m y
Grinchiness was mostly
reserved for the <first in
the nation= Iowa and New
Hampshire votes. Why
should these two states have
so much power? Two gen-
erations of political consul-
tants have made their careers
by knowing how to fill hotel
rooms in Des Moines and
whose palms to grease in
Nashua. Scour the Federalist
Papers and the Constitution
and you9ll find no mention
of primaries, never mind the
Hawkeye and Granite State
Hegemony. And yet, if you
win in either or both, you9re
statistically likely to become
your party9s nominee.
The Iowa caucuses are
a particular affront. If it
weren9t for them, there9d
be no ethanol subsidies,
which are bad for your car,
the economy and the envi-
ronment. If such things
bother you, Iowa and New
Hampshire are also very
white places, and I don9t
mean in the white Christmas
sense.
But the proposed rem-
edies 4 rotating the primary
states every four years, nuk-
ing Iowa from orbit, etc. 4
don9t really fix the underly-
ing problem. We shouldn9t
have primaries at all 4and
that goes for Senate and
House primaries, too.
Primaries date back to the
early 20th century, but they
never mattered much until
1972, when the Democrats
(with Republicans soon to
follow) did something revo-
lutionary: They voluntarily
relinquished the ability to
choose their own candidates.
The argument for democ-
ratizing the selection of can-
didates was justified with
the preposterous notion that
there9s nothing wrong with
democracy that more democ-
racy can9t fix. (It9s this pot-
ted thinking that leads peo-
ple to argue for lowering the
voting age to get more elec-
toral input from teenagers).
Those infamous <smoke-
filled rooms= 4 among my
favorite kinds of rooms, by
the way 4 were supposedly
bad because they allowed
party bosses to impose their
choices on voters. There9s no
doubt mistakes were made
by those party fat cats and
fixers, but those smoke-filled
rooms also gave us Lincoln,
Coolidge, the Roosevelts,
E i s e n h o w e r, Tr u m a n ,
Kennedy, et al.
One of the paradoxes of
democracy is that it depends
on healthy institutions that
are fundamentally undemo-
cratic. Families don9t put
everything to a vote, nor do
churches, the Boy Scouts or
the Marines. Back before the
parties were castrated by the
primaries (and other subse-
quent <reforms=), they had
the power to impose stan-
dards on candidates and to
protect their long-term inter-
ests and principles.
James Madison was
a better philosopher than
Alexander Hamilton (though
a worse rapper). He under-
stood that parties were a
necessary tool of democracy
because they forced differ-
ent factions and interests to
compromise in order to win.
Kindred groups were willing
to sacrifice a few items from
their wish lists if it meant
their party would be able to
deliver on most of its agenda.
Primaries blow all of that
up. Candidates on the left
and right promise purity in
all things, and elected politi-
cians are often more scared
of a primary challenge than
a general election contest.
Pandering to the most pas-
sionately ideological voters
is the direct result of democ-
ratizing party decisions.
This leaves the parties
behaving like advertising
agencies for whichever can-
didate happened to exploit
outrage the best 4 or lied
most convincingly about the
things they can deliver. The
Democrats right now are
like department store Santas
promising the kids jet-
packs and lightsabers. Once
elected, they9ll be lucky to
deliver socks. And the result-
ing outrage will restart the
whole stupid cycle all over
again.
© 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.
