A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Another
mystery bill
in Salem
A
nother day. Another mystery bill in
the Legislature.
The latest example comes in a re-
port by Gary Warner of the Oregon Capital
Bureau. It’s a proposal in House Bill 4143 to
change the laws of the state of Oregon with-
out clear information in the bill about who
proposed the change.
The bill concentrates more power in the
governor’s office and takes it away from vot-
ers. The governor would get the power to
make the appointment to fill a vacant seat of
a United States Senator. The person would
have to be of the same party as the person
who left office.
But as the law stands now in Oregon,
there is a requirement for an election. The
voters get to choose. This bill hands the
power to the governor to fill the rest of
the term.
Should Oregon voters choose who rep-
resents them for one of the most powerful
positions in the country or should the gov-
ernor pick? The person the governor picks
may not be there long and would have to
seek election. There also can be problems
with the delay of several months between a
vacancy being announced and an election.
Almost all other states don’t do it the Ore-
gon way and use appointments.
The bill is a committee bill, one of those
mystery bills that we have written about that
does not clearly identify who is behind it. In
this case, state Rep. Barbara Smith Warner,
D-Portland, said it came to the House Rules
Committee as a request from a source she
didn’t identify.
After the publication of reporter Warner’s
story, the North Star Civic Foundation said
it suggested the idea. The group sincerely
stands for data-driven, non-partisan solu-
tions and things like pragmatism, racial eq-
uity, joy and trust. And apparently it also
values a kind of expediency of a governor
appointment over the messiness of an elec-
tion and voter choice. Do you agree?
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the
Baker City Herald. Columns, letters and
cartoons on this page express the opinions of
the authors and not necessarily that of the
Baker City Herald.
OTHER VIEWS
Time to win the war against Big Tech
BY KEVIN ROBERTS
Big Tech is an enemy of the American
people.
The largest corporations of our infor-
mation economy wield unparalleled power
over Americans’ lives. They enjoy almost
unfettered access to our personal informa-
tion. And they exercise more immediate
control over our speech and livelihoods
than even the government itself.
They’ve had years to prove themselves
responsible stewards of this power, by us-
ing it transparently and equitably, in the
public interest and for the common good.
They’ve chosen not to.
Internationally, Big Tech has partnered
with the Chinese Communist Party, help-
ing Beijing’s genocidal regime develop
surveillance technologies to oppress its
own people and military technologies that
threaten ours. Domestically, they have
colluded with government agencies and
left-wing activists to silence conservative
voices, de-platform conservative ideas or
frankly any idea that challenges the opin-
ions of our elites, and manipulate political
discourse to undermine conservative can-
didates and causes.
These corporations, many valued at more
than $1 trillion, have grown orders-of-mag-
nitude more powerful and dangerous than
anyone could ever dream of.
At this advanced stage, Big Tech barely
tries to hide or justify its bullying abuses
or totalitarian impulses. It is long past time
for policymakers to protect the American
people from both.
As The Heritage Foundation’s ground-
breaking new report, “Combating Big
Tech’s Totalitarianism,” makes clear, the
tipping point in Big Tech’s evolution from
potential danger to the republic to the
clear-and-present one it now represents
was when it collectively embraced the big-
oted, bellicose progressivism now ascen-
dant on the elite left. This recent merger
of Big Tech and woke ideology has mo-
tivated the long train of abuses that now
call us to action.
There is Twitter and Facebook’s selective
enforcement of “standards” that has cen-
sored Republican members of Congress at
a rate of 53-to-1 compared to Democrats,
and suspended Trump supporters 21 times
as often as Clinton supporters.
There is the routine, partisan deplat-
forming of “disinformation” that often
boils down to differences of opinion.
There is the discrimination against con-
servative books and media: Amazon’s ban
on scholar Ryan T. Anderson’s book on
gender dysphoria, or its unexplained re-
moval of a documentary about Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas from its
Prime Video streaming service.
There is the collusion between Big
Tech and government officials to strangle
dissent, in line with White House Press
Secretary Jen Psaki’s chilling assertion
that violators “shouldn’t be banned from
one platform and not others.” Spotify,
MailChimp, GoDaddy and GoFundMe
have now joined their trillion-dollar in-
dustry leaders in discriminating against
customers and entrepreneurs who in-
sist on thinking for themselves. Just ask
Joe Rogan.
This is not fair market competition. It is
systematic, collusive market capture. And
its perpetrators, remember, are engaged in
high-tech, misogynistic child abuse on a
global scale. It’s no coincidence that as Big
Tech’s market capitalization has exploded
in the smart-phone era, so has teen depres-
sion, with girls’ rates double those of boys.
It’s the same reason tech CEOs severely re-
strict their own kids’ screen time.
Given the stakes, and the enemy’s re-
sources, we must weigh every policy op-
tion. The time to act is now: We need to
win the war Big Tech launched against us
many years ago.
Federal antitrust law must be enforced,
not simply to regulate future mergers, but
to correct the monopolistic abuses Big
Tech firms already commit — including its
ad tech model. Antitrust law must also be
enforced and modernized to account for
the damage firms can do even with nom-
inally “free” services. And the American
people will be better off if Big Tech exec-
utives are held personally liable for their
companies’ crimes.
Platforms that deliberately censor based
on viewpoint alone should be stripped of
their liability protection under Section
230, and the real impacts of these firms’
vaunted algorithms should be transpar-
ent for consumers. Government should
be strictly prohibited from leveraging Big
Tech to silence dissent, and these corpora-
tions, which receive significant benefits as
American businesses, should be prohibited
from continuing its lucrative partnerships
with Beijing’s surveillance state and entities
linked to the People’s Liberation Army.
