NOVEMBER 3, 2017, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Sex reporting will do
more harm than good
Salem-Keizer School District’s
decision to enforce a standing Or-
egon law is causing quite a stir. The
law the district is instructing its
teachers and staff to follow is Or-
egon statute 163.315, which says a
person under the age of 18 is inca-
pable of consenting to a sexual act.
The child abuse man-
datory reporting guide-
line requires teachers and
other school employees to
report if they believe two
students under the age of
18 are having sex, even if
one of their own children
is involved.
The renewed focus on this issue
came after a member of the com-
munity asked for clarifi cation of
the statute.
Every story has two sides. The
school district responded to a ques-
tion and decided that the exist-
ing state law needed to be heeded.
Teachers were informed by the
school district that they would
need to take additional mandatory
reporting training.
The response from teachers and
students alike was swift and gener-
ally opposed to the school district’s
focus.
Rightly, some teachers expressed
that many students turn to them or
school counselors to discuss inti-
mate details of their lives including
sex. That’s because some house-
holds do not welcome discussions
of sex, especially discussions of gen-
der identifi cation.
Teachers invite and welcome
discussions with students because
they understand how home life
can be for some kids. Some par-
ents think the schools should take
the lead on sex education; others
think that sex education should stay
at home. The point is moot: what
some think should happen is not
happening and everyone needs to
adjust accordingly.
Many students feel that their
teachers, coaches or counselors are
the only adults they can discuss
topics such as sex with. That trust
should not be shunted aside so the
school district can tell the commu-
nity they are following the letter of
the law.
What would a reasonable per-
son think? Kids shouldn’t be hav-
ing sex? That train left the station
centuries ago—heck, even Romeo
and Juliet were in their early teens,
you can bet no medieval adult was
reporting them to the throne.
Underage people having sex
with each other is not new. The
parents of every generation dat-
ing back 75 years have lamented
their children’s lascivious ways. For
a reasonable person who is con-
cerned about teen pregnancy, statis-
tics show that rates are
down sharply over the
past decade. Research
also shows that the Mil-
lenial Generation is
putting off many things
that defi ne a person as
an adult, and includes
sex.
Mandatory reporting laws are
good when it concerns victims. An
underage person having consensual
or non-consensual sex with an adult
is illegal and should be reported and
prosecuted.
The truth is that in 2017 our
kids are facing more deadly issues,
especially the nation’s current opi-
oid/heroin problem. We can ask
our teachers to report when they
hear of kids having consensual sex,
but we would rather our teachers
report on drug use.
Oregonians may not be dying
at the hands of heroin and opi-
oids at the rate of some other hard
hit states, but the danger is very
real here. It is not just opioids and
heroin on which we must remain
vigilant—still, too many kids help
themselves to prescriptive drugs
they fi nd in their home.
We don’t think underage sex is
harmless. There are sexually trans-
mitted diseases to be concerned
about. There is the shaming and
bullying that girls are subject to
when words gets around that they
are active. There are gender iden-
tifi cation issues as well as body is-
sues that can be negative. Those can
create long-term, low self-esteem
issues that can last for years. No,
underage sex is not harmless, but it
needs to be put in perspective.
The message, like don’t do drugs,
is don’t have sex. We should work
very hard to keep our kids away
from and off of drugs. Parents and
our schools should work in tan-
dem to talk to their kids and their
students. That will work best if our
kids feel comfortable talking to
their parents or an adult, otherwise
the whole issue is shoved under-
ground where we can’t get at it.
—LAZ
our
opinion
Real news about a fake dossier
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
After months of going after “fake
news,” President Donald Trump has
found a story about a “fake dossier”
that he clearly takes to be real news.
Speaking to reporters on the
White House lawn this week, Trump
said that a Washington
Post story connecting
Hillary Clinton’s 2016
presidential campaign
to a dossier that alleged
his 2016 campaign
had ties with Moscow
was a “disgrace” and
“a very sad commen-
tary on politics in this
country.”
The president has long main-
tained that stories linking Vladimir
Putin’s Russia with his campaign
were “fake news” and that investi-
gations into possible collusion be-
tween Moscow and his camp were
part of a “witch hunt.”
On Tuesday, the Post tossed some
fuel into that fi re when it report-
ed that the Clinton campaign and
Democratic National Committee
had paid for opposition research by
the fi rm Fusion GPS, which had
commissioned a dossier that alleged
Russian operatives had “been cul-
tivating, supporting and assisting”
Trump for at least fi ve years.
The dossier—really a collec-
tion of memos that included un-
confi rmed salacious gossip about
Trump—was written by former
British intelligence agent Christo-
pher Steele. According to news re-
ports, the FBI has confi rmed por-
tions of the 35-page document, but
information about a “clandestine
meeting” between Kremlin repre-
sentatives and a Trump lawyer in
Prague has been discredited.
The Post story sent ripples
through Washington. Shortly af-
ter the story went online, New York
Times reporters Maggie Haberman
and Kenneth P. Vogel took to Twit-
ter to grouse about Democratic op-
eratives lying to them.
“I do think it’s weird that the
DNC never ‘fessed up,”
observed
Republican
political consultant Mike
Murphy.
DNC
Communica-
tions Director Xochitl
Hinojosa told the Post
that Chairman “Tom Per-
ez and the new leadership
of the DNC were not in-
volved in any decision-making re-
garding Fusion GPS, nor were they
aware that Perkins Coie (a DNC
and Clinton campaign law fi rm)
was working with the organization.”
Be it noted Perez did not become
chairman until February 2017.
Former
Clinton
campaign
spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted, “I
regret I didn’t know about Christo-
pher Steele’s hiring pre-election. If
I had, I would have volunteered to
go to Europe and try to help him.”
