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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, November 15, 2017 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 OUR VIEW Poaching and punishment This hunting season, plenty of actions, knowing full well their mistake, and are unable to stop deer and elk have been harvested from the fertile mountains of Eastern themselves or frankly just don’t care. But there are also hunters Oregon. Many of them were taken legally. who have every intent of following the law, but make in-the-moment But too many were not. Poaching has been a problem errors in judgment or fact. For them, since the first king laid down the first self-reporting an error is critical. But rules for hunting. And it continues a much better option is going back to this day to be a concern for to basics: Before you take any shot, hunters, as well as other Oregonians look closely at your animal. Look at it again. Look at what is on its head, who use their tax dollars and their management practices to protect and look at what is behind it, know what is legal with your tag in your unit. lawfully and ethically harvest our The best way to defeat poaching state’s bounty of nature and protein. Just this year, multiple violations is good ethical hunting practices. The sport relies on it for safe and have been witnessed by police and reasonable harvest that reduces ethical hunters, from Heppner to pain and unnecessary La Grande and from It must be Tollgate to Ukiah. We must teach harm. taught from mothers Animals senselessly fathers to sons slaughtered for their and promote and and daughters. antlers or for nothing the right way Yet we know at all — blood lust or that many poachers stupidity. When that to hunt. learned their poaching happens, everyone loses — though no habits from their mothers and fathers — that’s where one more than the animal itself. Last year, a Pendleton hunter and media and law enforcement must come in, and hunter’s education guide — a former board member classes that are required for young for the Mule Deer Foundation — hunters. admitted to illegally killing one We must teach and promote the of the state’s largest mule deer. right way to do it, and we must For his crime, he paid $8,500 punish those who fall short. restitution and his hunting license In our opinion, a continual was suspended for three years. Also reminder of hunting ethics must in 2016, an Elgin trio was charged be in tandem with increased with killing and wasting two bull punishments. It does not seem elk. Then there was also the illegal too cruel, harsh or unusual for a poaching of bighorn sheep from poaching crime to cost a person their alongside Interstate 84 in Gilliam hunting privileges for the rest of County. Wolves have been killed their life. in suspicious circumstances from And poaching an animal that the the Blue Mountains all the way to state has sunk significant resources Klamath Falls. And in Tuesday’s police log, we noted a man allegedly into — by conserving necessary habitat, paying for game wardens driving drunk down Highway 11 with a poached deer in the bed of his and biologists and attorneys — should cost a criminal a significant pickup. dollar amount if they are convicted. And these are just the few high- On top of it, they should pay for profile or highly stupid, isolated depriving other hunters of a lost incidents that law enforcement are opportunity to harvest. able to build a case around. Much In our book, it doesn’t matter more often, investigators are not able whether the poached prey is an elk to pin a crime on anyone, or those or steelhead, moose or wolf. Our crimes go undiscovered in the first outdoor heritage rests on playing by place. It is exceedingly difficult to the rules. For the system to remain, get convictions on game crimes. those rules must be enforced and There are two kinds of poachers: they must be followed. those who purposely take illegal 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 Bring your gun to church Amarillo (Tex.) Globe-News C hurches and guns do not seem a fitting combination. A place of worship? And a weapon? Sacrilegious, right? Not in Texas, thankfully. While churches and guns do not seem to fit, the reality is they do — legally — in Texas. The recent mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs — the worst mass shooting in Lone Star State history — has put the focus (once again) on gun control. And since churches (along with schools) are often targets for evil and insane acts of violence, it needs to be pointed out that churches in Texas have had the ability to protect their members — with guns — for quite some time. State Rep. Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, is credited for spearheading a bill allowing places of worship to have armed volunteer guards. The bill became a state law that took effect in September. According to the Texas Legislature website, there were similar bills in the 85th Legislature, one authored by state Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo (HB 981). HB 421 was authored by Rinaldi and had several co-authors. Those who attend larger churches in Amarillo have no doubt seen members of Amarillo Police Department on church grounds during services. However, smaller churches may not have the resources to compensate law enforcement personnel to provide security during their services. So where does this leave such churches? Rinaldi’s bill addresses this problem. Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College and the Harvard Extension School, offered a different perspective recently in the Los Angeles Times: “The desire to bring guns to churches is not about rights, but about risk. You have the right to carry a gun. But should you? If the main reason you’re holstering up in the morning is because it’s a family tradition where you live, or because you have a particular need to do so, or merely because you feel better with a gun, that is your right. But if you are doing so because you think you’re in danger from the next mass shooting, then you should ask yourself whether you’re nearly as capable, trained and judicious as you think you are — and why you are spending your days, including your day of worship — obsessing over one of the least likely things that could happen to you.” In Texas, those who want to carry a gun legally must be licensed by the state, and complete the review process to be licensed. This license allows Texans to protect themselves — and others — by legally carrying a firearm. If the state determines a person is capable and responsible enough to carry a gun, why should this right cease to exist at the church door? And if a church — or any place of worship — has members licensed by the state to carry a gun, the church should be able to extend this right to protect its members. OTHER VIEWS At Air Force Academy, a perfect hoax for age of Trump I young man, who is black, has left the t’s hard to exaggerate the praise academy. heaped on Air Force Gen. Jay Anyone who follows such Silveria after his impassioned speech against racism went viral incidents, certainly anyone in the news at the end of September. Silveria, business, should have known that there