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Wednesday, January 13, 2021 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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A loaded gun
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. 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 Unpublished items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 write in response to Mr. Damerell9s
Letter to the Editor of January 6.
Instead of referring to the homeless as
vagrants and criminals, how about stepping
up and lending a helping hand to the less for-
tunate? I do, and have been greatly rewarded
in peace of mind and spirit, not to mention
friendship.
Doug Williams
s
s
s
learn that after a visit to our St. Charles Clinic
here in Sisters, vaccinations for seniors are
projected to be available late spring, early
summer! This is not okay!
Lon Kellstrom
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I think our new Congressional representa-
tive Cliff Bentz should resign.
He9s clearly not qualified to be a U.S.
Congressman. He had a simple, perfunctory
To the Editor:
I was disturbed, though not surprised, to
See LETTERS on page 16
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It is a cardinal rule of
firearms safety: Never point
a gun at anything you do not
wish to destroy. Once you
pull the trigger 4 by acci-
dent or with intent 4 you
can never call the bullet
back.
For far too long, politi-
cians, pundits, and public
have been brandishing wea-
ponized rhetoric of insurrec-
tion, revolution, and civil
war. On January 6 in our
nation9s capital, a trigger
was tripped. The shot will
echo through American pol-
itics for a long time to come.
The people who stormed
into the U.S. Capitol on that
dark day chose to be there.
They are responsible for
their actions. Five people
are dead and others will pay
consequences for the day9s
passions that will dog their
lives for years.
Wi l l t h e r e b e a n y
accountability for those who
whipped up the passions of
the mob?
Suddenly, the effort to
use the counting of elec-
toral votes to overturn the
results of the 2020 presiden-
tial election was no longer
exhilarating political the-
ater, no longer a salve to the
wounded pride of a defeated
president, or a means of har-
nessing the grievances of an
outraged base in pursuit of
power. Suddenly, things got
very real.
Representative Dan
Crenshaw (R-Texas) hit
his fellow congressmen
4 among them Oregon9s
Cliff Bentz 4 with some
hard truth in the wake of the
January 6 riot.
<They9ve been lying to
people, lying to millions,=
he said. <They9ve been
lying that January 6 was
going to be this big solu-
tion for election integrity,
and it was never going to
be. It was never going to
solve anything and it was
always unconstitutional...
In the sense that they were
led to believe January 6 was
anything but a political per-
formance for a few oppor-
tunistic politicians to give a
five-minute speech. That is
all that it ever was. People
were lied to.=
Crenshaw, a former Navy
SEAL and combat veteran,
knows what it means when
things get real, and he called
out those who brandished
warlike words and left oth-
ers to reap what they sowed.
When the mob breached
the Capitol, Crenshaw said,
the <same members of
Congress who called people
to fight, they were nowhere
to be found. Because it was
all fun and games to them&
They never knew what a
real fight was. Real fights
are scary. Bullets flying,
that9s scary. Glass break-
ing, that9s really scary. They
were nowhere to be found,
they scattered. They talked
about the courage to stand
up, the courage to fight for
weeks and weeks but when
it came down to it, there
was no courage& All of
the members who called for
everyone to come and fight
and make their last stand, all
of those members were scat-
tered like cowards while the
Capitol Police had to do the
fighting.=
One of those police offi-
cers, Brian D. Sicknick,
died after rioters blud-
geoned him in the head with
a fire extinguisher.
Words matter. The stories
we tell and the narratives
we craft matter. Donald
Trump and his supporters
can argue that he did not
incite the crowd to violence
in his speech at the January
6 <Save America Rally=
that preceded the riot at the
Capitol. After all, he did
urge the crowd to <peace-
fully protest.=
But he also told them,
<we fight, we fight like
hell, and if you don9t fight
like hell you9re not going to
have a country anymore.=
Some of those who heeded
the call of the president to
<walk down Pennsylvania
Avenue= and <take back our
country= died for their loy-
alty. In the charged atmo-
sphere of the day, the poten-
tial for a violent outcome
shouldn9t have been hard to
foresee.
The unprecedented
breach of the Capitol comes
on the heels of a summer
of rioting and destruction
in many American cities 4
also enabled and promoted
by people who should know
better. Americans who
don9t relish watching their
country spiral into a cycle
of low-intensity civil war
may be forgiven for feeling
a sense of foreboding and
despair.
And yet&
This Wednesday, here in
our own community, three
new city councilors are to be
sworn in. These councilors
will join a cadre of volun-
teers of unprecedented num-
bers and capability in a non-
partisan effort to take on
the challenges that Sisters
faces, managing growth and
promoting economic pros-
perity, while preserving the
quality of life and the com-
munity bonds that make
Sisters a true home.
Citizens engaged in
a constructive dialogue
doing their civic duty, in
good faith, in spite of it all.
America.