Page 30 - Flathead Beacon // 9.16.15

LIKE I WAS SAYIN’
TWO FOR THOUGHT SAME TOPIC, DIFFERENT VIEWS REMEMBERING 9/11
KELLYN BROWN
PURGING VOTERS
AS THE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY RACE HITS full gallop, the country’s constituents are paying a little more attention to politics and, perhaps, thinking about whether they are registered to vote, the process of which varies widely by state.
Montana’s election rules made headlines in recent weeks, including when former Republican state law- maker Corey Stapleton announced his bid for secretary of state and accused the current officeholder, Democrat Linda McCulloch, of “purging” thousands of voter files.
“When both the elected officials and the media don’t talk about these things, bad things can happen,” Staple- ton told the Associated Press.
McCulloch countered that the law requires county election administrators to cancel voter registrations for several reasons, including death, incarceration or moving out of state. Most commonly, however, the reg- istration is canceled when someone fails to vote in three consecutive federal general elections.
Stapleton was first made aware that roughly 52,000 registered voters, or about 7.7 percent of the total, were removed after reading a Media Trackers article.
The story, however, makes no accusations of purging and instead highlights an interesting trend that appears to favor Stapleton’s party.
The last federal general election in which these vot- ers cast a ballot and, as a result, are falling off the rolls was in 2008, when President Barack Obama lost the state to Republican John McCain by just 2 percentage points. Media Trackers also found that a disproportion- ate number of canceled registrants are in Missoula and Gallatin counties, home to the state’s two largest uni- versities. This makes sense.
Obama, that year, galvanized much of his statewide support from college students and that resulted in a strong showing by Democrats in a traditionally con- servative state. It didn’t last. In 2012 Republican Mitt Romney won Montana by nearly 14 percentage points.
This year’s drop in registrants reflects the most recent election results and show 2008 may have been an anomaly. For example, while Missoula County lost 14.8 percent of its registered voters this year, more con- servative Flathead County lost just 4 percent.
To be sure, Democrats have won several statewide elections in recent years (Gov. Steve Bullock and McCull- och, to name just two), but since 2010 Republicans have controlled both chambers of the Montana Legislature by healthy margins. The geographical makeup of the decreasing registrants explain why: Thousands of vot- ers in Montana’s urban, many of which lean liberal or moderate, haven’t voted in the state since 2008.
There are recent efforts by both parties to change voting rules. During the last legislative session, McCull- och supported a bill to allow citizens to register to vote online if they have a valid driver’s license or identifica- tion card. It was tabled in committee.
Right now, Republican leaders are involved in a law- suit asking that their primaries be closed, allowing only registered party members to vote. Senate Majority Leader Matthew Rosendale and House Majority Leader Keith Regier argue that moderate members of the GOP undermined the Republican majority in each chamber.
Whether you agree with the effort, that’s a better example of purging, or ridding a group of people from a process. In contrast, when voters don’t cast a ballot for three consecutive general elections in Montana, they purge themselves.
BY TIM BALDWIN
Few things leave a vivid lasting memory in our
minds. 9/11 is one for most. I remember the day well. I was a first year law student, walking from the parking lot to the building when I heard a third year student on his cell phone asking frantically, “was it a bomb or what!” I walked into the common area; classes were cancelled; everyone was standing around what had just happened. Shortly after, we watched the second plane fly into the other tower. The events of 9/11 changed America and the world.
Out of this tragedy, the federal government imme- diately created national security bureaucracies that many people later recognized are dangerous to our liberties: spying on citizens, searching our property, listening to our communications – all without war- rants. This also seeped into local law enforcement, as DHS provided training and funding to them. Thanks to people like Ron and Rand Paul, the federal govern- ment has rolled back these tactics, somewhat.
Security is important, yes; but free societies cannot accept totalitarian tactics for the sake of feeling safe. Liberty is costly. It prioritizes privacy and constitutionally-limited government; requires self-awareness and responsibility; and has inherent risks. 9/11 is an unforgettable day, but let’s not forgot the thousands of lives sacrificed yesteryear to pur- chase the liberty we have come to take for granted and must continue to protect.
BY JOE CARBONARI
I read a bit about the memorial grounds where
one of the 9/11 flights went down. Sobering. How would I have done on that plane? I hope I would have done well. They did.
They chose to act. Truly, in the end they took con- trol of their lives. They gave up theirs to save others. They took control by taking it down.
Let’s hope that we now, as a people, would do as well. Let’s also hope that we will not have to ... that we will begin to turn the tide of violence and disor- der that is growing in the world. Adding a nuclear armed Iran to the mix seems unwise.
An understanding with Iran is necessary. We don’t trust them and they don’t trust us. They’ve got to believe that we will strike pre-emptively if we see them going for the bomb. We’ve got to mean it regardless of who says what in public. It is ratio- nal thinking.
Unfortunately, extremist Islam tends to the irra- tional. It is unacceptably violent on much too large a scale. It is a perversion of Islam and must be dealt with from within. Islam must purge itself.
9/11 showed us at our best. Islam’s best now need to come forward and fight the battle for those minds that only they can control. It is their duty to do it. It is ours to assist.
AMERICAN RURAL DIANE SMITH
THE POLITICS OF SCARCITY
O
can leadership operated under the assumption that we had pretty abundant resources – food, water, energy, money, and military might to name a few. We could, therefore, take care of ourselves as well as a fair share of the world. Our foreign policies reflected this belief. We funded and policed countries around the globe. At the same time, our domestic policies funded just about everybody’s pet causes (that’s why legislation so often grew to 1000-plus pages). Our belief that we had enough in the way of respect, resources, and potential softened the edges of any bad decision we might make.”
At that time, I also observed that “scarcity” was still a relatively new phenomenon and, therefore, it was hard to say what our adaptation might look like.
Well now we know. It looks like Donald Trump railing against immigrants, Bernie Sanders calling for government expansion to regulate private sector activity in heretofore unpopular ways, and our Euro- pean allies struggling with refugees.
Who among us hasn’t heard recently, “We can’t afford to be the world’s policeman ... we can’t afford these immigrants, send them home... we should heav- ily tax the 1 percent to pay for universal college access, Social Security, health care, etc.”?
Before the tides of chaos overwhelm us, maybe it’s time for all of us across America to have a real con- versation about how the fear of not having enough is affecting us. Our religious, civic, and business lead- ers would be doing us all a favor by helping us to fig- ure it out. Because until we do, it’s unlikely that we will be our best selves – giving, not greedy; hopeful, not hostile; grateful, not fearful. We are going to need our best selves in the coming years. Not because we can’t be happy and prosper in this new era, we can, but because we’re not going to run out of controversies like refugees, immigrants, healthcare, social security, and college costs anytime soon. And, whatever solutions we seek will benefit from a sense of surefooted wis- dom and calm. Indeed, surefooted wisdom and calm, as tough as they might be to come by, may be our great- est strengths in a time of scarcity.
VER TWO YEARS AGO, I WROTE ABOUT what I called then the Politics of Scarcity. I said
at that time, “For most of our history, Ameri-
Diane Smith is the founder and CEO of American Rural where she works to create greater awareness of the growing opportunities for those who choose to live, work and prosper in rural and small town America. Learn more about Diane by following her column here or visit American Rural at AmericanRural.org.
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SEPTEMBER 16, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM