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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 16, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, July 16, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com MIKE FORRESTER STEVE FORRESTER KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Chairman of the Board Astoria President Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer CORY BOLLINGER JEFF ROGERS Aberdeen, S.D. Director Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW Rein in loose dogs Eastern Oregon has a problem with domesticated animals on the loose. They pose a danger to residents and tie up emergency personnel who have better things to do. Just last month, a Hermiston woman was attacked by two dogs near the Diagonal Road walking trail, outside of city limits in the jurisdiction of Umatilla County. The dogs left her with wounds on her hands and shoulder that required more than 20 stitches. In the last ive years, there have been serious to minor attacks everywhere from Boardman to Milton-Freewater. Interspersed are innumerable animal neglect calls, which arise when a resident believes a pet is being mistreated with lack of water, shade or health care. Umatilla County has no animal control division, which means that deputies must deal with animal problems that crop up — everything from corralling escaped dogs or livestock, deciding if a pet left outside on a hot day is a criminal matter and whether a wandering animal is a public nuisance or a threat. It’s a dificult job for anyone, and an impossible one for many area police departments who are already overworked and stretched thin on both bodies and budgets. As we’ve argued before, we think carving out room from police or public works budgets to hire an animal control oficer is a good use of funds. It protects residents, increases livability and helps reduce one of the age-old stresses that pits neighbors against neighbors. Animal control divisions are very common across the country, and in similar-sized counties near us, such as Union. Pendleton police have a full-time code enforcement oficer who handles most of the non-criminal animal complaints, but Hermiston has no such oficer speciically tasked. More city and county employees specially trained, educated and outitted for encounters with animals would be helpful. We have some local nonproits who can offer places to keep and care for animals. (Those same nonproits can always beneit from additional resources to help them do so). Sergeant Joshua Roberts with the Umatilla County Sheriff’s Ofice told our reporter earlier this week that his department handles an average of seven to 10 calls a week involving dogs. Many more issues must go unreported. Eastern Oregon is a place that loves its animals — from the beefy variety that graze our pastures to the smaller, furrier ones that curl up at our feet. But if we value those relationships, voters and residents must require someone be tasked with keeping those animals safe when they escape, and other people around them safe, too. Remember the old political cliché: Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value. Although we have improved, there are still places in this county where there are no local laws when it comes to pets, and no one to enforce them anyway. 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 Strong, clear laws needed on drones The Bend Bulletin A dding to the ways neighbors can irritate neighbors, technology has delivered hobby drones. Fantastic and inventive ways to make use of drones have and will be found. But what about when somebody is buzzing over your home with a camera and directional microphone? The laws for drones in Oregon are not particularly clear, and the Legislature needs to continue to reine them to protect privacy. Hobby drones may not be a serious issue yet, but the intrusions into privacy have begun. The Redmond City Council has struggled over what to do with complaints about drones over homes. Bend Police Chief Jim Porter told us he was trying to have a peaceful walk in Shevlin Park with his wife. They were followed overhead by a drone. Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel had his staff research the question of when a drone is trespassing when it is lying over a person’s property. Staff found a gray area. If a drone is lying below the tallest tree or structure on a property, Hummel believes that is criminal trespass in the second degree under Oregon law. If a drone is lying above 500 feet, it would not be trespassing. But below 500 feet and above the tallest tree or structure, there’s a gray area. Things like intent, how often, how long and so on would have to be weighed. Even the gray area is a gray area. Other attorneys believe the boundaries of 500 feet or the tallest tree or structure will not necessarily hold. Courts may consider what is reasonably required for the enjoyment of private property. There may well be exceptions for drones lying swiftly overheard en route to some other location or to make a delivery. Trespassing is not the only legal issue with drones. A hobby drone lying over someone’s property collecting data without the person’s consent is likely an actionable public nuisance. But is the law good enough to protect the privacy of Oregonians? Is it clear enough for law enforcement? We agree with Hummel. No, it is not. Hobby drones are different than planes and helicopters. They give almost anyone the ability to “lurk, harass, annoy, and/or record video and audio of activities inside people’s homes,” Hummel wrote in an email. The law has not kept up. State Rep. John Huffman, R-The Dalles, who has become the de facto leader on drone legislation, told us in an email he believes judges will side with people being harassed by drones. We hope so, too. It would help if the Legislature did its best to provide