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PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, APRIL 8, 2016 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Where art thou, volunteers? Since it became an or- ganized community and then an incorporated city, in 1982, Keizer has relied on the kindness of its resi- dents to volunteer to fulfi ll the many roles in city gov- ernment and other organi- zations. At a time, decades ago, the center of the community was Keizer Little League (KLL), one of the most suc- cessful youth baseball programs in Oregon. Keizer Little League teams played on a fi eld complex that was the envy of other Little Leagues. It was from the ranks of KLL volun- teers that was born future leaders of the city: city councilors, mayors and leaders of committees and organiza- tions. The Big Toy at Keizer Rapids Park is now a reality. That came to fruition due to the many hours and the expeience donated by volunteers. The community build of The Big Toy was heralded for months before it happened. Hundreds of residents registered to volunteer in one of the many realms of the build. Unfor- tunately, many of the people who signed up never showed to volun- teer, pushing the completion of the project back by a week, and forcing those who did show up to work long hours. The Little League fi elds have been a source of contention between the two baseball organizations for sev- eral years. In decades past, baseball parents were all too happy to spend their volunteer time to maintain the fi elds, coach and operate the conces- sion stand. Not so much these days. The city has a constant roster of committee, board and task force va- cancies to fi ll. Too few people have stepped up to serve on the bodies that do a lot of the preliminary work on city projects. The city council had to act and they approved legislation that allowed a person to serve on more than one committee. The Keiz- er Points of Interest Committee has not had a formal meet- ing in months because no quorum was present to al- low for formal action. What has happened to the third word of Keizer’s motto of pride, spirit and volunteerism? Unlike the late 1970s and early 1980s there are many more opportunities for Keizer residents to satisify their contribution to society. Keizer Little League has been joined by KYSA, Keizer Youth Basketball, Keizer Soc- cer Club as well as non-athletic groups such as Keizer Art Associa- tion, the Keizer Community Library, Keizer Community Band. Add in the one-time or once a year projects that require volunteers: Keizer Iris Festi- val, the turf project at McNary High School and The Big Toy. All these are joined by teams, churches, schools and clubs. It is not so much a dearth of vo- lutneer bodies as is it a wealth of ways a resident can offer themselves. In 2013 when a seat on the Keizer City Council became vacant, seven candi- dates applied for the volunteer posi- tion. Three years later another coun- cil vacancy attracted one candidate. Keizer is home to working fam- ily households which must juggle job, school and recreation schedules. Families have to decide where their heart lays when it comes to adding volunteeer hours to their busy sched- ules. It is no contest when it comes down to something with which their children are involved or a city com- mittee. Any organization seeking volun- teers will do themselves well if in- stead of sending out a clarion call for volutneers, they send out a roster of volunteer duties and hours needed. Unfortunately, it seems that the days of overfl owing with helping hands could be a thing of the past unless the call for volunteers is sent out in a way that appeals to a busy society. —LAZ editorial Bruce Anderson: councilor Bruce Anderson was chosen by the Keizer City Council to fi ll a vacancy on that body at a meeting Monday. It was an unanimous vote; Anderson was the only applicant for the opening. Anderson is an excellent addition to the council. In his private sector career he has served in positions in top industries. Currently he is Re- gional Community Affairs Manager for NW Natural. He lobbies the state legislature which puts him face to face with lawmakers of all stripes and from all parts of the state. That will come in handy should Keizer need legislative help in seeking to expand the Urban Growth Bound- ary. Before NW Natural he held top jobs at Northwest Food Processors Association, Oregon Life Under- writers Association and the Oregon Home Builders Association. For those who wanted to see a councilor from the business world, there was no better applicant than Mr. Anderson. The council’s newest member will be able to hit the ground run- ning; he’s already versed in many of the topics that will come up the rest of the year. We think Bruce Anderson is the right additional to the council at the right time. —LAZ Share your opinion Email letters to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com