If these proposals sound aggressive,
that’s the idea. Americans have underesti-
mated the threat these firms pose. They are
not competing within a market; they have
become the market and are increasingly as-
suming the additional role of government
resting atop the market.
Their control, their leverage over our
lives, politics, public discourse, their prof-
iteering from children’s mental anguish
and China’s Orwellian oppression, and
their embrace of woke intolerance demand
a vigorous and comprehensive constitu-
tional response.
It is time to take Big Tech on, and as nec-
essary, take them down.
Kevin Roberts is the president of
The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
COLUMN
Hero to fan: Savoring the Bulldog-Badger rivalry
R
eece Dixon walked across the
nearly empty parking lot at the
Baker High School gymnasium.
The hero, like a character in a
novel, was alone as he strode across
the blacktop to his car.
Dixon, the senior point guard for
the Powder Valley Badgers, avoided
the patches of ice and crusty snow
outside the gym as deftly as he had
navigated the Baker Bulldog defense
inside the building earlier on the eve-
ning of Saturday, Feb. 5.
He was wearing a short-sleeved
shirt despite the 15-degree early Feb-
ruary chill.
No coat.
Apparently Dixon is as impervious
to an Eastern Oregon winter as he is
to pressure on the basketball court.
I happened to be leaving the gym
just after Dixon.
And as I watched him walk, it
struck me that this brief scene, so dif-
ferent from what had just happened
inside, where it was bright and warm
and the bleachers were packed with
rowdy fans, better captured the es-
sence of small town high school bas-
ketball than that evocative, but also
clichéd, tableau.
Barely half an hour earlier, Dixon
made the game-winning 3-point
shot with about 4 seconds left on
the clock.
It was the sort of shot that almost
every basketball player at some point
imagines pulling off. Think of a kid in
a driveway or barnyard, shooting at
a hoop bolted to a pole or above the
garage door, daydreaming about the
elation that would come with watch-
ing the ball slip crisply through the
nylon net, and seeing the numbers on
the scoreboard reflect the sudden, ex-
hilarating shift from defeat to victory.
Dixon had just lived what is, for
most players, forever a fantasy.
And yet here he was, while the
adrenaline must still have been cours-
ing through his system, getting ready
to drive home.
No postgame press conferences.
No gantlet of autograph seekers.
(Although I wouldn’t be sur-
prised if a few Badgers asked Dixon
to scrawl his name on a handy scrap
of paper.)
Probably the same typical Saturday
night awaited the other Bulldogs and
Badgers who, along with Dixon, had
just given several hundred fans such
a thrilling evening of entertainment
and spirited competition.
I thought of Dixon’s teammate
Kaden Krieger, who scored 30 points
— half of them in the first quarter
alone as the Badgers made it clear
that they weren’t intimidated by Bak-
er’s 15-3 record.
of nailbiting finish that Powder Val-
ley’s 69-68 win produced.
This wasn’t a state tournament or
playoff game. The winner wasn’t go-
ing to be awarded a shiny trophy.
Cole Martin scored all seven
Indeed, Baker and Powder Valley
of his points in the crucial fourth
likely won’t ever compete against each
quarter. Kaiden Dalke had
other for those accolades or the asso-
13 points.
ciated hardware.
There were heroic plays aplenty
Baker is a Class 4A school, a clas-
among the Bulldogs, too, of course. sification with an enrollment range
Isaiah Jones contorted himself in from 350 to 664.
a way that would leave me aching
Powder Valley is a member of Class
for a week en route to a one-handed 1A, reserved for Oregon’s smallest
layin — his off hand, the left, no less high schools, with an enrollment be-
— that gave Baker what seemed,
low 90.
briefly, to be a decisive 63-57 lead
Class 1A schools rarely compete
midway through the fourth quarter. against Class 4A schools.
Hudson Spike somehow spun the
But the rivalry between the Bull-
ball with the perfect velocity to kiss dogs and the Badgers, if not a tradi-
it off the backboard and into the
tional one, is certainly enticing in a
hoop on a reverse layin.
geographic and cultural sense.
And he tossed the inbounds
The schools, after all, are just 20
pass to Paul Hobson, who eluded
miles apart. And many of the players,
all five Badgers to get into the key
and students, know each other.
for a layin, and then made a pres-
The match up isn’t feasible in ev-
sure-packed free throw with 14.1
ery sport.
seconds left to give Baker the
In football, most notably, as Baker
2-point lead that Dixon would erase plays the standard 11-man format
not long after.
while Powder Valley puts eight play-
Surely it was one of the more ex- ers on the field.
citing games played in the Baker
Yet as Powder coach Kyle Dixon
gym in decades.
told me after the Feb. 5 game, on the
Yet the stakes were not the ones
basketball court this has turned into a
most often associated with the kind compelling rivalry.
Jayson
Jacoby
I hope it continues as an annual
event — ideally with the teams, both
boys and girls, playing both in Baker
and in North Powder.
I doubt, though, that this will ever
become the antagonistic sort of ri-
valry that we tend to associate with
sports — Ducks vs. Beavers, Red Sox
vs. Yankees.
Here’s why:
Three nights after Dixon’s epic
3-pointer, he was back in the
Baker gym.
But he wasn’t in uniform.
He wasn’t even wearing the Bad-
gers’ blue and red.
Dixon was in fact clad in the purple
and gold of Baker High.
He was standing in the BHS stu-
dent section, not 15 feet from where
he let go of the game-winner that
they’ll be talking about in North
Powder for years.
He had a purple pom pom in one
hand.
Dixon, the conqueror of Bulldogs,
standing among them, rooting them
on against La Grande.
Not as memorable, perhaps, as a
3-pointer with the game on the line.
But it was quite a scene just the
same.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.