OCTOBER 27, 2017, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Pick your battles
Many people have found their
political voice at every level of gov-
ernment in America. It is easy to
express one’s opinion, especially if it
is anonymously on social media.
Conversations touching on ev-
erything from taxes to schools to
the U.S. foreign policy is rife with
angry words that leap off the com-
puter screen: outraged, angry, un-
believable, treason and worse. Either
side of any issue its supporters and
its detractors. People on both sides
of any subject cannot
believe that anyone
would think opposite of
themselves, and there-
fore are deserving of
invectives.
It is impossible to
read through Facebook
or Twitter on any day
and not see the words that people
use to show their displeasure on the
opinions or actions of others. This
poster is outraged, that poster is an-
gry. To what end?
Most people know their rights
when it comes to speech, religion
and guns. Rights are one thing, so-
cietal responsibility is another. Even
though we have the right to say
and write that we are outraged over
something, it doesn’t foster under-
standing, it only hardens people into
silos of righteousness.
It is our right to express anger at
things we don’t agree with; it should
be our responsibility to attempt to
be part of a solution to the problem
at hand.
If neighbors disagree and throw
verbal tantrums, disinterested spec-
tators can be concerned about the
level of the argument. The public
should be even more concerned
about the on-going social media
battles undertaken by our political
leaders.
There are two sides to every is-
sue—both sides believe they are
correct. The arguments take a toll
when positions are hardened and
compromise seems to be out of the
question.
There are issues in Keizer that
cause divisons: parking issues on
Newburg Drive or new fees to sup-
port city parks. Everyone has an
opinion on things happen-
ing in our city. To express
outrage does not move the
conversation along.
Social media has al-
lowed millions of Ameri-
cans to join the national
or local political debate. It
is important to remember
that those millions of people had the
ability to let their views be heard all
along. It’s called an election. If one
doesn’t like what their elected rep-
resentative is doing they need only
take the slight effort to vote in their
party primary or a general election.
We are all for sharing opinions
and views. We promote conver-
sations that help reach solutions.
Everything can’t be worth a fi ght.
There are too many problems and
crises in the world to be riled up
over a small kerfuffl e. If one is to
go to battle with words, be sure it’s
worth it.
There is power in words and
when a social media poster express-
es outrage, for example, we tune it
out. Most people will respond bet-
ter to a thoughtful, invective-free
opinion.
We know we do.
—LAZ
our
opinion
Start of the holidays
Next Tuesday is Halloween,
which has taken on a larger role in
our modern-day culture. Most of
the celebrating, especially by adults
will presumably occur this week-
end.
It is inescapable that Halloween
is, for all intents and purposes, the
beginning of holiday season. Yes,
Halloween is a holiday to many
people. From now until the Super
Bowl, America and Keizer will be
marking Thanksgiving, Channuka,
Kwan-za, Christmas, New Year’s
Day and football’s Super Bowl with
parties, events, promotions and sales.
A meeting of the Keizer Festival
Advisory Board, led by Councilor
Marlene Parsons, shows that there
is a wide variety of events to enjoy
right here in the Iris Capital.
The Keizer Chamber of Com-
Three branches
of government
merce takes the lead of many events
including the Holiday Parade in
December and several runs, includ-
ing the always-popular Turkey Dash
early on Thanksgiving Day.
As we move into December, the
sound of music will be constant as
every school has a band/orchestra/
choir concert not to mention the
appearance at the State Capitol by
Keizer school choirs.
There will no reason not to be in
the holiday mood. A family-centric
and kid-friendly city like Keizer
will always provide plenty to do, see
and enjoy.
For those who love holidays, you
are in your time of bliss. For those
who merely tolerate the holidays,
you mark the season your own way
and in your own tradition.
—LAZ
letters
To the Editor:
I have spent most of my
long life in Oregon but I
was born in England. Be-
fore I could become a U.
S. citizen I had to learn about the
American system of government.
Three branches: Legislative, Execu-
tive and Judicial, each branch operat-
ing independently but also providing
a “check and balance” to the other
two.
When did this system
break down, allowing one
man to use “executive or-
ders” to bypass the other
two? Is this not the way a
dictatorship works?
Beryl MacDonald
Keizer
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PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
Publication No: USPS 679-430
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Since retired Gen. John Kelly be-
came White House chief of staff, news
outlets have portrayed him as the disci-
plinarian sent to impose order over an
unruly President Donald Trump. Kelly
rejects that scenario—when it comes
to taming, he has other fi sh
to fry.
To wit, at last week’s press
briefi ng, Kelly tongue-lashed
the usually feisty White
House press corps so relent-
lessly that in 18 minutes he
reduced the usually swagger-
ing scribes and talking heads
into shamed silence.
After Kelly slammed reporters for
taking a “sacred” moment—the notifi -
cation of family when a military mem-
ber is killed in action—and turning it
into a cable-news chew toy, after he
pointed out the thankless toil of the 1
percent of Americans who serve in the
military and after he directed members
of the media to raise their hands if they
knew any Gold Star families, Kelly of-
fered one fi nal salvo.
“We don’t look down upon those
of you who haven’t served,” Kelly
closed. “In fact, in a way, we’re a little
bit sorry because you’ll never have ex-
perienced the wonderful joy you get
in your heart when you do the kind
of things our servicemen and women
do. Not for any other reason than they
love this country.”
Kelly’s trip to the podium was a res-
cue mission of sorts designed to extri-
cate Trump from another media mud
pit of his own making.
It started Monday when Trump
strolled into the Rose Garden with
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCo-
nnell, a key player in the GOP effort to
pass a tax-cut bill. This summer Trump
told the press he was “very
disappointed” in McCon-
nell. But Monday, Trump
promoted
McConnell
to longtime friend with
whom he is “closer than
ever before.”
