OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
OUR VIEW
It is time to take
another look at
drug charges
I
t’s a notable and important development that Oregon sheriffs
and police chiefs are recommending simple drug-possession
charges be treated as misdemeanors instead of felonies in
certain circumstances. But as our local sheriff cautions, it’s also
crucial that such a step — if taken — doesn’t lead to an any-
thing-goes attitude to illicit drugs.
As denoted by our state’s enthusiastic legalization of recre-
ational marijuana, Oregon is inclined to be a leader when it comes
to re-examining legal and social strategies for dealing with drugs.
Along with Washington, Alaska and a growing rank of other states
that have abandoned a losing struggle against a substance many
regard as less harmful than alcohol, Oregon police now are ready
scrap the century-old orthodoxy that punishment is the best way to
discourage possession and use of other drugs.
The law enforcement groups note that felony convictions
“include unintended and collateral consequences including bar-
riers to housing and employment and a disparate impact on
minority communities.” In essence, conviction on a drug-posses-
sion charge can condemn a person to circumstances that make life
permanently more dificult. This can have the contradictory result
of paving the way for future drug use by hopeless and marginal-
ized citizens.
Convicted users should instead be given individualized, man-
dated treatment. Such a consequence isn’t a slap on the wrist,
carrying with it the likelihood of inancial cost, loss of personal
time and the embarrassment that accompanies being required to
get help. But the cost to offenders and to taxpayers would be far
less than prosecuting a felony case, imprisonment and years of
follow-up.
Local law enforcement is split on the issue, with most appear-
ing to agree with the recommendation but urging that careful and
conservative implementation would be key to success. Clatsop
County Sheriff Tom Bergin goes further, seeing a switch to mis-
demeanor treatment as a slippery slope and a hazardous social
experiment.
Such concerns must be addressed to legislators’ satisfaction
before any change is made. It seems likely, however, in a time
of severely strained law enforcement and criminal justice bud-
gets that some degree of experimentation is both desirable and
inevitable.
Pence’s ugly chore in the
vice-presidential debate
By FRANK BRUNI
New York Times News Service
B
ack when Mike Pence hosted
a talk radio show in the 1990s,
he described himself as “Rush
Limbaugh on decaf.”
For much of Tuesday night, he
was like Forrest Gump on chamo-
mile, squarely and
steadily plodding
forward, seldom
tugged from his
talking points and
never particularly
rattled. His expres-
sion was a sort of upbeat blur. His
voice was a lulling drone.
It wasn’t exactly a vivid perfor-
mance, but it was an eerily consistent
one, and it answered the question of
how a man who supposedly prides
himself on his virtue defends a run-
ning mate who is often bereft of it.
He sets his jaw. He slows his pulse.
He practices a bemused chuckle,
perfects deafness to anything he
prefers not to hear and purges from
his memory anything he doesn’t
want to own.
“Six times tonight, I have said
to Gov. Pence: I can’t imagine how
you can defend your running mate’s
position on one issue after the next,”
Kaine said, his voice somewhat
squeaky with frustration. “And in all
six cases, he’s refused to defend his
running mate, and yet he is asking
everybody to vote for somebody that
he cannot defend.”
Fair summary
That’s a fair enough summary
of the vice-presidential debate, and
it lagged what made the event so
fascinating, which was Pence —
speciically, the astonishing peace he
has made with Trump and his whole-
hearted readiness to promote a man
who should be so offensive to him.
In the face of Kaine’s incessant
grilling, Pence blithely denied that
Trump had made statements that he
inarguably had, changed the subject
to Hillary Clinton’s failings, mocked
Kaine for being scripted and dis-
missed Kaine and Clinton as career
politicians — ignoring the fact that
he its that description, too.
Substantively, it was galling.
Strategically, it may well have
worked. With his minimalist speak-
ing style, Pence drew attention to
Kaine’s maximalist salvos. Pence’s
unlappability threw Kaine’s irrita-
tion and interruptions into relief.
One of Pence’s assignments
was to counter Trump’s childish
excitability with adult calm, which
he did almost lawlessly. Another of
his assignments was to make Trump
palatable to wavering Americans
by communicating that Trump was
positively yummy to him. He aced
that, too, meaning that he’s either
a phenomenally talented actor or a
master of self-deception.
I wrongly expected that the
debate would be a letdown, espe-
cially after last week’s blistering
matchup of Trump and Clinton.
Following that faceoff with this one
was like chasing a Quentin Tarantino
movie with a rerun of “Touched by
an Angel” — or so I assumed.
But I forgot the devil in Pence
and what an engrossing, depressing
character study the Indiana governor
has turned out to be. It’s hard to think
of a vice-presidential candidate in
modern history who has gone so far
against his supposed nature and his
proclaimed values in the service of
his running mate.
He has always worn his religious-
ness conspicuously, introducing him-
self time and again as “a Christian,
a conservative and a Republican, in
that order.”
In 1991, after losing a race for the
U.S. Congress in which he harshly
attacked his opponent, he published
an essay, “Confessions of a Negative
Campaigner,” in which he invoked
Jesus and mentioned sin as he swore
off such future ugliness.
“Negative campaigning is
wrong,” he wrote, adding, “A cam-
paign ought to demonstrate the basic
human decency of the candidate.”
The Trump campaign has demon-
strated anything but, and yet Pence
has repeatedly vouched for Trump,
even as Trump savaged the Muslim
parents of a soldier who died defend-
ing America, seemed to encourage
Second Amendment enthusiasts
to take aim at Clinton, pinned the
birther conspiracy on her, and spent
the days after his own debate — a
disastrous one — lashing out at a
former Miss Universe and tweeting
about pornography.
