Month: March 2017

Posted on

Top-notch Deception

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, March 21, 2017 by devadmin
If a Democrat House member gets his way, the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) will load stiff economic, land and water management problems right into the lap of Oregon’s farmers, ranchers, cattle and dairymen.

All water right holders will find themselves in a swamp-like slough of muddy ground composed of fees, regulatory efforts and exceedingly stiff fines – up to $500 per day. All of these water bills (HB2705, HB2706, HB2707) enlarge government efforts through needless regulation and direct intervention in land and water use.

The happy story masking each of these bills is beneficence, but they really promote a future that is nothing-less-than a government controlled Utopian vision.

Look at the language in HB2705, the Legislative Assembly declares that:

“(a) Water use data is a fundamental tool to ensure efficient management, ensure effective water distribution and help plan for future water needs; and (b) The measurement and reporting of water use benefits all water appropriators and is critical to the effective management of the water resources of this state.”
There is nothing, necessarily, wrong with any of these statements, but the question remains, who will be controlling, cataloging, regulating and managing? And finally, who will be benefiting and how?

All of these things sound perfectly wondrous, so let’s continue reading. The next section of HB2705 shines some light on the details. It reads:

“It is the policy of this state to: (a) Actively promote measurement and reporting of water use by water appropriators; and (b) Encourage federal, state and local government coordination and cooperation in providing financial support to water appropriators for water use measurement and reporting.”
This is top-notch deception.

The phrase “to promote” would not mean “to force”, would it?

That is what the bill requires – force. Why doesn’t the legislation inform the public of this fact? In all honesty the text should read, “(a) Actively force measurement and reporting of water use by water appropriators,” because that is what it does.

Additionally, in the next sub-section, the phrase “encouraging” is nothing but legislative live-bait to make this design sound helpful. There are no details about funding, or financial support anywhere in this bill. It only shows up in the preamble to assure stakeholders that OWRD could be reasonable.

Over the years, Americans, and particularly Oregonians, have been slowly acclimated to similar Utopian visions. We have been led to believe that by some government action this improvement could be made; or by some government sponsored innovation this would be better, or with these regulations some version of effective management could be accomplished.

We are continually told that with some commission, study, or with a little more data the government could improve the conditions of your life, nursery, farm or ranching operation. Over the years these socialist policies have been universally painted with glorious sounding titles – a Square Deal, a New Freedom, a New Deal, a Fair Deal, a New Frontier, and a Great Society.

Now, we are being led to believe that government will “ensure efficient management, ensure effective water distribution and help plan for future water needs.” That language is directly from HB2705.

The truth is, this government entity knows what it doesn’t know. The plan is to force you into providing it. The state doesn’t have any intimate knowledge of your farm, ranch, or agricultural operation and therefore, they can’t easily control or regulate it. But, they hope to control and regulate you.

HB 2705 will force you to provide them with the necessary details and the Water Resources Commission will set the rules which you will be required to follow.

The user or water appropriator does all of the work and bears all of the costs. Remember, in legislative legalese, the word “shall” means “must.” The text reads:

SECTION 3:

(1) A water appropriator shall…

(2) A water appropriator shall…

SECTION 4:

(1) A water appropriator shall…

(2) A water appropriator shall…

However, OWRD is responsible for one thing – issuing fines:

“SECTION 5. The Water Resources Department may assess a civil penalty for violation of section 3 or 4 of this 2017 Act, not to exceed $500. For a continuing violation, each day the violation continues is a separate violation.”
Welcome to OWRD’s vision for your Utopian future…

It should be obvious that these bills were crafted without the critical engagement of impacted water users and stakeholders. These bills don’t offer any benefits to Oregon or the typical water user in my District.

These bills will impose significant costs on already struggling farm, ranch and ag families and the collected monies are not allocated toward meaningful areas of need.

What to do…

I urge water right holders to e-Mail, write, or call, each member of the House Energy & Environment Committee to share their thoughts and suggestions.

The best way to make an impact is to attend the hearing in-person:

March 22nd, 2017 – Wednesday
Hearing Room-D, at 3:00 p.m.
Salem Capital Building
900 Court St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
It is important that you send your statements to each member of the committee. Also, please send your statement to the committee, as an official part of the record. Written, or e-Mailed testimony must be submitted prior to the hearing. Please state at the top whether you are for or against the bills and share your reasons why.