When a reporter asked
Trump why he had not
commented on four U.S.
soldiers recently killed in an ambush
in Niger, the president’s need to frame
himself as better than his predecessors
prompted a tortured response. Trump
said he had written letters to the sol-
diers that would be mailed over the
weekend, and that he would like to call
the families even though “President
Obama, and other presidents, most of
them didn’t make calls.”
Politifact rated Trump’s statement
“misleading.” Obama went to Dover
Air Force Base to receive the bodies of
18 U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan
and comfort their families in person.
Having backed himself in a cor-
ner, Trump phoned the widow of Sgt.
La David Johnson, one of the four
killed in Niger. Later, family friend
Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., who
listened in on the call, told the media
that Trump cavalierly told the widow
other
voices
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Keizer, OR 97303
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Salem, Oregon
that Johnson “knew what he signed up
for,” but “it still hurts.” Johnson’s aunt
added that Trump was disrespectful.
Trump denied that he said the
words Wilson had repeated. At Thurs-
day’s briefi ng, Kelly essentially con-
fi rmed Wilson’s quote—although
Kelly took strong issue with the sug-
gestion that Trump said anything that
did not bestow deserved praise on the
slain soldier. Kelly framed the contro-
versy as a new low—with Wilson go-
ing after Trump when the president
was trying to do the decent thing.
For the Trump voter base, the epi-
sode was a clear win. Kelly set the rules
that determined which reporters had
the right to ask him questions —only
Gold Star parents or siblings. When
no journalist could claim that painful
honor, Kelly offered to take questions
from reporters who at least knew a
Gold Star family. Thus Kelly exposed
the White House press corps as a pack
of feckless East Coast elites.
Yes, they squirmed because no one
could claim a child, brother or sister
killed in action.
It doesn’t matter that Trump could
not raise his hand to that question ei-
ther. Or that Trump was the benefi -
ciary of fi ve Vietnam-era draft defer-
ments. Or that the controversy erupted
because the insecure Trump felt he had
to one-up his predecessors in every
corner, including making phone calls
to grieving families.
So John Kelly bailed him out.
(Creators Syndicate)
Rules on religious giving is a slippery slope
By GENE H. McINTYRE
In a somewhat convoluted state-
ment, media recently reported that
the U.S. Justice Department has is-
sued new guidance aimed at giving
religious groups and individuals broad
protections to express their beliefs
when those beliefs come in confl ict
with government regulations.
Attorney General Jeffrey
Sessions’ directive, com-
ing after President Trump’s
executive order, mainly
targets a tax law provi-
sion that thereby allows
churches direct involve-
ment in political campaigns
but really set the stage in
future for allowing Prot-
estants, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims,
Hindus and all others to ignore the na-
tion’s civil laws.
Long anticipated, Sessions’ ac-
tion, following Trump’s announce-
ment in May, also provides protec-
tions to America’s religious orders in
hiring decisions that could threaten
those whose sexual orientation con-
fl icts with the chosen faith of employ-
ers. Referring to his directive, Sessions
has said that “except in the narrowest
of circumstances, no one should be
forced to choose between living out
his or her faith and complying with
the law” and that “to the extent prac-
ticable, religious observance and prac-
tice should be accommodated in gov-
ernment.”
Now, there’s much more to Ses-
sions’ mix of religion and government
than the latest expression of his think-
ing on the subject. During Sessions’
confi rmation hearing early this year,
he was pressed by his questioners to
answer whether job security of a “sec-
ular attorney” would be respected in
his Justice Department. Sessions an-
swered citing his concern about truth
nowadays not being respected in our
nation and that “objective truth is im-
possible without a certain religious
understanding” and that “a post-mod-
ern, relativistic, secular mind-set is di-
rectly contrary to the founding of our
republic.”
Not uncommon in our history have
been some Americans who have ex-
pressed the belief that the writers of
the Declaration of Independence and
U.S. Constitution were devout Chris-
tians and view our origins as ultimate-
ly a ‘second coming’ where the United
States of America will
be ruled by fundamental
Christian theology and be-
liefs. More than one his-
torian of repute has taken
issue with such a founda-
tional understanding and
argued that the views of
the founding fathers were
most poignantly expressed
by them about religion in the Con-
stitution’s First Amendment as “Con-
gress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibit-
ing the free exercise thereof.”
Sessions has often remarked on
his distaste for and dislike of secular-
ists. What’s a secularist? A secularist
is a person who advocates separation
of the state from religious institutions.
The secularist asserts the right to be
free from religious rule and its teach-
ings as well as separate from the im-
position by government of religion or
guest
column
Keizertimes
Lyndon A. Zaitz, Editor & Publisher
General shames briefi ng room
religious practice upon its people. Our
founding fathers were men of faith but
also knew what religion had done for
centuries to subjugate the peoples of
Europe and did not want the same
fate for U.S. citizens. Virtually all of
them also had spoken in speeches and
written in essays of a new government
that embraced secularism.
When our Constitution, our laws
and way of life can be ignored and re-
placed by the most powerful among the
nation’s political and/or religious forc-
es we Americans should keep in mind
an insightful message from another
country in a time not long ago. That
was the message written by German
Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller re-
garding the cowardice of German
intellectuals following the Nazis’ rise
to power and subsequent purging of
their chosen targets. “First they came
for the Socialists, and I did not speak
out because I was not a Socialist; then
they came for the trade unionists, and
I did not speak out-because I was not a
trade unionist; then they came for the
Jews, and I did not speak out because
I was not a Jew. Then they came for
me, and there was no one left to speak
for me.”
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)