Page 4A
East Oregonian
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
BLM should move west
A bipartisan group of senators and
congressmen say the headquarters for
the Bureau of Land Management should
move from Washington, D.C., and
relocate in the West — where the agency
manages 385,000 square miles of public
lands.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who
overseas the BLM, agrees. So do we.
Colorado Republican Sen. Cory
Gardner introduced a bill to move the
BLM to one of a dozen states in the
West — Alaska, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada,
New Mexico, Oregon, Utah,
Washington or Wyoming.
“You’re dealing with an agency
that basically has no business in
Washington, D.C.,” Gardner told The
Associated Press.
Colorado Republican Rep. Scott
Tipton introduced a similar measure
in the House, and three Democrats
signed up as co-sponsors: Reps.
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Jared
Polis of Colorado and Ed Perlmutter
of Colorado.
The logic of this idea isn’t hard
for people in the West to understand.
BLM manages huge swaths of
Western states. Its decisions impact
the livelihoods of people who populate
rural communities but those decisions
are made far from the forests,
grasslands and high deserts they call
home.
Not everyone is in love with the
idea, particularly the special interests
who court influence inside the
Washington beltway.
Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra
Club’s public lands program, said
the Bureau of Land Management is
already decentralized, and moving the
headquarters would waste money.
“It’s a solution in search of a
problem,” he told AP.
Critics say the BLM and other
agencies need to be headquartered in
the capital to be included in budget
and policy discussions.
But having all those discussions
in Washington is part of the problem.
That’s better for K Street lobbyists and
the environmental special interests,
but not so good for the people those
policies impact.
While it’s true that less than
5 percent of the bureau’s 9,000
employees are stationed in D.C., they
have more say and less access to the
national treasures they administer than
their colleagues in the field.
Putting BLM headquarters in Denver,
Boise or Seattle wouldn’t change its
statutory mission. But it would give the
agency bigwigs a different perspective
and a better-than-nodding acquaintance
with the territory they manage and the
people who live there.
OTHER VIEWS
You’re wrong! I’m right!
W
YOUR VIEWS
Different political backgrounds
support Bounds for Ninth Circuit
By FRIENDS OF RYAN BOUNDS
To U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
e write to offer our unqualified
and personal support of Ryan
Bounds as a nominee to the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals. We all have a long
personal history with Ryan, as we grew
up together in the same rural northeastern
Oregon town of Hermiston.
As members of Oregon’s legal,
medical, corporate, and higher education
communities and leaders and volunteers
for a variety of progressive
causes and organizations
— including the Oregon
Democratic Party, the
Hillary Clinton for
President Campaign,
SOLV (Stop Oregon Litter
and Vandalism), Oregon
Women Lawyers, and
Basic Rights Oregon — we
are uniquely situated to critically assess
Ryan’s growth and temperament over more
than three decades.
We have no doubts about Ryan’s
capacity to serve as a judge by any criterion
— be it personal, intellectual, professional,
or temperamental. We urge your fair and
thorough consideration of his nomination.
A cursory review of Ryan’s record
reveals his eminent qualification for this
position, and we need not persuade you in
that regard. Ryan possesses the academic
experience (Stanford and Yale), professional
path (U.S. Department of Justice, White
House, judicial clerkship), and community
engagement (Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
Committee of the Portland Bar, Court-
Appointed Special Advocate for African-
American foster children, environmental
crimes prosecutor).
Because we have known Ryan since our
days in middle school, we think it far more
valuable to your deliberations to express
unequivocally our knowledge of Ryan’s
empathy, capacity for self-reflection, and
propensity to put himself in the shoes of
others. We have never known him even
to suggest — by word or deed — any
personal animosity for anyone based on
his or her race, gender, creed, ethnicity
or sexual orientation. But he is happy
W
to argue with anyone without regard to
those characteristics. Ryan does not view
contentious debate as contrary to our
shared humanity; rather, he lives his life
celebrating both.
We understand, with the examination
of his record, the committee has reviewed
a handful of articles Ryan penned as an
editor on the staff of a conservative college
newspaper, The Stanford Review, nearly
a quarter-century ago. We have read the
articles.Cautious not to apply the important
progressive lens of today to impertinent
words of youth, we —
women, a gay man, a
refugee, and members of
Oregon’s communities
of color — nonetheless
agree the articles deserve
an explanation. We
know Ryan regrets and
is embarrassed by the
tone of his writings as a
conservative college student.
We would expect any reasonable
person to understand how a student’s
words designed to garner attention for an
alternative college newspaper might not
resonate with the person that student will
become after 25 years of experiencing the
world.
Perhaps more importantly for your
inquiry and examination, we can represent
without hesitation that Ryan’s path has
been one of growth, intellectual curiosity
and rigor, love of his family, friends, and
community, and respect for the humanity of
others.
If Ryan is incapable, in your eyes, of
serving his country as a judge, we must
share our worry as to who might be
qualified and suited for the judiciary in the
view of the committee and Senate.