Rep. Reschke serves on the House Energy & Environment committee and has stated his opposition to these bills. Please notify his office if you are planning to attend.

Copies of these bills can be found on the Oregon Legislative Information System (OLIS) at these links:

HB2705
HB2706
HB2707
Please join me in opposition to these bills. They will be heard this Wednesday, March 22, 2017, in the House. These bills may move to the Senate following their House hearing. If you happen to read this article after the March 22, 2017 meeting, please write to your Senator to voice your opinion on these burdensome bills.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – No one will…

State Senator Dennis Linthicum

District 28

Posted on

Prairie Schooners and Paradigm Shifts

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, March 21, 2017 by devadmin

In our Senate Education Committee this week, Steve Buckstein of the Cascade Policy Institute shared a humorous video from a student who is currently being educated in a home school setting. The video emphasized that one size doesn’t fit all and different tools serve different purposes. You can see the video here: Shoes – success depends on having the right tools.

While this amateur Youtube video has fewer than 50 views it reminded me of another Youtube video from TED Talks. Several years back, educator and author, Ken Robinson, gave a TED Talk called, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?“

I looked for it and was surprised to find that it is the most viewed talk in TED’s history, with 45.5 million views. I recommend watching it along with a couple other Ken Robinson videos. (If you only have time for one video then watch this one!)

These humorous and insightful videos all echo the same theme, namely, we are all different and our educational needs will be as different as each of us.

You and I are unique in our height, weight, size and shape. We are unique with our likes and dislikes and in our abilities, gifts and talents. We are as different as our DNA and fingerprints and we see the world differently based on our culture and family traditions, socioeconomic condition, national origin and many other things.

No one doubts the truth of these propositions. We know intuitively that each individual is unique in every way.

Across America our educational model was developed and fine-tuned during the Industrial Revolution. It mimics the factory mindset with parts following an assembly line for production and development. Oregon’s model follows the same standardized regime with standardized hours dedicated to specific subjects. With every individual exhibiting unique talent, gifts and skills this model is rigid and anachronistic.

As more people come to recognize the power of the individual our educational model will undergo transformation. This transformation will be part technological and part ideological. The millennials are the Uber-generation. They have glommed onto  technology that has spawned the sharing economy and they are intensely devoted to individual freedom while not being afraid of personal responsibility. They will want this same liberty for their kids.

The current education model will not be able to provide this flexibility because the system resembles the Conestoga wagon of yesteryear. The Conestoga, or Prairie Schooner, like the horse and buggy, had a good run but was eventually replaced. Our current educational model is also likely to get replaced.

Using hindsight, it is easy to understand the Conestoga wagon and the changes that led to its natural demise. Yet, in the day, how many fireplace discussions were focused on that newfangled, noisy and sputtering jalopy? Certainly, there were naysayers and proponents. There were those who loved their horses. Also, there were skilled craftsman with lifetimes of dedication in the leather and wood working arts. These men and women were arrayed against newbies armed only with greasy hands, rags, and their Crescent wrenches.

We are at the same turning point for our current brick-and-mortar education model. The territorial monopoly of school attendance based on the neighborhood where you live will not be able to compete with up-coming technological advances. During the next decade, as new technologies burst into our classrooms and across school district boundaries, there will be a coincidental emergence of ideological freedom. Like an infant’s umbilical cord, the wires will be cut and Oregon will be required to alter its education model.

This will also happen because of the growing sense of angst over student performance and the age-old financial problems which torment the Department of Education. Everyone is aware that Oregon’s taxpayers cannot keep pace with the unprecedented growth in salary, wages and PERS costs. The gloomy prospects for sustained revenue growth combined with a massive flood of baby boomer retirees means we face a potential catastrophe.

After years of uncontested authority in their monopoly status, the heart and soul of our state’s education system has become weak. Currently, our state is ranked 49th in education and we will spend nearly $14,140 per student, including overhead and administration. That is an enormous amount of money on a per student basis. Yet, for all that money, graduation rates are dismal and below average test results are wreaking havoc in the fabric of every community, particularly among the under-privileged.

