Forestry Issues in Oregon’s 2nd District; We Can Do Better

Professionals in our timber industries are the best-equipped stewards of our forests. However, in Oregon, more than 50% of the state is owned by the Federal government, so this means that private industry, state and local governments have ultimately no control over most of Oregon’s resource-rich landscapes. As a county commissioner I regularly see the tragic results from ill-conceived federal policies and the high costs of unintended consequences.

In Klamath County, and throughout the 2nd District, we find ourselves begging for favors from the Federal government instead of being allowed to create jobs, build communities and see prosperity flourish at the local level. The political establishment prefers rewarding national or regional special interest groups rather than local communities because that creates a culture of power, money and control for themselves. Federal control and regulation diminishes the effectiveness of those most likely to steward natural resources well (loggers, miners, ranchers, etc.).

A classic example of this troubling trend is the recent Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act (HR 1526). Instead of giving O&C counties and private enterprise responsibility for forestry lands (that are already designated “to provide for economic stability of local communities and industries”) this bill gives 50% of that land to special interest groups who have neither earned nor shown stewardship of it.

These groups, often environmentalists from San Francisco or New York, are usually headquartered in Washington, D.C. Ever wonder why these groups voice concern for Oregon’s communities and habitat while residing in the capitol?

These environmental special interests have political power in Washington, which allows their media moguls to raise the massive capital needed to control industries throughout the West. This concentrated power decimates our local communities. In Oregon’s 2nd District, whole towns and counties are withering financially. They don’t have access to their land’s natural resources, like timber, and the result is lost infrastructure and jobs that these communities desperately need.

The political establishment’s policy essentially denies these communities the freedom to pursue private enterprise and support themselves. This is not how our representative government is supposed to work.

Bills like HR 1526 eventually hurt those they’re trying to help, even though they are lauded by the media and the political class as wonderful bipartisan efforts. Congressmen Walden, DeFazio and Schrader’s bill is troublesome because Congress looks good while not substantially helping the region. The rural communities affected by this O&C bill accept these negotiations because they know the Feds dominate the conversation and they feel they don’t have a choice.

As your Congressional Representative, I’ll take a different stand. Although a cup of tepid soup might help a starving soul, our Federal legislators shouldn’t be working the ladle, nor forcing us to accept such bare-bones deals. Instead, they should allow us freedom to prosper, by opening markets and creating opportunities for success in the local economy, not in the halls of Washington.

Therefore, I’m going to stand up for Oregon’s entrepreneurs, foresters, harvesters, ranchers and miners. These are the vibrant businesses and families that have the tenacity to bring our communities back to life. I believe in these individuals more than I believe the professional politicians. I’ve lived and worked beside these ingenious, hardworking problem-solvers for years.  Unlike Washington’s half-hearted politics, offering tepid hand-outs saddled with onerous controls, these Oregonians just need government to get out of the way and let them succeed.

Don’t mistake my optimism for naiveté – I know there are difficulties in any public policy. But unlike some in the permanent political class, I don’t think these problems are unsolvable. I think it’s the responsibility of our representatives to truly uphold the interests of the people and not force citizens to take bad deals which entail more laws, more regulation, less enterprise and less freedom.

It’s disingenuous to bully local governments into accepting sub-par deals that fund special interest environmental groups from out-of-state at the local communities’ expense. It’s tempting to take these political “deals” – as a commissioner, my support for HR 1526 arises out of sheer frustration; I have no other viable alternative, but I think we can do better.

It’s long-past time that we stood up for the men and women who exhibit the professionalism and knowledge needed to insure successful timber sales and harvests while protecting these beautiful forest resources.

For more on our natural resources, check out the links below:

The Individual “I” verses the Collective “We”

This article originally appeared on KlamathNews.net

Last week, in a letter to the Herald & News editors, someone commented that:

“[Linthicum] never seems to use the word ‘we’, but generally expresses his personal feelings toward issues and starts every objection with ‘I’.”

Frankly, I find this odd, because, surely, my objections belong to me. While various individuals  might agree, or disagree, with my positions, I am voicing them because they are mine. I see no problem with owning my opinions as my own.

Each of us as an Individual

We are all different and we all carry different ideas.  We are different in height, weight, body-type, talent and skill. We each come from different educational backgrounds; we have different life experiences, families and, hence, different perspectives.

More than likely each of us ate lunch yesterday based upon our own individual preferences. We each weighed several factors differently. One factor might be our own likes and dislikes. Another might be our family heritage, or cost and time constraints. We may even choose differently based upon who is present or who is missing, or what events were scheduled for later in the afternoon.  Each of these represents our potential individual choice that is based upon free and voluntary preferences combined with competing options.