greater clarity to protect privacy. OTHER VIEWS We take care of our own Care of Our Own.” It’s ine to value few years ago, Bruce Americans, but we should also take in Springsteen came out with a the immigrant and be multilateral in song called “We Take Care of our foreign relations. Our Own.” The chorus’ theme seemed Haidt argues that the division upbeat and proud: We take care of the between these two camps is a people closest to us. But like in a lot of division between the nationalists and Springsteen songs (including “Born in the globalists. It’s also between the the U.S.A.”), the lyrics in the verses sit moral particularists and the moral in tension with the lyrics in the chorus. David In the verses, it’s clear that taking Brooks universalists, between those who care of our own also means not taking believe that blood and historic ties take Comment care of people who are not our own, precedence and those who, like the like the victims of Katrina. Suddenly philosopher Peter Singer, argue that the phrase “We Take Care of Our Own” has an you have the same moral obligation to a boy exclusivist, menacing and even racist tinge. starving to death in South Sudan as to a boy That phrase and the two different meanings drowning in the lake in front of you. it can have sit at the center of election 2016. For decades the globalist/ Donald Trump’s universalist mindset supporters stand for the irst — pro-immigration, meaning. America’s irst pro-globalization — has loyalty is to its own workers, been on the march. its own culture, its own Now, with Trump, the citizens. particularists are striking This worldview is not back. Immigration is the just selishness. For most subject that fuels their ire. of human history most As Haidt writes, “By people have prized coherent the summer of 2015 (when communities above all. the Syrian refugee crisis They’ve built moral systems hit) the nationalist side was on loyalty and support for already at the boiling point, their own kin and fellow shouting ‘enough is enough, citizens. These bonds are close the tap,’ when the not based on some abstract globalists proclaimed, ‘let social contract. They are us open the loodgates, it’s intimate bonds, born out the compassionate thing of shared kinship, history, geography and to do, and if you oppose us you are a racist.’ common understandings of right and wrong. Might that not provoke even fairly reasonable People committed to coherent people to rage?” communities will ight to defend the norms The fact is that both mindsets have their that hold communities together. They accept virtues. The particularists emphasize the immigrants who assimilate to existing culture, intimate love and loyalty that is the stuff of but they’ll be suspicious of those who they real community. The universalists are moved feel bring in incompatible customs and tear at by injustices anywhere, and morally repulsed the social fabric. by inaction and indifference in the face of that For eons, this was more or less the suffering. traditional moral system for most of The tragedy of this election is that America the human race. But as the NYU social already solved this problem. Unlike France psychologist Jonathan Haidt points out in an and China, we were founded as a universalist outstanding essay in The American Interest, nation. You can be iercely patriotic and over the past several decades a different relatively open because America was founded mindset has emerged. to take in people from around the globe and People with this mindset value the unite them around something new. emancipated individual above the cohesive Unfortunately, the forces of community. They value, or at least try to multiculturalism destroyed that commitment value, self-expression, social freedom and to cultural union. That has led to Trump, diversity. Their morality is not based on who has upended universalistic American loyalty to people close to them; it’s based on a nationalism and replaced it with European universal equality for all humans everywhere. blood and soil nationalism in a stars and People with this mindset disdain the stripes disguise. political or religious walls that divide people. The way out of this debate is not to go In his essay, Haidt cites John Lennon’s song nationalist or globalist. It’s to return to “Imagine” as an expression of this worldview: American nationalism — espoused by people Imagine there’s no countries; it isn’t hard like Walt Whitman — which combines an to do Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion inclusive deinition of who is Our Own with too Imagine all the people living life in peace a fervent commitment to assimilate and Take You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the Care of them. only one. ■ People with this mindset bridle at the David Brooks became a New York Times exclusivist implications of the line “We Take Op-Ed columnist in 2003. A Both mindsets have their virtues: intimate love and loyalty as compared to response to injustice anywhere. YOUR VIEWS Don’t complain — take action to improve world Instead of social media posting about our sadness and disappointment for the state of our nation over and over again, why don’t we take charge? Make the time to contact your elected oficials and tell them we want action. It is we the people, are who make up this wonderful country we live in. And I love America, warts, short-sightedness and all. I don’t care what you are for or against. I know that until we each take the time to contact our elected oficials who we elected to make laws, change laws, work for us, expect discussion and change, nothing will change. So please contact your lawmakers. Tell them what you think needs to happen. It is we the people, not the invisible someone else. It is our responsibility. Deb Brumley Prosser, Washington LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
