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Wednesday, November 18, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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A higher form of leadership
By Jim Cornelius | Editor in Chief
Anyone who thought that the American cri-
sis was going to be resolved at the ballot box
November 3 has been rapidly disillusioned. The
election revealed that America is 4 and is likely
to remain 4 a deeply divided nation. And many of
us are skeptical that our deep cultural divides and
structural instabilities can be fixed simply by elect-
ing the <right= people to office.
Scholar Patrick J. Deneen wrote in 2018:
<Every institution of government shows declin-
ing levels of public trust by the citizenry, and deep
cynicism toward politics is reflected in an uprising
on all sides of the political spectrum against politi-
cal and economic elites& It is evident to all that
the political system is broken and the social fabric
is fraying, particularly as a growing gap increases
between the wealthy haves and the left-behind
have-nots, a hostile divide opens between faithful
and secular peoples, and deep disagreement per-
sists over America9s role in the world&=
And that was before COVID-19.
The announcement of effective vaccines for
COVID-19 is wonderful news, a magnificent
accomplishment of science 4 but they are a ways
off from implementation. Right now, we are caught
in a dire new surge of the disease.
The threat from COVID-19 is real. Focusing on
mortality rates distorts the picture and may have
given us a false complacency toward the disease9s
potential to disrupt, damage and destroy lives. Dr.
Andrea Caballero, an infectious disease expert
who has been on the frontlines for months treating
COVID patients talked with Anchorage Daily
News about recovering COVID patients:
<The way that epidemiology works is that we
have strict definitions of what constitutes a case
and what constitutes a recovered case. We9re try-
ing to fit the real world into a statistical analysis,
and it has its limitations.
<One of the things that I think is underappre-
ciated is that even though we have a seemingly
low mortality level, some of these patients that are
surviving are not surviving (and simply) walking
out of the hospital back home. We9re talking about
ending up with tracheostomies, which is a tube in
your throat to help you breathe, a PEG (percuta-
neous endoscopic gastronomy) tube in your stom-
ach to feed you, and then months and months and
months of in-patient therapy.=
Health officials are right to be deeply alarmed
at the current surge, particularly at the potential
to overstress weary healthcare workers and break
down overtaxed systems.
Government officials have a fine line to walk in
taking measures to combat the spread of COVID-
19. It9s not easy in such a crisis balancing public
health and individual rights and liberties. But make
no mistake: crossing that line creates a threat per-
haps less immediate 4 but no less damaging 4
than the disease itself.
When executives, acting by fiat, seek to regu-
late who you have in your home 4 backed with
the threat of law enforcement action 4 that is&
alarming. Concern over the constitutionality and
rectitude of such measures is not 4 at least it
shouldn9t be 4 a fringe position. The American
Republic was founded upon deep suspicion of
power vested in an executive, upon a healthy fear
of the state reaching into our private lives.
The robust checks and balances of our system
have been eroded by generations of executives of
both parties taking more and more authority upon
themselves, and legislative bodies and the courts
abdicating their role to put the reins on those
executives.
Are <wartime measures= necessary to combat
the threat of COVID-19? Perhaps. Certainly, the
wise citizen should exercise extreme caution and
good judgment in the face of a surging epidemic of
a virulent contagion.
Good example and persuasion, the rallying
of constitutionally sound legislative backing for
extended states of emergency, and treating citi-
zens as responsible adults represent a higher form
of leadership. Unfortunately, we have been con-
ditioned by decades of abuse of executive power
and our own civic disengagement to a degree that
we accept less than we as citizens are owed by our
government 4 and less than we owe ourselves.
We can regret that we did not see better exam-
ple and rallying leadership at many levels at the
beginning of this crisis. We can regret that a pub-
lic-health crisis has been politicized and warped
into yet another front in an apparently intractable
cultural conflict. We can, going forward, choose to
act as responsible citizens 4 and insist upon being
treated as such.
And 4 always 4 we must support each other
in our own community, where we are all under the
strain of living through this terrible year.
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Letters 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 10 a.m. Monday.
To the Editor:
I am not much of a communicator but I feel a need
to convey some of my thoughts to our special town.
How fortunate we are to live in Sisters. I have
been blessed to have lived here over 40 years and
certainly have seen many changes 4 some I have
liked and some not so much. One of the best things I
have learned is that our community is always ready
to step up and help. My husband, Jim, was placed in
memory care last December, but before that people
in town watched over him and always took care of
him. The restaurants would call and let me know
where he was, the barber shop would let me know,
the deputy sheriffs would bring him home. Rollins
Automotive has kept my car running. I could go on
and on with all the great people that live in Sisters.
You now know why I love this town and why it
has a special place in my heart. This has been a dif-
ficult year with so many adverse things going on but
I9m so thankful for friends and the town of Sisters. I
am so thankful to everyone.
Dorene Fisher
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To the Editor:
I do not consider myself to be a political per-
son. However, after watching over 25 hours of post-
election TV coverage by numerous news sources
over the past week, I agree 100 percent with the let-
ter to the editor submitted by Michael Wells.
Trump is making a mockery of our democratic
institution and standing in the world. Two of our
most prominent Constitutional and election legal
scholars, Laurence Tribe and Benjamin Ginsburg (a
Republican who has represented 4 prior Republican
presidential candidates), have stated that there is
<no evidence to support Trump and no election
fraud has been demonstrated.= As of November 11,
12 lawsuits in various states have already been dis-
missed. Furthermore, Trump went on TV prior to
the election and told the voters of North Carolina
to each vote twice for him, despite it being illegal.
Trump cronies (Mitch McConnell, Mike
Pompeo, William Barr, and Lindsey Graham) are
The Nugget Newspaper, LLC
Website: www.nuggetnews.com
442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759
Tel: 541-549-9941 | Email: editor@nuggetnews.com
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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
clearly pandering to him. None of them have the
guts to confront him with the reality of the elec-
tion&.HE HAS LOST! Many Republican sena-
tors are cowards and afraid to cross Trump and
risk their base. However, several Republican gov-
ernors have recently called on him to concede the
election.
Based on the recent firing of the Secretary of
Defense and resignation of several key individuals
in the intelligence community, Trump9s actions are
strongly perceived to be <reckless= for our democ-
racy. The fact that he is also blocking GSA9s transi-
tion effort to share information is both childish and
potentially dangerous.
Many world leaders have called to congratulate
President-Elect Biden. He is the one looking very
presidential at this time. Hopefully, reality will
eventually set in for Trump, and he will ultimately
do the right thing and resign.
Steve Auerbach
See LETTERS on page 11
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