On Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 04:03 PM, Trei, Peter wrote:
The feeling I get is that Oregon combines the worst of California and the 'classic Western' states.
California has a highly intrusive, interventionist government, but this is leavened by the liberalism of many of the positions it holds. Thus, while California is really bad for some individual rights (such as the RKBA), it's fairly libertine on others (such as lifestyles).
In the 'classic Western' states (I'm thinking of Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, Idaho, etc, and I don't claim to be really well informed on this), while the general population holds pretty rightwing views, this is leavened by a strain of semi-libertarianism in the government, in the 'don't intevene' sense.
Oregon seems to combine the worst of both, along with none of the good points - a highly intrusive California style government, with very rightwing views.
My recollection is that Oregon has legalized/recognized homosexual "marriage" and "right to die" schemes. The Willamette Valley, where most of the population is, is fairly libertine. Most San Francisco types fit in quite well in Eugene, Portland, Beaverton, Corvallis, etc. The coastal fishing and logging areas are now more dominated by tourism and retirement (from California). The eastern half of the state is largely high desert, and is sparsely populated. I would not class Oregon with Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, etc. (and Montana is becoming more like California and the Pacific Northwest, as wealthy Californians buy ranches and retirement homes there--too cold for me, but they like the "Big Sky Country," until too many people move in, that is). I think Ernest Callenbach had it about right when he described the region from British Columbia down through most of coastal California as "Ecotopia." (Or maybe this was the book called "The Seven Nations of North America"...I lent my copy to someone and never saw it again. Extreme southern California has more of a Mexican flavor and is dubbed "Aztlan" or somesuch word and is lumped in with Arizona, southern Nevada, New Mexico, etc.) The meta-issue is of course that all of these states, and all of the nations of the world, have set up machines for producing more and more laws and more and more priests to interpret the laws. Didn't we basically have enough laws 40 years ago? Granted, some new situations came up, and new legislation was needed, but not in proportion to the numbers of new laws and the nearly year-round meeting of legislators to pass more laws. The mischief that all the new legislation about Patriot Acts and Terrorist Information Awareness and Bill 742 is creating will never be undone. The Supreme Court lacks the guts to take on sweeping cases and strike down thousands of very similar and very unconstitutional laws across the country. A good example, one of many, being the bullshit about the "incorporation doctrine" and whether the Second Amendment prevents _states_ from violating the Bill of Rights in the same way--it has been accepted--that the states may not establish official churches or deny due process, blah blah. Not being a law student, it has always seemed clear to me that the states agreed to support the Constitution of the United States as a condition for joining the Union and they clearly cannot impose their own press censorship, official religions, etc., nor can they violate the Fourth Amendment and just raid houses as they wish. Nor can their courts ignore jury trial and other constitutional issues. So, somehow the Second Amendment is deemed to be "unincorporated" (??). How con-veeeenient! The Supreme Court should issue a simple and concise statement: "The Second Amendment is no different from the First, Third (quartering troops), Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, etc. amendments. Some of the states do not seem to have grasped this. And we have been remiss in not making this abundantly clear a long time ago. .... We hereby instruct the Federal Marshals Service to visit the various prisons in states which have gun laws violating the Second Amendment and release the prisoners. We further order...and we order...and those officials which ignore this order shall be charged...." But of course the Supreme Court is unwilling to rock the boat. And now that we have the Colored Person Slot, the Jewish Person Slot, the Female Slot, the Jewish Female Slot, the Italian-American Slot, various groups are clamoring for the Queer Slot, the Hispanic Slot, the Hispanic Woman Slot, and, of course the Asian Person Slot. Once the last of the whitemales has retired, the Supreme Court can be our true Rainbow Coalition and the rest of the Bill of Rights can be further shredded. --Tim May By the way, I usually have my .sig randomly rotated from about 25 of them. Look at what just happened to pop up this time: "The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789