These are typical conditions setting-up what Thomas Kuhn called a “paradigm shift.”  Kuhn proposed that in any given framework an “existing paradigm” resists change while the current paradigm is strong and balanced. There is no need or incentive to look for alternatives as everything makes sense and nothing appears broken. However, as the framework becomes unbalanced (higher costs for lower scores), communities will demand more scrutiny and accountability. Their voices will be heard and this is when the “shift” will occur.

As the legislative body looks for solutions they will burden educators with more reporting and performance requirements. Goals will focus more on money over vision, tradition over innovation, form over substance, and certification over performance. These are the telltale signs that the existing paradigm is ripe for transformation.

Technology will be the key. School-choice and long-distance learning will be the agents that spawn the paradigm shift in Oregon’s education model. Then, we will create a more robust educational environment for all Oregonians.

My assessment may be uncomfortable for some and scary for others. But, just as autos, planes and trains replaced the Conestogas there will be gradual, but exciting, changes in our educational paradigm. Just like our pioneer forebears, we need to be courageous enough to embrace the possibilities – for the sake of a brighter future for every Oregon family.

 If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – No one will!

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Posted on

The More Numerous the Laws…

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, March 21, 2018 by devadmin

As I travel, meet and talk with my constituents in Senate District 28 several items always come to the top of our discussion lists. Most people express continued concern for a standard litany of issues: the degradation of our traditional American culture; the need for fewer regulations and obstacles for business; freer markets with fewer tariffs; and a return to our American constitutional roots.

Stop and think for a minute. People want more freedom, smaller government, lower taxes and yet every year the legislature meets and passes hundreds of new laws. Why do we need all of these laws? An Ancient Roman Senator and historian, Tacitus, made the claim, “The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.”

I think he understood humanity’s fallen nature correctly.

The 2018 legislative “short-session” scuttled perfectly legitimate efforts aimed at reigning in Oregon’s governmental enterprise. Bipartisanship became the media watchword while the Democratic leadership silently pursued their own progressive political agenda. For those of us in South, Central and Eastern Oregon, this is just a glimpse of what will happen in 2019 if there are no substantial changes in Oregon’s House, Senate or Executive offices.

This well-orchestrated short session circumvented attempts at meaningful change. It also sandbagged citizens by limiting their participation in condensed committee schedules. Therefore, substantial policy issues were forced through without transparency or the time necessary to pursue alternative solutions. Despite these challenges, I and my Senate Republican colleagues effectively stopped numerous hyper-partisan, tax and spend boondoggles from becoming law in 2018.

In particular, two bills which I adamantly opposed were HB 4001 and SB 1507. These two Cap and Trade bills were only used for political posturing and represent the worst of the Democrat’s agenda. They both have insurmountable problems. First, they would burden taxpayers with a minimum of $700 million dollars in extra taxes, annually. Second, neither would make a discernible difference in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Additionally, without any Republican support, the Democrat majority passed SB 1528, which will create a whopping 30% tax increase on Oregon’s sole proprietors, small and family owned businesses and LLC’s.  This partisan tax scheme will force 192,000 small businesses to pay $258 million in 2018 taxes while protecting large multinational corporations who are able to game the system.

Another bill which I supported, HB 4016, never made it out of committee. Environmental groups and tribal interests spoke against this straight-forward and common-sense fix for the Klamath Irrigation District (KID). This bill would have allowed temporary transfers within the KID district boundaries to other land within their boundary.  In KID these place of use changes would have allowed the district to remedy original mapping and boundary errors without exceeding the water right in the original claim.

As I have written in the past, I was a Chief Sponsor of HB 4005 which passed. This bill is intended to help grapple with the high costs of prescription drugs and the harm that patients and consumers experience by exposing the details behind cost increases for pharmaceutical products. This bill only requires reporting for drugs costing more than $100 per month that increase by more than 10% on an annual basis.

I sponsored HB 4100 which also passed. This bill enforces property rights for facilities that provide equine therapy or counseling activities in areas zoned for exclusive farm use (EFU). This will allow specific therapeutic service providers to continue utilizing our abundant natural resources, domesticated livestock and nonclinical rural environments for creating healthy, wholesome and meaningful interactions for their clients.