■
Ryan James Hagemann is vice president
and general counsel at Western Oregon
University. Sally Anderson Hansell works
for Anderson Hansell PC. Dr. Aloysius
Fobi works in the emergency department
at Legacy Emmanuel Hospital. Andrea
Streedain is director of operations at
Starbucks Coffee Company. Nhan Nguyen
is chief financial officer at American
Medical Concepts, Inc.
We have no
doubts about
Ryan’s capacity
to serve.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the
East Oregonian editorial board. Other
columns, letters and cartoons on this page
express the opinions of the authors and
not necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
e live in two Americas.
evidence that our biased approach
In one America,
to getting news actually makes
a mentally unstable
us dumb. For example, one
president selected partly by Russia
experiment asked 1,000 people to
lies daily and stirs up bigotry that
look at a simple data set and draw
tears our social fabric.
conclusions about a skin cream’s
In another America, a can-do
effectiveness. Not surprisingly,
president tries to make America
Democrats and Republicans were
great again as lying journalists stir
Nicholas about equally good at calculating
up hatred that tears our social fabric.
Kristof the math and determining how well
The one thing we all agree on:
it worked.
Comment
But when the experiment offered
Our social fabric is torn. In each
the very same data set and said it
America, people who inhabit the
referred to the effectiveness of a gun control
other are often perceived as not just obtuse
measure, Democrats and Republicans alike
but also dangerous. Half of Democrats and
went to pieces.
Republicans alike say in polls that they are
In one version, the numbers showed
literally afraid of the other political party.
that a gun control
This is not to equate
measure worked — and
the two worldviews. I
Republicans kept
largely subscribe to the
flubbing the math. In
first, and I’m a villain
another version, the gun
in the second. But I do
control measure was
believe that all of us, on
ineffective, and this time
both sides, frequently
the Democrats couldn’t
spend more time
manage the calculations.
demonizing the other side
The evidence on
than trying to understand
these biases is complex,
it, and we all suffer a
studies sometimes haven’t replicated well,
cognitive bias that makes us inclined to
and I don’t want to exhibit confirmation
seek out news sources that confirm our
bias in my warnings of confirmation bias.
worldview.
Researchers also caution that it’s too glib to
A classic study offered free research to
say we are all locked in our echo chambers,
ordinary Democrats and Republicans.
for most Americans still are regularly
People on both sides were eager to
challenged by dissonant information.
get intelligent arguments reinforcing
But what does seem clear is that rigid
their views and somewhat interested in
ideological beliefs impair our cognitive
arguments for the other side that were so
functions. For many years, Philip Tetlock
silly they could be mocked and caricatured
of the University of Pennsylvania has been
(it’s very satisfying to dismiss rivals as
running experiments measuring the ability
libtards or bigots). Neither Democrats nor
of thousands of people to make sound
Republicans were interested in intelligent
predictions.
arguments challenging their own views.
The best forecasters, Tetlock finds, are
Decades ago, a media expert at MIT
not experts or even intelligence officials
named Nicholas Negroponte foresaw the
with classified information, not liberals
emergence of a news product that he called
and not conservatives, but rather those
“The Daily Me,” with information tailored
instinctively empirical, nonideological and
to a user’s needs. Negroponte was thinking
willing to change their minds quite nimbly.
of local weather, sports, particular interests
The poorest marks go to those who are
and so on, but what actually arrived with
the internet was a highly political version of strongly loyal to a worldview.
I wondered whether to write this column,
“The Daily Me.”
for there are so many urgent — and
There’s not an exact parallel in the way
progressive! — causes on the table that I
the right and the left seek out like-minded
want to thunder about: Dreamers, guns in
news sources. The right has spawned
conspiracy nuts like Alex Jones who believe American life, White House dismissiveness
toward domestic violence, and so on.
that the Sandy Hook school shooting was
But the “Daily Me” problem also
faked, and one study found that the more
undermines the capacity of liberals to win
people watched Fox News, the worse they
these arguments. When we stay within our
did on a current events test.
own tribe, talking mostly to each other, it’s
So I’m not advocating that you waste
time on Breitbart propaganda any more than difficult to woo other tribes to achieve our
aims.
I’m saying that it was worth listening to
The ideological blinders may worsen
leftists in the 1970s who praised Chairman
because of our tendency to seek out like-
Mao. But wherever we stand on the
minded people. A 2014 Pew survey found
spectrum, there are sane, intelligent voices
that half of consistent conservatives and
who disagree with us — and too often we
35 percent of consistent liberals say, “It’s
plug our ears to them.
important to me to live in a place where
On the left, there has been some outrage
most people share my political views.”
at conservative voices on the Times
It should be possible both to believe
op-ed pages. But as a progressive myself,
deeply in the rightness of one’s own cause
steeped in the liberal worldview, I must
and to hear out the other side. Civility is not
say that I often learn a lot — however
a sign of weakness, but of civilization.
painfully — from these conservatives with
■
whom I utterly disagree, partly because they
Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and
gleefully seize upon inconvenient facts that
cherry farm in Yamhill. Kristof has been a
my side tends to ignore because they don’t
The New York Times columnist since 2001
fit our narrative.
and won the Pulitzer Prize twice.
Moreover, there’s some experimental
Rigid ideological
beliefs impair
our cognitive
functions.
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. 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.