Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 3, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, November 3, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager 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 OUR VIEW Your vote matters The presidential election is before ever the first vote was cast. Perhaps that is because the polls are supposed to be the pinnacle of not in his favor, and Trump has never American democracy: candidates conceded anything. scurrying to every corner of this Yet Trump’s accusations, like country, exhausting themselves by many levied in his campaign, tap doing everything possible to earn votes. into a real fear but belie a deeper and truer issue. Clearly, foreign By the time Election Day finally arrives, they will have eaten every governments are very interesting in local specialty, sipped a million diner fiddling with the American election milkshakes and taken process. Clearly, just as many swigs online data is more Vote. of local beer. They susceptible than ever. will have answered Have faith in Such cyber warfare a billion questions, be terrorism of this country, its would been questioned on the most dangerous — it would every policy position elections, our variety send the country into in their platform, and democracy panic and suspicion heard from voters in of our neighbors and downtown Chicago, institutions. the tip of Florida and the top of the Rocky Mountains. But Trump has pointed the finger in the wrong direction — dead After all that, we get to pick. Americans go to the polls, or mail people and immigrants casting in their choices, and on Election Day ballots — while an actual, vital concern goes without further inquiry. we tally the results. This weird thing For now, our election is in good called the electoral college meets, hands. Especially in Oregon, our and the next president is named. If system is remarkably resistant to the person currently holding the job fraud — both in the voting process will no longer have it, they prepare and then on the back end tabulation. to peacefully surrender the reins of power. The loser calls to congratulate Perhaps more states should consider our system and take additional efforts the winner, then tearfully thanks to keep results safe from cyber their running partner, family and terrorists. supporters in a televised concession The time to fill out your ballot speech. America lurches forward. is now. Affix a stamp and put it in Except this year things have been the mail, or take it directly to your a little different, and Election Day neighborhood drop box. However will likely be different, too. Republican candidate for president you do it: Be sure to vote. Have faith in our country, its elections, and our Donald Trump has routinely denigrated the voting process without democracy. Then accept the results, whatever they are. proof — calling it “rigged” well 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 After Malheur verdict: Where to now? The (Eugene) Register-Guard A jury’s “not guilty” verdicts last week in the trial of seven Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers shocked everyone. The defendants and their supporters expected to be railroaded by a corrupt federal government. Opponents of the occupation assumed that laws must have been broken in the course of a six-week armed takeover of a federal facility. Prosecutors thought they had an airtight case — but they pressed it further than the jury was willing to follow. As the shock wore off, however, it became evident that the verdicts were the product of prosecutorial over-reach. Ammon Bundy, his older brother Ryan and five of their supporters were charged with conspiring to prevent federal employees from doing their jobs. To make a conspiracy charge stick, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused harbored a specific intent to break the law. Courtroom arguments thus hinged on the defendants’ state of mind rather than on physical evidence. Prosecutors should have contented themselves with proving the Bundys and their band damaged public property. The defendants’ court victory is not final — the Bundy brothers and their father, Cliven, still face federal charges in Nevada stemming from a 2014 standoff over the family’s refusal to pay livestock grazing fees. If prosecutors in Nevada learn anything from the Oregon trial, they will focus jurors’ attention on what the Bundys did, not what they were thinking. The acquittals also cannot erase the worst consequence of the Malheur occupation. The celebrations outside the federal courthouse in Portland could not change the fact that one of the occupiers, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was shot by state police at a roadblock as the takeover near Burns was nearing its end. Finicum’s death does credit to no one: Not to the occupiers, who were awoken from their self-aggrandizing dreams of standing at the vanguard of a national uprising, and authorities whose determination to avoid bloodshed turned to ashes in an instant. Other consequences will follow. The occupation began in response to the re-imprisonment of Harney County ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, whose release from incarceration was reversed after a U.S. attorney insisted that mandatory minimum sentences must be served. The acquittals of the Bundys and the others undercut the occupiers’ claims of oppression and injustice. David Fry, the last to leave the refuge, said on Thursday that “we the people must unite to take this country back from evil tyrants” — odd words from a man who had just won a not guilty verdict from a jury of his peers in open court. The acquittals will now be seized upon as proof of a double standard in law enforcement and the justice system. The acquittals came on the same day that police in riot gear arrested 117 Native Americans and others attempting to stop the construction of an oil pipeline in North Dakota. Their treatment at the hands of the courts will be watched, and the results will be contrasted to the verdicts that an all-white jury reached for all-white defendants in Portland. The verdicts also send a chilling message to employees of federal land-management agencies, particularly in the rural West. The Bundys and their supporters disrupted or destroyed valuable work being done at the Malheur refuge, and will pay no price for it. Such a result gives other public employees reason to fear that their own work — and perhaps their physical safety — will be similarly unprotected. Those who populate the extreme fringes of the movement for private control of federal lands will be emboldened. It’s likely that no verdict could have advanced the public interest in defending the concept of land held in trust for all citizens — a concept that was under assault during the six-week occupation. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge belongs to every American, and the share claimed by a Boston apartment-dweller is no smaller than the share belonging to a Harney County rancher. At the same time, the rancher understands his world in ways that can be used to protect and enhance the value of the Bostonian’s share of the refuge. A recognition of both national ownership and local interests and expertise underlies the collaborative management plans that have been painstakingly developed for the Malheur refuge and places like it. The occupiers’ contempt public lands being managed for the broad common good has now been validated in court — which makes the hard work of collaboration more vital than ever. OTHER VIEWS What did you do in 2016? O ne day, Americans who were You don’t need an intricate effort too young to have followed the to influence people, though. Post your 2016 campaign will look back own voting plan to Facebook, and ask and try to make sense of it. They will your friends to reply with theirs. Text want to know how such a dangerous or call relatives in swing states and ask person could have gotten so close to about their voting plans. Do the same the presidency — a man who spoke of when you see friends. abandoning our allies, admiring foreign And when people tell you their plan, despots, weakening constitutional don’t just nod and smile. Say that you David rights, and serially molesting women. Leonhardt expect to hear from them after they’ve Those future adults may also pose a executed their plan. “Social pressure Comment more personal question to their elders: is mighty persuasive,” says Carolyn Mommy and Daddy, what did you DeWitt, president of Rock the Vote. do in response to Donald Trump? ▪ Third, with the people you feel most It will be a fair question. The reality is, comfortable, consider taking the risk of talking Trump could still win. It is politics. I’m well aware of unlikely, yes, but the gift he how awkward the subject received from a surprisingly can be. I come from a close bumbling FBI shows that and politically diverse family, campaigns aren’t over until and we avoid politics at most they’re over. gatherings. With seven days left, it But this election is is not too late for anyone different. Trump threatens alarmed by Trump to get American values, threatens involved. As it happens, America’s interests and — as Trump himself has pointed is clear from the financial toward the best way to markets’ dire view of a Trump do so. Again and again, he has attempted presidency — threatens the economy. to undermine democratic legitimacy, be it It’s worth reminding undecided voters in inviting foreign interference or flirting with your life about who he is: what he has said voter intimidation. about prisoners of war and the disabled, The right response to anti-democracy is how he has humiliated women, how he has more democracy. It’s also the way to defeat promoted online racism and anti-Semitism. Trump. His paths to the presidency depend on Almost everybody loves somebody who large third-party vote shares and low turnout. is part of a group that Donald Trump has Fortunately, we know a lot more about how demeaned. to encourage democratic participation than If you do talk politics, you’ll have a lot of even a decade ago, thanks to a flowering of company. In each of the last three presidential research in psychology and political science. campaigns, at least 40 percent of adults tried Here, then, is a how-to guide for fighting to influence someone else’s vote, according to Trumpism: the American National Election Studies. ▪ First, obviously, you should vote. You ▪ Finally, it’s not too late to volunteer to knew that, but many people who intend to vote get out the vote. You can do so through a become waylaid — by a traffic jam, a sick kid campaign’s website or through a group like or a work meeting. Make a detailed plan now, Rock the Vote, which is looking for volunteers about when and where you will vote. who have a few spare minutes to call people ▪ Voting plans increase voter turnout. and ask about their voting plans. In an experiment by David Nickerson and You can also sign up with a nonpartisan Todd Rogers, involving tens of thousands of group to help protect voting rights. That work phone calls, some people received a vague is vital, given the efforts to restrict rights. (In encouragement to vote. They were no more Texas, for example, some poll workers last likely to vote than people who received no call. week falsely told voters that they needed Other people received calls asking questions photo identification.) The Election Protection about their logistical plans — and became Coalition, a large, well-regarded group, is significantly more likely to vote. The questions seeking both laypeople and lawyers to work at nudged them. phone banks or polling sites. ▪ Second, tell other people about your In less than a week, the often-depressing plan, and ask about theirs. The power of campaign of 2016 will be over. Before it is, peer pressure increases voter turnout. One take a moment to imagine how it would feel aggressive experiment mailed people a sheet to live in a country that had voted for and was of paper with their own turnout history and run by Donald Trump. their neighbors’. A more gentle experiment Then go out and do your part to keep presented Facebook users with head shots of America great. their friends who had posted an update about ■ having voted. Both increased turnout, as have David Leonhardt is a columnist for the New many other experiments. York Times. The right response to anti-democracy is more democracy. YOUR VIEWS No matter who wins election, we must come together On Nov. 9 I will be up early getting ready for work. Many of you will be doing the same. We will have a new president-elect, selected by the majority of those who voted. Maybe my choice won, maybe yours won. Either way there will be classes to teach, people to feed, merchandise to be sold and work to be done. We will still be the greatest nation on earth, striving to live up to our creed: ¨We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ... ” In the beginning these words only referred to landed white men. Over the years our nation has struggled to make these words more inclusive. We even fought a horrific Civil War in order to become a more perfect union as envisioned by Abraham Lincoln. Our nation still has a way to go, but we will continue to make progress as long as we keep the dialogue going, as long as we can compromise. Change is a constant in life, and no one likes change, but nothing stands still. If we can set aside our innate nearsightedness and self-centeredness to put ourselves in the shoes of those around us, we will continue to move forward. We are not a divided nation; we are a diverse nation, made up of all peoples in this world. We all came from somewhere else to reside on this continent. This great social experiment of self-governance we are part of requires everyone’s participation in order that all can enjoy their ¨unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ¨ Perhaps we will determine that the person chosen in this election is wrong for the nation. Our Constitution has made a provision for this. We have used it before. Whatever comes our way, we the people are still the United States of America. Brenda Kirk College Place State timber lands could bring in more than marijuana taxes The Medford Mail Tribune reprinted the East Oregonian’s opinion chastising citizens for foregoing the windfall that could be had by taxing marijuana. Rather than promote what is proving to be a pernicious influence on our communities, perhaps the editorial board could go to work pushing to have O&C timber lands put back into production. Down here in Southern Oregon those lands produce 83 cents per acre per year, yet they are meant to replace what would be tax revenue. So while these lands remain unproductive, your counties and cities hit you with bond after bond. Yes, there is tax revenue, but it comes right out of the hapless workers’ wallets. Hubert Smith Jacksonville, Ore. 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. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and phone number. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