Another common-sense bill which I sponsored was HB 4008. It passed, making calculations of projected future earnings based on race or ethnicity of a plaintiff inadmissible. Since, we believe that all people carry enormous potential and are each endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, it seems only logical that any civil calculations for projected future earnings reflect those beliefs.

I sponsored and supported HB 4036, which passed. This bill allows home-schooled and public charter school students to participate in various types of interscholastic activities, including sports, band, choir and technical education programs. School Districts can determine the costs and may charge participating students within limits  set by the bill.

My deep appreciation for the lessons of history and the dangers of unconstrained government, will continue to inform my perspective. Only a constitutionally limited government can enable its citizens to reach their fullest potential by defending them against the bureaucracies’ perpetual tendency toward fiscal irresponsibility.

Oregon’s unrelenting drift toward collectivism will eventually swallow us, our families and our businesses without liberty-minded citizen’s and leaders standing up for our individual freedom. Legislators need to be constantly reminded of the ancient words from Tacitus, “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Posted on

First Do No Harm

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, March 12, 2019 by devadmin

Tech giants like Facebook, Google, Pinterest and others are out to stop the so-called anti-Vaxxers. They are actively removing and demoting information simply because people are voicing honest disagreements with policy mandates.

I, too, am against the mandatory vaccine legislation and I think there has not been enough testing on the various vaccine-combinations. I hope you will see the validity of my assessment as I explain my position.

I realize there are pragmatic difficulties in staging realistic epidemiological studies due to the outrageously unique and utterly complex nature of our God-given humanness. Not to mention that we daily experience innumerable outside variables woven through the places, times and circumstances of our lives.

Intuitively, we are all well aware of these details because we each know of friends or family members who different from us. They each react differently to any number of food, drink, lotion, or medicinal items. Additionally, when you visit the doctor’s office, they invariable hand you a clipboard where they want you to describe allergic reactions that you may have experienced. This includes, common things like, eggs, fish, milk, tree nuts, peanuts, shellfish, wheat and antibiotics.

Take a second and count the people that you are aware of that have some sort of adverse reaction, possibly even anaphylactic shock, from various conditions. Second, consider the simplistic claim that, “all vaccines are proven safe.”

Right! Peanut-butter is perfectly safe, too; except when it isn’t.

However, no one is mandating that you eat peanut-butter and jelly for lunch (today.)

In the same way that the tech giants are demoting what they consider to be misinformation, they are promoting stories that are crafted to help the vaccine mandate crowd. Their web-crawlers are out looking for old pro-vaccine news that can be put to good use.

The Associated Press (AP) is digging up any tidbit of vaccine news so that a story can be twisted to fit today’s statist agenda. Like putty in the hands of a master-scaremonger these stories provide great fodder for promoting unfathomable governmental intrusions into our private lives.

In light of the recent push for, what I’ll refer to as, the “coerced injection act” (HB 3063) and the formidable campaign against the “consensual vaccine information act” (SB 649) the AP dug-up an older story about an unvaccinated child. The child was “hospitalized for two months for tetanus and almost [died] of the bacterial illness after getting a deep cut while playing on a farm.”

The AP article proceeds to quote Dr. William Schaffner, an expert in infectious diseases, as being “flabbergasted.” The story highlights the exorbitant costs and the near-death experience of this young boy in an effort to persuade readers that mandatory vaccines will save the “herd.”

Except, C. tetani is not an infectious disease. Tetanus isn’t transmitted person-to-person by sneezing, coughing, or unsafe sexual practices but instead comes from bacterial spores that exist nearly everywhere in the soil.

Those inoculated with the DTaP (Diptheria, Tetanus, acellular Pertussis) combination vaccine cannot impact the safety for schools or other public spaces. This is because the vaccine only provides personal protection. This vaccine does not rid our planet of rusty nails, old farm machinery or C. tetani spores. It only provides protection to the individual who receives the injection.

In an open-letter to legislators considering vaccine mandates, Dr. Tetyana Obukhanych, who earned her Ph.D. in Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York and did post-graduate work at Harvard, writes, “People who have not received the vaccines […] pose no higher threat to the general public than those who have.”

For example, with a 95 percent vaccine compliance rate a school of 1,000 children, would have 950 vaccinated students and 50 unvaccinated students. If the vaccine had a 90 percent effective rate, then potentially 95 fully vaccinated students would be susceptible to an outbreak compared to 50 unvaccinated students.