Tuesday night Pence rewarded
Trump’s inane, insane antics with
a debate performance that relected
ierce determination and the kind of
thorough preparation that Trump had
skipped. Pence didn’t forget to bring
up the Clinton Foundation. Or the
“basket of deplorables,” a knife he
twisted dexterously.
Never has he taken Trump to task
or taken a stand for “basic human
decency.” He seems to have reversed
the order of those identity adjectives.
“Republican” now comes irst and
“Christian” last.
Maybe he’ll atone and make
amends in another post-campaign
“Confessions.” God knows he has
plenty of material.
web of giving and getting. You give
to your job, and your employer gives
to you. You give to your neighbor-
hood, and your neighborhood gives
to you. You give to your government,
and your government gives to you.
If you orient everything around
individual self-interest, you end up
ripping the web of giving and receiv-
ing. Neighbors can’t trust neighbors.
Individuals can’t trust their institu-
tions, and they certainly can’t trust
their government. Everything that is
not explicitly prohibited is permissi-
ble. Everybody winds up suspicious
and defensive and competitive. You
wind up alone at 3 a.m. miserably
tweeting out at your enemies.
The older citizenship mentality
is a different mentality. It starts with
the warm glow of love of country. It
continues with a sense of sweet grat-
itude that the founders of the country,
for all their laws, were able to craft
a structure of government that is sup-
pler and more lasting than anything
we seem to be able to craft today.
The citizen enjoys a sweet
reverence for all the gifts that have
been handed down over time, and a
generous piety about country that is
the opposite of arrogance.
Out of this sweet parfait of emo-
tions comes a sense of a common
beauty that transcends individual
beauty. There’s a sense of how a
lovely society is supposed to be. This
means the economic desire to save
money on taxes competes with a
desire to be part of a lovely world.
In a lovely society we all pull
our fair share. Some things the
government does are uncontroversial
goods: protecting us from enemies,
preserving the health and dignity of
the old and inirm. These things have
to be paid for, and in the societies we
admire, everybody helps.
In a lovely society everybody
practices a kind of social hygiene.
There are some things that are legal
but distasteful and corrupt. In a
lovely society people shun these
corrupt and corrupting things. The
tax code is a breeding ground for
corruption, so they don’t take advan-
tage. The lottery system immiserates
the poor so they don’t contribute to
its acceptability by playing.
In a lovely society everyone feels
privilege, but the rich feel a special
privilege. They know they have been
given more than they deserve, and
that it is actually not going to hurt all
that much to try to be worthy of what
they’ve received.
Citizens aren’t just sacriicing out
of the nobility of their heart. They
serve the common good for their
own enrichment, too. If they practice
politics they can learn prudence; if
they serve in the military they can
learn courage. Public citizenship is
the path to personal growth.
You can say that a billionaire
paying no taxes is ine and legal.
But you have to adopt an overall
mentality that shuts down a piece of
your heart, and most of your moral
sentiments.
That mentality is entirely
divorced from the mentality of
commonality and citizenship. That
mentality has side effects. They may
lead toward riches, but they lead
away from happiness.
The devil in Pence
Making Astoria
more inviting, a
parklet at a time Trump, taxes and citizenship
B
lending mini-parks into an urban environment is one of
best enhancements a community can make to its livability
and sense of place. Often, these “parklets” are the pet
projects of business owners. Such will be the case with a parking
space and a loading zone outside of Cargo on 11th Street.
The Astoria Downtown Historic District Association and
Astoria City Council are facilitating the mini-parks, initially
with this week’s approval of a proposal by Jim Defeo, owner of
Cargo, the Astoria Coffeehouse & Bistro and Carruthers restau-
rant. Defeo plans benches using reclaimed wood and other recy-
cled materials, and may add tables and other features.
Giving up even a single parking space can be controver-
sial in a place like Astoria, which squeezes a lot into its small
area of lat surface reclaimed from the Columbia River over the
decades. It takes courage and foresight to look beyond short-
term considerations and continue making downtown more walk-
able and vibrant, as urban strategist Michele Reeves urged in a
2012 study.
All this might be decidedly old news in Seattle and Portland,
and even more familiar to the people of Paris and other
European cities, which routinely make much richer use of their
sidewalks, small plazas and other urban spaces. Nearby, thanks
to Henry Harrison Tinker, a town founder with lots of good
ideas, the downtown of Long Beach, Washington, is generously
sprinkled with mini-parks that invite conversations, play and lei-
surely sitting in the sun and mist.
All involved in Astoria’s effort to do more in this arena are
to be commended. One parklet at a time, a city can dramatically
enhance its sense of being people-friendly and inviting. This is
a success that deserves to generate similar decisions by others.
Each little park will be unique in its own way. This is a great part
of the charm of dynamic public spaces in a creative little city
like ours.
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
Y
ou can be a taxpayer or you
can be a citizen. If you’re
a taxpayer your role in the
country is deined by your economic
and legal status. Your primary iden-
tity is individual.
You’re perfectly
within your rights
to do everything
you legally can
to look after your
self-interest.
Within this logic, it’s perfectly
ine for Donald Trump to have
potentially paid no income taxes,
even over a long period of time.
As Trump and his allies have said,
he would have broken no law. He
would have taken advantage of the
deductions just the way the rest of
us take advantage of the mortgage
deduction or any other; it’s just that
he had more deductions to draw
upon.
As Trump and his advisers have
argued, it is normal practice in our
society to pay as little in taxes as
possible. There are vast industries
to help people do this. There is no
wrong here.
The problem with the taxpayer
mentality is that you end up serving
your individual interest short term
but soiling the nest you need to be
happy in over the long term.
Giving and getting
A healthy nation isn’t just an
atomized mass of individual eco-
nomic and legal units. A nation is a