Oregonians need to step back from the brink of Crazy Cliff

A moderate amount of craziness adds spice to life. Who wants to be perfectly rational and reasonable all of the time? But currently there's way too much craziness going on -- both here in Oregon and elsewhere in the United States.

So join me in making a heartfelt plea to all Oregonians to take several big steps back from the brink of Crazy Cliff. Going over the edge won't benefit anyone on the left, right, or middle of our political spectrum.

I think of myself as an open-minded progressive. As you can read below, I'm fine with criticizing people on the left when they've done something objectionable. 

However, it seems indisputable that those manifesting the greatest degree of craziness these days are right-wingers. I can't call them conservatives because what those crazies are espousing has very little to do with traditional conservatism. 

Here's examples of the craziness in Oregon that needs to be dialed down.

Denying Biden won the election. Since Oregon isn't a swing state, we've been spared the worst of President-elect Biden denialism.

But since polls show that a clear majority of Trump voters feel that Biden didn't win a free and fair election, there's little doubt that hundreds of thousands of Oregonians have jumped on board the train to Crazy Town (to mix my crazy metaphors).

There's no evidence to support that assertion. Trump and his crazed legal team are simply out to steal the election. Rudy Giuliani and Co. are throwing out increasingly bizarre claims about how massive fraud was carried out on November 3.

Notably, "a claim by Trump lawyer Sidney Powell that U.S. voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems Inc. used software made in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez. Chavez, who served as that country’s president, died in 2013."

That's super crazy! So it gets top billing in this blog post. 

Dowplaying the skyrocketing COVID-19 case, hospitalization, and death count. Throughout the pandemic Oregon has been doing better than most of the rest of the country. That's good news.

Yet instead of trusting Governor Brown and her public health team to continue doing what's necessary to combat COVID-19, there's been resistance to Brown's recent two-week rollback of some reopening policies, such as no longer allowing in-person dining at restaurants.

The Oregon Restaurant Association has sued the governor, objecting to the two-week restaurant policy. Protesters gathered at the state capitol, saying they wouldn't comply with Governor Brown's orders. Courthouse Club Fitness here in Salem is defying the two-week closure of health clubs. 

Crazy!

I can't understand why people are reluctant to save lives and lay the foundation for complete reopening of the Oregon economy by doing their part to comply with public health orders.

Oregon is facing the worst COVID-19 crisis of the pandemic, but many people are only thinking of themselves, not the common good.

Two counties make it a crime to enforce gun laws. Columbia and Umatilla counties in Oregon have passed ordinances that make it a misdemeanor crime for police to enforce certain gun laws.

Northwest Oregon’s Columbia County and eastern Oregon’s Umatilla County approved ordinances directing county workers – police included – to ignore the state’s extreme risk protection law, the concealed carry law and most other state regulation of guns. Passed in 2017, Oregon’s extreme risk protection law gives judges discretion to remove guns from people not convicted of a crime who show signs they might shoot themselves or someone else.

Deputies and officers who choose to enforce those laws risk prosecution and hefty fees -- criminal sanctions that “we are very proud of,” said Rob Taylor, an Oregon gun rights activist who has lobbied for such measures across the state.

Sometimes civil disobedience is called for. But this isn't one of those times. It is simply right-wing gun-nut craziness to claim that enforcing necessary laws is illegal. Almost certainly courts will agree and put a stop to this particular craziness. 

Portland "protesters" trash buildings. I'm not completely sure if this is an example of left-wing craziness, though it seems like it is, since it's hard to put anarchists on any part of the political spectrum. All they care about is creating chaos. 

It bugs me big-time when the nightly news calls those who damage businesses and other property in Portland protesters. They're thugs, rioters, criminals. Those are the names they deserve. An Oregonian story says: 

Crews cleaned up broken glass and boarded up shattered windows Saturday in Northeast Portland after demonstrators marched through the area the previous night.

Wooden boards covered broken windows and doors of multiple buildings along Northeast Sandy Boulevard, including a State Farm, Chase Bank, Whole Foods, Wells Fargo and Rite Aid. The Portland Police Bureau on Saturday said 26 businesses or workspaces and one apartment building were damaged with graffiti, broken windows or both in the Hollywood District.

Hey, Oregonian reporters. These aren't demonstrators. They are vandals. All they're demonstrating is how crazily stupid they are. They need to be charged with crimes and made to pay for the damage they do.

Comments

[Wayne Baum]

Down-playing the pandemic is the worse craziness. Oregon does not have the infrastructure capacity to handle a continued exponential increase in serious cases. If it happens, more people will die both from the virus as well as from unaddressed illnesses. Most cruelly, those who care for of all these victims, frontline medical workers, will be put at the greatest risk.