This also creates an interesting concern for those in compliance – Why didn’t the vaccine protect these children? Were they sold a product that didn’t work or is the result due to variations in important cellular processes, metabolism or genetic makeup?

However, my real question is, why are we experiencing this all-out barrage against consensual free-choice?

A foundational tenet in clinical medicine is – first do no harm. This means, when physicians face choices between uncertain benefits and possible harm, they must err on the side of safety.

This is similar to the “precautionary principle,” in the environmental sciences. Arising from concerns for environmental safety, the “precautionary principle” asserts that when faced with suspected harm, or uncertainty, the prescribed course should be caution. By implication, proceeding without caution might lead to long-term cumulative environmental damage. Or, it might not, but caution dictates that those natural resources will still be available for others in the future.

All vaccines should be carefully evaluated, both individually and in long-term studies, and then, synergistically, for toxicity with other vaccine combinations.

The Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) childhood vaccine schedule recommends all children receive 69 doses of 16 vaccines with 50 doses of 14 vaccines given between the day of birth and age 18. In the U.S. today, the majority of children receive 3X as many vaccinations as children received in 1983, when Diane and I started having children.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Academy of Sciences, concluded there was not enough scientific evidence to determine whether vaccines are associated with health problems in premature infants or the development of chronic brain and immune system disorders that affect a child’s intellectual development, learning, attention, communication and behavior, learning disabilities and autism.

I realize there are real difficulties associated with performing extensive tests of this magnitude but aren’t our children worth it? Doesn’t it bother you that food allergies have increased by 20 percent in the last 20 years? Don’t you find it troubling that the number of Ritalin prescriptions has risen over 150% in the last ten years?  Haven’t you wondered about the inexplicable increase in autism in our lifetimes?

Lastly, are we willing to call the 228 measles cases, across 12 states, within a total U.S. population of 310 million, an epidemic? If so, then what term will we use to describe the more than 50,000 children who will exhibit autistic tendencies before this year is over? Are we brave enough to face an epidemic when we see one?

In closing, my concern is that Oregon’s legislators will be adopting a policy that will ostracize those who don’t have the correct paperwork or pox mark on their arms. Is this really the policy we want to adopt in our fight for freedom and tolerance? Is this what we mean when we praise our schools for being free from discrimination? Will we resort to feeding our collective fear and appetite against our neighbors who are faced with protecting their families with free-choice and the comfort of being true to their consciences?

Our inability to muster the political courage to demand more thorough testing is our failure. However, this has nothing what-so-ever to do with negating peoples’ rights to control their own destinies and the destinies for their children. We must ensure government defends and protects parental rights and their freedom to make their own family’s medical choices.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural-Oregon values and common sense – No one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Posted on

Positively Diabolical

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, March 9, 2017 by devadmin
Last summer I re-read C.S. Lewis’ novel, The Screwtape Letters. I am in Salem, for the state legislative session, and I am haunted by an image from that work.

The Screwtape novel is a satirical fantasy which places characters in plot-settings that mimic a typical human life, complete with all its temptations and failings.

The book has a unique format. The story is revealed through a series of written letters rather than the typical first-hand personal interactions which occupy most novels. The letters and notes which flow back and forth between the various parties reveal the heart and soul of Lewis’ main characters. The principal correspondent is Uncle Screwtape, He is a Senior Tempter and serves as the Undersecretary of his department in what Lewis envisages as a sort of infernal and devilish Civil Service.

Screwtape’s letters are posited as advice for his young nephew, Wormwood. Wormwood is a devil-in-training. He is a cohort, if you will, charged with the misguidance of only one man, or patient, as he is known in these instructional posts from the underworld

I would encourage you to find some time to read it. I think you’ll find Lewis’ story and style refreshing and his insight into human nature spot on. (Even though Lewis published this story in 1942.)

One of the more affecting descriptions of this novel comes from Lewis, himself. In Lewis’ original preface, he tells us of a humorous anecdote where a country clergyman had written saying that “much of the advice given in these letters seemed… positively diabolical.

And, it is.

