Guest View: Let southern and eastern Oregon leave
Out of sympathy for rural Oregon, some are asking the state Legislature s majority caucus to put aside their own constituents once in a while to serve eastern Oregon s constituents. But this won t change the tendency of most Oregon voters to vote for the kind of politicians who will serve the Willamette Valley s thirst for a new Oregon that is far different from the Oregon of old. Those voters penchant for regulation endangers the means of making a living for eastern and southern Oregon. Not all of us are interested in or suited for white-collar work. Some work the land as their forefathers have for five generations.
That old Oregon, or traditional America, is the one that eastern and southern Oregon want to preserve as a part of Idaho. They should be allowed to do so, not held captive. Oregon should not become an empire that holds counties under its thumb, against their will. Just as the Declaration of Independence respects the right of a people to separate themselves from a distant monarch, Americans have respected the right of peoples around the world to self-determination: to decide for themselves who they will be governed by.