Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
An alternative
avenue to nicotine
The state of Oregon has outlawed suffering, and what encourages
the indoor smoking of e-cigarettes,
unhealthy behavior?
also known as vaping.
There is no right answer.
Opponents of the burgeoning
Joe Nocera, an opinion columnist
industry are encouraged by the news. for the New York Times whose work
They say that vaping causes harm
we have occasionally run on this
to the user’s health, even though the page, has described e-cigarettes as
exact nature of the effect is not yet
DSXEOLFKHDOWKRSSRUWXQLW\+HKDV
NQRZQ$QGLWVIUXLW\ÀDYRUVDQGKLS argued they can be a tool used to
marketing targets new smokers and
reduce unnecessary deaths.
teenagers, roping
“Even though
in a new generation
cigarettes result in
of nicotine addicts
480,000 American
Is it worth
after a generation of
deaths each year —
promoting
progress in reducing
and even though it
those numbers.
is the tobacco, not
something
Until we know more
the nicotine, that
about the effect on
unhealthy, when kills them — many
health, as well as the
the public health
the alternative is in community
social implications,
treat
they argue harsh
e-cigarettes
as every
likely worse?
regulations are
bit as evil,” he wrote
needed to restrict
in May.
vaping from public spaces.
More research is needed, and
But proponents, a growing
much of that research is already
number of whom are public health
underway. We need to know long
professionals, say that vaping offers term health effects. We need to
a clear way to reduce the harmful
understand who e-cigarette users
effects of smoking. It gets nicotine to are. Are they vaping only when they
the brain of those who have become can’t smoke cigarettes, or are they
dependent on it, but without the
vaping to help them quit the real
carcinogens that accompany burning thing?
tobacco. That includes “tar,” which
For now — and until solid
is the main cause of health problems VFLHQWL¿FHYLGHQFHWHOOVXVRWKHUZLVH
associated with smoking.
— we should operate under the
It comes down to a philosophical
assumption that e-cigarettes are bad
discussion: Is it worth promoting
for us. They should be illegal for
something unhealthy, when the
minors to purchase or use.
alternative is likely worse?
But the state should look for ways
It’s a debate that doesn’t just
to make vaping easier and cheaper
revolve around e-cigarettes. We’ve
than smoking the old-fashioned
long been arguing about making
way. Because we already know that
condoms available in high schools,
e-cigarettes lack the most dangerous
about providing clean needles to
ingredients in cigarettes. The more
heroin addicts, even giving welfare
smokers we can convince to change
to the unemployed.
their method of receiving nicotine,
What helps limit damage and
the more lives that can be saved.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher
Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
Presidential debates need
less entertainment, more substance
The Kansas City Star
R
epublican presidential candidates
are reaping high television ratings
for their entertaining but empty-
calorie debates.
Meanwhile, Democratic candidates
are attracting smaller audiences but
holding more substantial interactions on
issues that matter to Americans such as
health care, foreign policy and the future
of the U.S. economy.
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*23IRRG¿JKWZLWK6XQGD\¶VIHLVW\
Democratic event.
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over who can cling more strongly to
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citizen and how Donald Trump really,
really loves “New York values”
(whatever those are).
The candidates seemed eager to get in
personal digs as often as possible. Recall
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Rubio tried to speak: “You already had
your chance, Marco. You blew it.” Or
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presidential.
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a non-entity in the campaign, and John
Kasich said something serious that no
one remembers.
In a rare adult-in-the-room comment,
Jeb Bush properly rebuffed Trump’s
proposed ban on Muslims entering
America. “This policy,” he said, “is a
policy that makes it impossible to build
the coalition necessary to hit ISIS.”
Remember that moment? Probably
not because Trump quickly shot back,
“I want security for this country.” Score
one for sound bite over public policy.
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and Bernie Sanders took the stage to
continue their surprisingly competitive
battle for primary votes. (Yes, the
well-meaning Martin O’Malley was on
the stage, too. Enough said.)