Lewis continues with his introduction to this story by describing his sentiments and his purposeful use of certain symbols for Hell. I’ll note, also, that Lewis confesses to us that he likes bats better than bureaucrats. This sets the stage, for us, where his symbols make for ripe pickings when describing the growing legalese twisting through the marbled corridors of Oregon’s capital.

Lewis writes:

“We live in the Managerial Age, in a world of ‘Admin.’ The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint.

“It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result.

“But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.

“Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business con­cern.

In our lifetimes, we have made drastic policy reversals while striving to advance the seemingly more tolerant positions. Look at health care. Big changes are under-foot in how our culture views health care. Many of today’s policies are incoherent when compared with our age-old ideals that have been codified in law and medicine.

For example, you know the Hippocratic oath by it’s simplicity – ”First do no harm.” Yet, ever since government, through political self-will, has gained control of our lives by leveraging the healthcare industry for power, control and profit, it has become rare to hear the common-sense understanding of the age-old Hippocratic school.

The Hippocratic oath is simple and easy to understand. In the 1800 and 1900’s the latin phrase for this oath was popularly nuanced as, “I will utterly reject harm and mischief.” In modern parlance the tweet-able phrase has two tenants, 1) always help, and, 2) never harm.

But our modern culture has become flooded with a new, yet all-too-common, sort of sterile, bureaucratic tyranny. That combined with the complexities of modern law, and the desire to draw bright-lines around specific situations distorts our clear view of the underlying moral concepts.

One example of that distortion recently came across my desk while reviewing the 2017 Senate Bill, SB 494. Read the irony in the current statute, ORS 127.505, Sec. 9, §(8),

–– “Health care” means diagnosis, treatment or care of disease, injury and congenital or degenerative conditions, including the use, maintenance, withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining procedures and the use, maintenance, withdrawal or withholding of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.

Given this definition, “health care” can mean either treating and caring for a patient, or it can mean withholding nutrition from a patient. In other words, in one breadth we are saying that starving and dehydrating a patient is recognized as “health care.”

Truly, this language was, “conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.” The men and women who dreamed this up had thoroughly blanched hearts hidden beneath their suits, ties, and starched-shirts.

As I understand political theory, human flourishing should be considered as a first principled and a primary aim. Only a well-ordered political community and a well-educated citizenry can achieve that aim. This, then, requires virtuous citizens and virtuous leaders. Without these two foundational supports we will never be able to achieve the liberty we seek, nor the human flourishing we long for.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense –– No one will.

Posted on

Has tolerance been abandoned?

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, March 6, 2019 by devadmin

The phrase “totalitarian” does not refer to the existence of concentration camps, the lack of food, or the severity of current economic conditions. Rather, “totalitarian” reflects the scope of control that a state exhibits over the broadest aspects of human life. Therefore, a totalitarian state seeks to absorb as much private life as possible into the sphere of state control.

In Oregon, one can see this surfacing with recent attempts at absolute gun control, outlandish carbon taxes, comprehensive 0 to 20 education programs and the denial of access to educational resources without first submitting to mandatory vaccinations.

What appears to be missing is a conceptual understanding of the individual, or individual freedom, outside of the boundaries established by law. Once laws are passed, state officials breach other spheres of influence and advocate for more regulations; in turn, liberty loses.

This ideology leaves the bureaucracy stranded with no place to rest because they do not recognize any natural limits to legislative, executive, judicial, administrative or bureaucratic power. Eventually, everything succumbs to the grasping hands of the state.

Never-the-less, thousands of concerned citizens, families, physicians, nurses, dentists and educators traveled to the capitol, last week, to demand medical freedom. They came from all walks of life to denounce a bill (HB 3063) in the House Healthcare committee. Under the bill, the state would deny all educational resources to students who have not undergone the mandatory vaccine regimen.

The proponents testified about fears stemming from a recent Portland, OR outbreak. Yet, the last confirmed measles death in US occurred in 2015, with the next most recent measles death occurring in 2003.

The fear of death from measles doesn’t hold a candle to the real threat faced by vaccine-injured children and the life-long trauma and health concerns that plague these young lives.

Any parent who wants his or her child to be vaccinated and protected against common communicable vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs), such as measles, polio, whooping cough, mumps, chickenpox, etc., can find such protection readily available throughout Oregon and the US.