The 2016 election’s nasty spirit By MICHAEL GERSON In a campaign that has involved talk of revisiting the Geneva Conventions, rewriting the 14th Amendment and rounding up and expelling 11 million people, failures of politeness, violations of manners, would seem a secondary concern. But in this political cycle, insults, invective and coarseness have been charged with a political signifi - cance. They are intended to indicate authenticity and a fi ghting spirit—the liberation of politics from political correctness and elite sensibilities. Some fi nd this invigorating; others offensive. But it is one of the ways that the election of 2016 will be remem- bered—for playground taunts, for at- tacks on candidates’ families, for vul- gar bodily references and for a nasty, ungenerous spirit. This is hardly unprecedented. To the contrary, our country’s conception of proper manners has often moved in a generational cycle. Various move- ments of the late 1960s, for example, involved liberation from stifl ing social conformity. This created necessary space for the unconventional, while changing stupid and oppressive con- ventions (such as social prohibitions on interracial marriage, or, later, big- otry against gays and lesbians). But all attempts to overthrow eti- quette in favor of what is “real” come from a belief (hat tip to Jean-Jacques Rousseau) that what comes naturally is also good. In real life, what comes naturally to human beings—as any- one who has cared for small human beings will tell you—is often selfi sh, petulant and rude. All children are Donald Trump before they are taught manners. People get tired of living in a so- ciety fi lled with the sharp corners of incivility. The mannerlessness of the late 1960s and 1970s produced a backlash of good taste, symbolized by the popularity of Miss Man- ners (aka Judith Martin) in the 1980s and Ronald Reagan’s rather courtly formality. What is different this time is that the challenge to manners is coming from the right—not the “free speech movement” but from brushfi re popu- lism. The standards and values of real- ity television —the exaggerated feuds, the personal vilifi cation and the de- leted expletives —have invaded the political realm. And it is a form of so- cial decay. America’s founders actually thought and wrote a lot about man- ners. (No. 2 on the “Rules of Civility” George Washington copied down as a boy: “When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body not usu- ally discovered.” I imagine this would also cover references to your man- hood during a presidential debate.) The founders worried that a society without an aristocracy would lack ob- vious standards of propriety. But it is good manners that allow citizens to argue without coming to blows, and even to fi nd productive compromise. Manners are not the same thing as morality. They are practical rules for living together. Unlike moral- ity, manners vary greatly by country and tribe, as well as across time. But being relative does not make them trivial. Particularly in a democracy, good manners involve an affi rmation that we, all of us, are part of the same community, and that everyone is due a certain minimal amount of respect. other views Poor manners, in contrast, can indicate the dehumanization of individuals and groups. The boor is often the bigot. “America has, in theory, the best code of manners the world has ever seen,” argues Miss Manners. “That’s because it is based on respect for the individual, regardless of his or her origin. Good manners in America are about helping strangers. They’re also about judging people on their quali- ties rather than on their backgrounds. These are principles that were delib- erately worked out by our Founding Fathers to assure the dignity of the individual and keep society nonhier- archical.” This is what should appeal to con- servatives the most. Good manners create a livable community without recourse to laws and regulations. They create ties among citizens that are not based on compulsion. When we stand in a stadium with our hand over our hearts, or refrain from using bad lan- guage in front of children in the sub- way, or disagree about politics without becoming personal and vicious, we add a few invisible strands that hold our community and democracy to- gether. In most everyday circumstanc- es, manners matter more than laws. This is a social contract. We treat people with respect in the hope and expectation we will be treated with respect. And people who demand re- spect without showing it are properly viewed as narcissists or sociopaths. Those who equate crudeness and cruelty with authenticity are doing a nasty disservice to their country, mak- ing it that much harder to live to- gether. Those who want to serve their country should mind their manners. (Washington Post Writers Group) Lottery revenue lets business off tax hook Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS NEWS EDITOR Craig