Would it be fair for someone to assert, “We object to pepperoni pizza!” because the one individual speaking preferred oily anchovies, instead? Obviously – No.

Now, if this is true for something as insignificant as lunch, how true is it for the more complex issues associated with county government?

Underlying Idea

However, the more relevant issue isn’t the use of the word “I”, or “we” but it is the underlying collectivist idea. The implication, in the original complaint, is that the collective’s voice is more powerful than the individual’s voice. This claim is false and is a typical leftist tactic for getting individuals to bow to the forces of political correctness.

This is why the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees that, “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”1 These rights belong to the individual, not the state, and are collectively referred to as securing the “Liberties of Conscience.”

The false notion, that your personal voice is irrelevant, should be an anathema to everyone who values their personal liberty and freedom.

However, be forewarned, this pressure, for the recognition of the collective good above the voluntary and personal character of an individual’s right to choose, is part of the collectivist’s dream.

The other irony with regard to this gentleman’s letter is that he sounds somewhat conservative. Yet, he has fallen into the statist camp because of the promised, yet undelivered, benefits of growing government programs.

It breaks out like this. Statists can be either liberal or conservative; either Republican or Democrat.

By definition, a statist adheres to statism which is the, “principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty.”2

Therefore, both conservatives and liberals can be statists. The only requirement is that they support an ever-larger government paid for by ever-increasing taxes.

An Illustration

Here’s an example using “public safety” or “law and order” as an illustration.

The liberal statist will seek to alleviate the circumstances that caused the “troubled-youth” to run afoul of the law. The solution might be a War on Poverty, a No-Child-Left-Behind education policy, work-force training, or even Midnight Basketball.  Note, all of these programs require administration, implementation, management, statistical analysis and ever-increasing tax dollars.

Meanwhile, the conservative statist argues for tougher jail sentences for the “low-life thugs.” This will include more police officers, more prisons, more facilities and programs, along with more parole and probation officers.  Note, all of these solutions also require administration, implementation, management, statistical analysis and ever-increasing tax dollars.

The problem isn’t that some kids won’t be helped by some of these solutions, regardless of which ideology propagates them. The problem is that the central planner cannot possibly know which kid likes anchovies or pepperoni, or which kid is truly criminal. These one-size fits all programs are costly and inefficient. More often than not they are a drain on the free economy and they often produce more long-term private harm than public good.

The long-term harm stems from the loss of individual, family and neighborly responsibility. The State assumes more control through these seemingly good efforts but, in essence, also becomes the new nanny. Parents slowly allow the newest program to help them solve problems with their children. It becomes much more than a parenting helpline because every additional State program strengthens the tacit assumption that it is the duty of the State to deal with all these evils to secure untold public benefits.

As the power of the administrative organization is enlarged, there is a corresponding decrease in the power of the taxpayer. Over time it becomes harder to constrain the growth of these bureaucratic programs. Additionally, the multiplication of careers opened by this developing bureaucracy, tempts others to favor its growth.

These ideas also get couched as being “good for the economy” due to the new career employment opportunities that spring up. Unfortunately for the taxpayer, these new jobs develop in public employee unions that have costly and unfunded PERS benefits tacked on. Every job created in this new State sector drains the equivalent number of jobs from the private sector. There is no net gain, but the loss of individual and family prosperity will have a greater impact across the social fabric of the community than the narrowly focused bureaucracy that gets enlarged.

Worse still, bureaucrats use taxpayer funding to promote their program. Candidates for public office also promote these empty promises because they sound so good. I refer to these as “empty promises” because we have spent trillions in our various wars on poverty, drugs, education reform, swat teams and prisons with no discernible statistical success.

And finally, the media, ever responsive to popular new programs, strengthens these ideas by lending them air-time. Unfortunately, the opposing view finds less media acknowledgement because it appears that the counter-opinion doesn’t have a master plan.

They do, however.

The Solution

The solution is the plan laid out in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”3

The individual is the primary focus of these inalienable rights. The individual is of first importance because all other cultural units arise from the individual, whether they are groups, organizations, counties, or states. These rights don’t originate from the State, rather, they are the entitlements which come from, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”4

Individuals carry the weight, focus and cultural might of the community, not the nanny State. The individual has the right, responsibility and obligation to effectively manage these areas of his life. This can only be achieved by allowing for personal prosperity, liberty and individual rights. These rights are the foundation for independent action based upon the free-will of the individual and are the bedrock concepts underlying the basic tenants of our Nation.