So why does Oregon feel the need to withdraw education from children in Public Schools, Public Charter Schools, Virtual Public Schools and Private Schools if they choose to forego the vaccination regime? Has coercion replaced persuasion as the state’s tool of choice? Has tolerance for religious, ethnic or cultural perspectives been abandoned?

Moms know their babies better and more intimately than anyone else and when they testified in droves against mandatory vaccines – they shared compelling insights that we ignore to our own societal peril.

So, why are those parents who choose their own course of action labeled as the non-scientific? Can the pro-mandatory vaccine crowd claim a valid statistical or “scientific” fear when currently there are only 19 cases of measles per million persons in the entire world?

Opposition witnesses unmasked the state’s desire to push the absurdity of this type of “voluntary yet mandatory” exchange. They also posed questions that the one-size-fits-all gang could not answer – Do all people respond uniformly to the beneficial aspects of vaccines and are there absolutely no down-side risks or adverse reactions?

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), “Historically, the non-clinical safety assessment for preventive vaccines has often not included toxicity studies in animal models. This is because vaccines have not been viewed as inherently toxic.”

This startling admission highlights that vaccines have not been evaluated for toxicity because of a predetermined belief in their non-toxicity, rather than because of scientific evidence.

This fact is probably why Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) in 1986. The act provided a legal liability shield to drug companies for vaccine injury and death claims. Under the NCVIA, parents have to file claims in the vaccine injury court which receives about $0.75 from every vaccine sold. The court paid over $4 billion to parents with vaccine injured children, from 1986 to 2018.

During our Senate Health Hearing on SB 649, a different bill that would require vaccine ingredients to be disclosed to all vaccine recipients, we heard testimony regarding a lack of any sure evidence of vaccine harm caused by vaccine bundles.

That’s the point… until research is performed, reviewed, understood, disseminated and read, the risk-benefit calculus is still an unsolvable equation. Without doing this first, state policy will fast become an extended round of Russian roulette.

The claim that phenomenal progress has been made in Public Health arenas due to expanding vaccine coverage ignores other causal relationships.

Vital statistics show that around the world, fatalities from scarlet fever had become quite rare by the mid-20th century, without any vaccine. Additionally, mortality from infectious diseases such as measles and whooping cough had declined before the introduction of the corresponding vaccines (see Figure 1).

A review of U.S. mortality data from 1900–1973 concluded:

“Medical measures [such as vaccines] contributed little to the overall decline in mortality in the United States since about 1900—having in many instances been introduced several decades after a marked decline had already set in.”

Instead, the decline in infectious disease incidence and mortality during the last century represents a “miracle” which is more likely attributable to classic, long-term public health measures, such as, better waste managment, sanitation and better information about food and nutrition.

A recent study, in Italy, found a significant association between increased caloric intake and declining mortality while reflecting positive “progress in average nutritional status, lifestyle quality, socioeconomic level and hygienic conditions.”

These conditions arise from economic advantages produced by free markets and capitalism not through the forced manipulation of the weakest by the strongest.

Epidemiologists are typically inclined to give credit to vaccines, but in another study they recognized other unresearched factors were invloved, including changes in “human resistance and bacterial quality,” and other factors.

The idea behind HB 3063 makes Oregon’s smallest citizens lab rats and forces them into an unacceptable experiment.

The purpose of life is not to serve the state; rather, it is to develop into a full and flourishing human-being who is capable of independent choices, thoughtful analysis and has the ability to recognize Truth, Goodness and Beauty, while exhibiting virtue and positively contributing to one’s family and community.

Remember, If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense, No one will.

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Posted on

Future Farmers will make America Great Again!

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Friday, March 3, 2017 by devadmin

Students from Future Farmers of America descended on Oregon’s capital on Thursday, March 2, 2017 –– It was fantastic!!

In my Education Committee there was standing room only as nearly a dozen of these admirable students presented testimony. Their well-stated perspectives on how FFA has contributed to their knowledge, skill and potential as young leaders of tomorrow made me proud to represent the fine families from rural Oregon..  It was my pleasure to hear them speak in committee and I also had the chance to meet with several groups in my office.

Below, I share some photos. Included here are Henley High, Santiam Christian and a great group photo on the steps of the rotunda, with others from throughout Oregon.

Join with me in supporting these young people because if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense –– no one will.