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character style: a former secretary
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her comprehensive and superior
knowledge of foreign policy issues,
though she reminded some people of her
vulnerabilities in that arena as well. She
correctly criticized Sanders for voting
“with the gun lobby numerous times”
and pointed out that his newly unveiled
single payer health care plan would go
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Sanders did provide clarity between
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Sanders offered the appealing
impression that he’d like to throw
greedy big bankers in jail as part of Wall
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millions of their dollars in speaking fees.
Sanders had an effective attack line:
“I don’t take money from big banks, I
don’t get personal speaking fees from
Goldman Sachs.”
Still, as his comments on health
care and bankers show, Sanders the
democratic socialist doesn’t live in this
political moment’s real world of how
U.S. policy can effectively get crafted.
For example, the better approach for
a Democratic president working with a
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Act so millions more Americans can
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That there’s even a discussion
about health care initiatives among the
Democrats is far better than the GOP
scrum over the issue, which one can boil
down to the tired and simplistic “repeal
and replace.”
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with some forceful and much-needed
outrage over the toxic-water scandal of
Flint, Mich., the kind of real-life issue
that her small-government, safety-net-
averse GOP opponents haven’t come
close to addressing.
Soon, voters are going to weigh in
and make their choices, starting with
the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1. Elections
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Super Tuesday, March 1.
By that time, the 2016 presidential
race likely will be a lot more settled.
Or ... one or both parties could have
chaos on their hands and be headed
toward a brokered national convention
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greatly if candidates would discuss their
real differences on serious issues.
The juvenile posturing among the
gaggle of Republican candidates may be
great for TV ratings. But it’s not a good
way to help people select someone who
might be the next president of the United
States.
OTHER VIEWS
Time for a conspiracy!
M
embers of the Republican
rising, faith in American institutions is
governing class are like
dissolving.
cowering freshmen at
Second, the Republican Party is not
halftime of a high school football
as antigovernment as its elites think
game. Some are part of the Surrender
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&DXFXVVLWWLQJVXOOHQO\RQWKHLUVWRROV
the same old ideological categories.
resigned to the likelihood that their
Trump grabbed his lead with an
team is going to get crushed. Some are
ideological grab bag of gestures, some
thinking of jumping ship to the Trump
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David
campaign with an alacrity that would
Brooks +XH\/RQJWKDQ&DOYLQ&RROLGJH
make rats admire and applaud.
Given the current strains on middle-
Comment
Rarely has a party so passively
and working-class families, many
accepted its own self-destruction. Sure,
Republican voters want a government
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that will help the little guy; they just don’t
high in some meaningless head-to-head polls
want one that is incompetent, corrupt or
DJDLQVW+LOODU\&OLQWRQEXW
infused with liberal social
the odds are the nomination
values.
of either would lead to a
In addition, younger
party-decimating general
voters and college-educated
election.
voters are more moderate
The Tea Party, Ted
than party leaders. According
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to one of the smartest
17 percent popular support,
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according to Gallup. The
Olsen, somewhere around
idea that most women,
35 to 40 percent of the GOP
independents or mainstream
electorate is only “somewhat
order-craving suburbanites
conservative.”
would back a guy who
What’s needed is a
declares his admiration for
coalition that combines
Vladimir Putin is a mirage.
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The idea that the GOP can
and Theodore Roosevelt:
march into the 21st century intentionally
working-class populism, religious compassion
alienating every person of color is borderline
and institutional reform.
insane.
Years ago, reform conservatives were
Worse is the prospect that one of them
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might somehow win. Very few presidents
which would actually provide concrete policy
are so terrible that they genuinely endanger
ideas to help the working class, like wage
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subsidies, a higher earned-income tax credit,
go there and beyond. Trump is a solipsistic
increased child tax credits, subsidies for
branding genius whose “policies” have no
people who wanted to move in search of work
contact with Planet Earth and who would be
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incapable of organizing a coalition, domestic
from the Medicaid payroll tax. This would
or foreign.
be a conservatism that emphasized social
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mobility at the bottom, not cutting taxes at the
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top.
always been good at tearing things down but
Maybe it’s time a center-right movement
incompetent when it comes to putting things
actually offered that agenda.
together.