There’s a mystery in the story—
who is the Republican client who
hired Fusion GPS to gather dirt
on Trump during the contentious
GOP primary? According to The
Washington Post, the opposition re-
search fi rm later passed the infor-
mation on to Perkins Coie attorney
Marc E. Elias.
Murphy, who ran a super PAC
that supported former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush in the 2016 primary, said
he does not believe rumors that a
Bush supporter was the original
contractor. “If it was JebWorld, I
think I would have known about it.”
“How does something like that
end up on the desk of the FBI?”
other
views
asked Mark Corallo, a GOP com-
munications strategist who briefl y
worked on Trump’s private legal
team. “It’s a political document,
please.”
The FBI has some explaining
to do. Former FBI Director James
Comey, whom Trump later fi red,
took the dossier so seriously that he
stayed behind after a Jan. 6 briefi ng
to discuss it with then President-
elect Trump. In addition, both The
New York Times and Washington Post
have reported that the FBI had
agreed to pay Steele to continue
gathering more information on
Trump and Russia. The FBI ended
the arrangement after news reports
outed Steele.
Tom Fitton of the government
watchdog group Judicial Watch
tweeted, “Hmm, Clinton campaign
operatives talk to Russian offi cials to
fi nd dirt on @RealDonaldTrump...
is that collusion?”
While the Post article is based
on anonymous sources and there
has been no investigation, Trump
seems to have already made up his
mind about the story. “Well, I think
it’s very sad what they’ve done with
this fake dossier,” Trump said.
House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Devin Nunes, whose bid
to discover who was paying Fusion
GPS may have set into motion The
Washington Post story, responded,
“Now that we know who funded
the Steele dossier, the next step is
for the FBI and Department of Jus-
tice to comply, quickly, with the
Intelligence Committee subpoenas
for documents showing how intel-
ligence agencies used information
from the dossier and what steps they
took to verify its veracity.”
(Creators Syndicate)
Is our democracy under threat?
Keizertimes
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Random Pendragon
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tral and state governments are being
pushed and shoved around by the
special interests that receive their
marching orders from corporations
and other special interests and it’s
the lobbyists from these and them-
selves that end up telling our rep-
resentative what to do and actually
writing far too many of our new
laws and policies. Reforms in this
area of operations are long overdue
to preserve what’s left of our threat-
ened U.S. democracy. The worst of
these abuses today can be seen in
the industries of banking, energy, in-
vestment housing, defense and arms
contracting, corporation agriculture
and high-end real estate dealings.
What some of us see close to
dominating all public life in these
United States is called kleptocra-
cy. Essentially, it is a term
used to describe a form
of government so cor-
rupt and incompetent it’s
totally opaque. Although
a pejorative term, klep-
tocracy denotes a govern-
ment wherein the com-
mon people are burdened
with heavy taxation so that
those in charge, the rulers and their
cronies, can amass more and more
enormous amounts of money in
their personal accounts.
A kleptocratic regime ends up
with a major portion of govern-
ment funds in the hands of a few
corrupt offi cials with lip service or
no service given to the needs of
the state and its people. Creeping
authoritarianism is allowed to hap-
pen when more and more citizens
grant absolute and unquestioning
authority and provide obedience to
the ruling authority. Such a regime
guest
column
Eric A. Howald
editor@keizertimes.com
LEGAL NOTICES
By GENE H. McINTYRE
Ideally, if democracy in practice
is the mainstay of a functioning
government, the power must come
from and remain with the people.
Elections are held and citizens are
able to vote for the candidate they
feel will best represent their wants
and needs. The central principle
behind a democracy is that of rep-
resentation. It was the foundation
for the U.S. Constitution as that
was the character of the nation
they intended after a revolution
that freed the people from venal
and corrupt British monarchical
rule, conditions the founding fa-
thers did not want to re-establish in
their new country.
Freedom is a large part of democ-
racy. Freedom of thought, worship,
speech and action (as-
suming action is peace-
ful and within the limits
of established law) are
the backbone around
which our government
is built. Freedoms in the
American context have
been those by which
individuals can grow
and develop and pursue their per-
sonal dreams and goals. A democ-
racy seeks to foster growth in the
arts, sciences, literature, invention
and innovations of all kinds, believ-
ing that when people are free to
work as they see fi t they will have
the opportunity to contribute to
their community and the society-
at-large.
Some of us, including this opin-
ion writer, are inclined to see seri-
ous threats to our 200-plus year
effort at establishing and sustaining
a democracy. We see that the cen-
Periodical postage paid at
Salem, Oregon
twitter.com/keizertimes
starts as duly elected but slowly and
surely gravitates to all means pos-
sible in control of the state and its
people. Ultimately, the upshot of
all this is that radical groups form
to stop the corruption and denial of
services to most, including now, as
mainly hate groups like White Na-
tionalists, Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis,
Breitbart News and others as well
as al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Haqqani,
ISIS, Taliban and others overseas
that intend to overthrow established
order.
When a nation’s elected and ap-
pointed leaders continue to hold
onto their investments and appre-
ciate huge gains in their private
wealth, when the personal-gain
fi nancial transactions that people
in power carry out go unnoticed
and ignored, when money transfers
are placed in secret bank accounts
overseas, when tax facts are hid-
den, when subordinates are com-
promised into silence by payoffs and
gifts, when family members of the
ruler become the arbiters of power,
status and privilege, and those per-
sons in charge, and at the ruler’s
strict direction plunder for them-
selves and their wealthy pals, the na-
tion’s money and resources it spells
kleptocracy. Take a long and hard
look around my fellow Americans.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)
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