Does Compassion Come From Committees, Communities, or Individuals?

This article originally posted on KlamathNews.net

The Klamath County Budget Committee is getting plenty of feedback with regard to Meals on Wheels and the Senior Center.  The committee is not struggling with the validity or need for the Meals on Wheels program. The issue, given the local stagnant economy and declining county revenue, is whether it would be fiscally prudent to fund these programs at current levels.

Public commentary is mixed but there is a sense that as long as the program passes the “compassion” threshold, then it should be funded.

One perspective supposedly has “compassion” and the other doesn’t. Long-term fiscal responsibility appears to show a cold-hearted mathematical meanness rather than a real heart-felt compassion for the public good.

Government Doesn’t Represent Compassion

Government expenditures are not compassionate. Within welfare service programs the government only engages in financial transactions. Their function entails gathering resources then providing a mix of services or resources back to certain segments of the population. There is no heart in this effort, per se, it’s a job that gets accomplished.

If the money happens to be used by a public service organization then those service employees may have compassion. However. those individuals are not compassionate because they received government money. Those individuals show compassion because they are morally capable human beings.

Your dog, or the neighbor’s cat, is not morally capable of compassion. Neither is government. Remember, government represents nothing more than the shear legal authority and self-justified power to collect tax-payer funds for its own partisan advantage.

George Washington made the claim, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”   This phrase might well be apocryphal according to Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, but its meaning is clear.

Where Does “Compassion” Come From?

Real compassion stems from individuals. It is the result of individual action not collective action.  Certainly, as a group joins in a common effort they can exhibit better results – better prices, quantity discounts, more people served, etc. But, again, this is because the caring individuals have voluntarily joined in a community to positively impact their neighborhoods. This is real community. This is real compassion. Accept no substitutes.

An Illustration

In Klamath County, here is a simple illustration of what is required to collect any amount of taxes:

  1. The County’s Assessor office assesses the value of property within the county’s boundary, along with any and all improvements, annually.

Question: When the Assessor’s staff assigns value to land or improvements are they being “compassionate” or are they adhering to Oregon’s Revised Statues (ORS’s)?

  1. The County Tax Collector’s office sends Tax Statements to property owners based upon assessed value, collects taxes paid and pursues the collection of delinquent accounts, fines, and penalties, annually.

Question: When the Tax Collector’s office pursues these interests are they exhibiting “compassion” or compliance with any and all appropriate ORS chapters?

  1. Property owners pay taxes for county services – the administration of justice,  public safety, public health, zoning, planning, public works, animal control, schools, et. al., annually.

Question: When the property owner pays these taxes is he exhibiting “compassion” or compliance with the law?

  1. Everyday during the year, County employees process all of this paperwork (according to rule and statute) and then outside Auditors verify that everything was accomplished according to the appropriate set of formalized procedures.

Question: When these actions were being performed was anyone exhibiting “compassion” or were they only displaying a keen fondness for following the rules that govern their employment?

At this point, we have added more costs and overhead 1 to the equation than “compassion” or “benevolence”. Where would a committee’s “compassion” come from?

Here are two choices:

  1. If the Committee were to encourage productive and sincere involvement from individuals, neighbors, churches and friends, would the committee be exhibiting “compassion”, or not?
  2. If the Committee were to provide short-term funding at the expense of long-term fiscal responsibility, would the Committee be praised for their “compassion”? If the Committee were to allocate scarce financial resources away from mandated county services, would the committee be more “compassionate”, or not?

“True compassion is a bulwark of strong families and communities, of liberty and self-reliance, while the false compassion of the second usage is fraught with great danger and dubious results.

True compassion is people helping people out of a genuine sense of caring and brotherhood. It is not asking your legislator or congressman to do it for you. True compassion comes from your heart, not from the state or federal treasury. True compassion is a deeply personal thing…” 2


 

1 The myriad of functions listed here, along with the wage and benefit packages for these employees, represent only part of a county’s overhead. Other costs come in the form of electric and heat utilities, information technology – software and hardware, furniture, tools, machinery, equipment, and buildings combined with required services like legal, administrative, human resources and  others.  This is why only a small portion of any taxes paid results in actual county services.

 

 

2 Reed, Lawrence, What is Real Compassion, (FEE.org, Apr 2013) accessed 4/16/2013; viahttp://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/what-is-real-compassion#ixzz2SSF2ysar