Murphy editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric A. Howald news@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY ADVERTISING Publication No: USPS 679-430 Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: PRODUCTION MANAGER Andrew Jackson Keizertimes Circulation graphics@keizertimes.com 142 Chemawa Road N. LEGAL NOTICES Keizer, OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes The Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) of Silverton has lob- bied the state’s government since 1990 on budget, tax and economic issues with a goal “to improve deci- sion-making and generate more op- portunities for all Oregonians.” Over its lifetime, it has weighed in on how certain policies like welfare assistance programs, taxes, minimum wages and unemployment benefi ts would affect Oregonians. Recently, its website featured an article by OCPP staff member Juan Carlos Ordonez titled More disgraceful than the lottery: Oregon’s corporate income tax. Ordonez writes that if any Or- egonian wants to look at the shameful state of Oregon’s corporate income tax, look no further than the nearest bar or restaurant with video lottery machines. People go to these places with their machines and lose and lose to an extent that adds up to the ma- jority amount of revenue collected by the Oregon Lottery. The article also reports that more than half of the nearly 12,000 video lottery terminals are found in low income neighborhoods. The bottom line is that the state lottery brings in mostly money from preying on poor people, those hoping for a break in their bad luck in losing money by playing the games. OCPP then asks “What does this have to do with Oregon’s corporate income tax?” Well, the answer OCPP provides is that the Oregon Lottery puts more money into the state trea- sury than all the corporate income tax. So, all this adds up to the fact that while some Oregonians struggle to meet their fi nancial obligations by gambling addic- tions, they do more to sup- port public ob- ligations like support of our public schools than the Bank of America, Ve- rizon, Walmart and all the other na- tional corporations doing business in this state combined. Shame gets heaped on the matter when you consider the costs involved. $1.1 billion was lost by Oregon Lot- tery players last year. About 19 per- cent or less went back to the state to help fund public services while 32 percent of the losses went to pay for the lottery itself: commissions, salaries, equipment, marketing and related lottery costs. Incidentally, the Department of Revenue, in charge of income and other tax programs, uses only 2 percent of collections to run the place. What one could view as negative changes within the Oregon Lottery has occurred over the years. Before the Oregon Lottery, corporations paid about 18 percent of all income taxes collected. Nowadays, their share of the state’s tax burden has shrunk to 7 percent. How this state of condition came about is by lobbyists earning their keep by securing a whole host of corporate loopholes and subsidies. Hence, they now, with help from law- yers and accountants, can avoid their fair share of the cost of running all public matters in Oregon; in spite of Oregon’s modest corporate minimum tax, some corporations at present pay no taxes at all. gene h. mcintyre In this context, as costs to keep Or- egon’s public services alive, the taxes avoided could help to pay for the schools that educate their workers, the courts that resolve their disputes, and the public safety services that pro- tect their property. Meanwhile, those losing money on gambling tempta- tions as well as those in the shrinking middle class must make up for what the national corporations don’t pay while the tax system also directly sub- sidizes corporations in Oregon by way of a lengthy list of tax credits, deduc- tions and subtractions. The Oregon Lottery was ap- proved by voters in 1984 as the an- swer to what economically ailed us here. About eight years later the video lottery games appeared about which the lottery boasted that these were “the fi rst 23-hour, centrally controlled gaming system in the country.” The ultimate result has been a shift in re- sponsibility of paying for public ser- vices away from those most able to pay to those least able to do so. Initiative Petition 28 is being cir- culated to address and redress this lop- sided situation. If passed it would raise taxes on large, out-of-state corpora- tions and could bring into the state’s fi nancial picture, billions of dollars to invest in our schools, health care sys- tem and senior services among other pressing money-issue priorities. Pre- sumably, a greater effort than the one underway now could be earmarked for gambling addicts. Initiative Peti- tion 28 could fi nally be something worth betting on. (Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap- pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)