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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
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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.