And maybe it’s time some Republicans
So maybe it’s time for governing
took a stand on what is emerging as the central
Republicans to actually do something.
dispute of our time — not between left and
Yes, I’m talking to you state legislators,
right but between open and closed. As the
or local committeepersons, or members of
political scientist Matthew MacWilliams
&RQJUHVVDQGDOO\RXUQHWZRUNVRIGRQRUVDQG KDVIRXQGWKHNH\WUDLWWKDWLGHQWL¿HV7UXPS
supporters. If MoveOn can organize, if the Tea IROORZHUVLVDXWKRULWDULDQLVP+LVFHQWUDO
Party can organize, if Justin Bieber can build a image is a wall. With their emphasis on anger
gigantic social media movement, why are you DQGVKXWWLQJSHRSOHRXW7UXPSDQG&UX]
incapable of any collective action at all?
are more like European conservatives than
What’s needed is a grass-roots movement
American ones.
that stands for governing conservatism, built
Governing conservatism has to offer people
both online and through rallies, and gets
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behind a single candidate sometime in mid- to so they can welcome global capitalism with
late February. In politics, if A (Trump) and
hope and a sense of opportunity. That’s the
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true American tradition, emphasizing future
RIWHQJRWR&DQGLGDWH&%XWWKHUHKDVWREHD dynamism not tribal walls. There’s a silent
&QRWD&'()DQG*
majority of hopeful, practical, programmatic
This new movement must come to grips
Republicans. You know who you are.
with two realities. First, the electorate has
Please don’t go quietly and pathetically
changed. Less-educated voters are in the
into the night.
middle of a tidal wave of trauma. Labor force
Ŷ
participation is dropping, wages are sliding,
David Brooks became a New York Times
suicide rates are rising, heroin addiction is
Op-Ed columnist in September 2003.
Governing
conservatism
has to offer
people a secure
financial base
and a steady
hand up.
YOUR VIEWS
Occupation not a legal way
to protest government
Immigrants ruining America,
taking over the country
As Southern Oregon Veterans for Peace,
we oppose the inappropriate (and likely
illegal) occupation of the Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge and Sanctuary, property of the
American people and Native American sacred
lands, by this self-proclaimed and misnamed
militia, who are armed and threatening our
public servants and law enforcement.
If they wish to protest an action by
our elected government there are many
appropriate and legal ways to express their
opinions, and opinion is all their expressions
are, as they are not the constitutional scholars
that they somehow feel themselves to be.
We fully approve and support the restraint
and measured approach by the FBI and
ORFDORI¿FLDOVLQ+DUQH\&RXQW\%XUQVDQG
others involved in avoiding bloodshed in the
foolhardy gambit by a handful of misguided
malcontents. Let’s not make them martyrs.
They are no doubt not as brave as they think
and would no doubt run from it.
We ask that these ragtag lawbreakers be
starved out with no power, and arrested as
they attempt to depart. We also ask the BLM
to revisit their grazing fees and policies for
those like the Bundy clan who refuse to pay
and graze their cattle freely on our property,
while their neighbors pay their fair share
Does anyone remember Rajneeshpuram?
When the Rajneeshes were trying to take over
Antelope, Oregon, they brought in busloads
of people. Most were street people and
undesirables. The reason they brought them in
was to register to vote to take over Antelope
and possibly the county. Remember how
frightened the citizens of Antelope, Madras,
and The Dalles were?
Well looky here, folks, the gang from
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with letting in any and all illegal folks. Same
scenario, only on a grand scale. Oregon will
now allow any and all people in. If one wants
to lose all liberty, let ’em come.
Take the time to think about what happened
and connect the consequences. Ask yourself,
could this happen? It could and could not, just
deliberate about it.
There have been periods of time in this
country where we would not allow emigrants
in this United States for years at a time —
1950 through 1962, so that the previous
emigrants had a time to assimilate. The people
that come in now form their own section of
their homeland and don’t want to assimilate.
This is not an absolute statement, it is the
majority of individuals. We are losing our
county one step at a time thanks to the lords
and dukes of Washington.
Daniel Davis, President
Southern Oregon Veterans for Peace
Talent, Ore.
Roesch Kishpaugh
Pendleton