superintendent of the Air Force was a substantial chance the Air Force Academy, spoke after five black cadet Academy vandalism was a fake. Too candidates at the academy’s prep many such incidents have turned out to school found racial slurs written on be hoaxes not to raise suspicions about Byron message boards outside their rooms. new ones, pending the results of an York “If you can’t treat someone from investigation. Comment another race or a different color skin There was the young black man in with dignity and respect, then you need Kansas who admitted writing racist to get out,” an angry Silveria told students. graffiti on his car. There was the black man “If you can’t treat someone with dignity and in Michigan charged in three racist graffiti respect, then get out.” When video of his incidents at Eastern Michigan University. speech hit the internet — nearly two million There was the young Muslim woman in YouTube views — and New York who admitted then cable TV, and then the making up a story about old-fashioned press, the being attacked by white applause began. Silveria, Trump supporters. The some said, was a true black Bowling Green State American hero. University student who said But in a few of the white Trump supporters nation’s largest media threw rocks at her. The outlets, the acclaim wasn’t University of Louisiana just about Silveria. For student who said a white some, celebrating Silveria man wearing a Trump hat was at least as much, if tried to pull off her hijab. not more, about President Then there was the wave Trump than it was about the of stories about threats Air Force general. For them, to Jewish community it was not enough to praise centers — stories that Silveria. One must also to received widespread news denounce Trump. coverage in the context The Washington Post published an editorial of the new Trump presidency. Most of the headlined, “Moral guidance, if not from the threats were made by a teenager in Israel, with president.” Silveria’s speech was “a welcome the others made by a former journalist who reminder of what leadership can look like,” was somehow trying to get back at a former the paper wrote, “all the more necessary and girlfriend. welcome because of the absence of leadership None of that means that all hate crimes at the highest levels of government.” reports are false. But it does mean people On television, CNN took a leading role reporting and commenting on them should be in lauding Silveria. Anchor Brooke Baldwin cautious until the facts are known. began a segment on the general by saying, Gen. Silveria chose not to be cautious. “Some say the president’s rhetoric is divisive, Now, Silveria has chosen to double not that of a commander-in-chief. Others down on his message. “Regardless of the will say that’s why they love him. What is circumstances under which those words were true, whether you agree with him or not, he written, they were written, and that deserved has a tendency to go too far, to divide rather to be addressed,” Silveria said in a statement than unite. There’s a moment I wanted to to the Colorado Springs Gazette. “You can share with you today that has so many people never over-emphasize the need for a culture saying, ‘Those are the words of a leader,’ at of dignity and respect — and those who don’t a time when the divided nation needs them understand those concepts aren’t welcome most.” here.” Baldwin played a long clip of Silveria’s There’s also a need for accuracy when speech and then introduced a live interview the head of the Air Force Academy makes a with Silveria himself. She began the interview high-profile statement that reaches millions of with, “May I just say bravo ... “ Americans. CNN’s Don Lemon also reported the But it seems unlikely Silveria’s jump- Silveria story as a Trump story. “I really hope the-gun performance will hurt him, certainly the president is watching tonight as well as his not with those who repeatedly brought supporters,” Lemon said, adding that Silveria’s President Trump into coverage of the phony words “are a stark reminder of everything our hate crime. When CNN reported Silveria’s president is not saying.” response to the hoax revelation, Baldwin was “I think it’s just a crying shame we quick to offer support. “Well, he’s right,” don’t have this kind of leadership from the Baldwin said of Silveria. “The words ring president,” added CNN’s Van Jones. true. It’s just unfortunate to learn who really Now, as everyone knows, there’s an update (did it).” to the story. The cadet candidate who reported ■ the racial slurs has admitted that he was Byron York is chief political correspondent behind the whole thing. It was all a hoax. The for The Washington Examiner. Not all hate crime reports are false. But it does mean people commenting on them should be cautious. YOUR VIEWS Tim White a different kind of congressional candidate I’m writing in support of a different sort of candidate for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District — different because of his indepen- dence from party dogma and a real desire to see benefit to the residents of our district. His name is Tim White, and if you examine his positions you’ll find that he doesn’t conform to the “identity politics” that Steve Bannon rightly identified as the Democrats’ vulnerability. Yes, he is in full support of ensuring the rights of all of us, whether we are of a racial minority, LGBTQ, female or male, and especially those of us in the working middle class who have been left behind in times of economic boom. More importantly, he believes we must stop the wave of undoing the progress America has made on many fronts. That wave has brought us legislation and executive orders that have a crippling effect on protections put in place by previous administrations. Our health care system is broken, it needs to be fixed not discarded. White believes the ACA deficiencies can be fixed if our representatives would work together and stop the partisan bickering. Our Veterans Administration is in serious trouble, leaving our heroic military veterans in a sea of paperwork and bureaucratic delays. Tim believes we can do better by providing adequate funding for facilities and staff and by holding the VA management accountable. And let’s not forget the economic ditch we were in during 2007 and 2008. The GOP is now proposing to gut the protections put in place to prevent a recurrence of that mess — they want to go back to the good old days of an unfettered Wall Street and big banks. So, it’s time for Greg Walden to retire. Eighteen years, and counting, in the House is far too long. Can I honestly say Oregon’s 2nd District is on a stronger economic footing than that of 18 years ago? Are our veterans being better served? Has Walden introduced any legislation of substance during his tenure? I believe the answer to each of these three questions is no. Walden is a faithful party man. He has voted almost 100 percent for Trump policies. If you support everything Trump is doing, then Walden is your man. But I think we need someone who will truly represent us and work hard for us. Take a look at Tim White. I think you’ll find that he will more than measure up on both counts. Gerry Mueller Bend