C6 THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2012
E Government has to be reminded about takings
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hen the government takes private property, it should pay. The takings clauses of both the U.S. and Oregon constitutions spell that out. Govern-
ment still needs to be reminded again and again. The issue arose in an Oregon Court of Appeals decision this month. Jed Brown, a Medford business owner, won. The city of Medford lost. Brown had asked the city for permission to split a plot of land into two lots. Back in 2007, he wanted to build two homes on the property, Medford’s Mail Tribune reported. The city was willing to go along with the split, but there was one condition. Permission would only be granted if Brown gave a 19-foot public right of way on his property for a street that was to be built. Brown insisted that there was no connection or “nexus� between his lot split and the demand by the city. The planning commission disagreed. Brown appealed to the city council. It also disagreed. Brown went to court. He won at
the local level. The city appealed. The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in Brown’s favor. The city could appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court. There are several legal issues in the case. Did Brown suffer any actual injury? The city had not technically taken the land. It had just decided to take the land. The court ruled he did suffer. If you are interested, you can read the opinion on the Court of Appeals’ website. The case could have broader implications. It’s not uncommon for cities to ask developers or landowners for land before they build. Sometimes developers are eager to set aside land for, say, a public park or trails in a subdivision, because it may make the development more attractive. When a city demands such land, though, it better have a good reason for it. If it takes, it better pay.
From the Archives Editor’s note: The following editorial from Oct. 3, 1968, does not necessarily reflect the views of The Bulletin’s editorial board today.
Oregon ACLU Chapter has stuck head deep in sand The Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union seems to have placed its head deep in the sand when it calls all military conscription a violation of civil liberties. The Oregon ACLU group took the action at a recent Eugene meeting. It went way beyond the national ACLU, which merely opposed the present draft law. The ACLU generally supports and defends those liberties granted to individuals in this country by the national constitution. It is difficult to equate the usual posture with this latest move. The constitution is pretty clear on the matter, it seems. Those points which have been questioned have been upheld by the courts. One of the reasons for the government established under the constitution is to “provide for the common defense.� Congress is given many powers to carry out that purpose. It may declare war. It can raise and support armies. It provides and maintains a navy. It makes rules for the government and regulation of land and naval forces. It organizes, arms, disciplines and calls forth the militia. Congress, too, is given the explicit authority to “make all laws
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.� That would seem to cover the matter in sufficient detail to put military conscription on pretty safe constitutional grounds. There is a national policy question, involved, of course. The question is how Congress shall carry out the powers given to it in providing for the national defense. There are advocates of universal military training; the Pentagon claims such a system would be wasteful and inefficient, and the White House and Congress have agreed. Senator Hatfield wants a professional army composed of volunteers; Congress disagreed with him last spring, and extended the present selective draft. It is easy to understand the feelings of those who hate war so greatly they want to do away with the means of waging it. But to do so unilaterally makes no sense at all. It would make about as much sense to disarm American city police forces, in the naive belief that would cause hoodlums and criminals to throw away their guns and lead a quiet life thereafter.... The ACLU — in this state and others — has performed many valuable services for this country and its residents. It has done so by insisting the letter and spirit of the constitution be observed in dealings between the government and its citizens. It does that record no good to attack the constitution itself as being in error.
Republicans should lead, not attack By Phyllis Greenbach onald Reagan said, “America was a shining city up on a hill.� Back then, maybe. But no one can honestly say that now. We are on a slippery downhill slope. Perhaps sometime in the future America can recapture that moment. Only the wisdom of real leadership can make that a reality. And it doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon. From Day One of Obama’s presidency, the Republican leadership in Congress has played partisan politics. Mitch McConnell stated it succinctly: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a oneterm president.� The rest of the Republicans follow like penguins in a march to the sea. Never once has the Republican leadership asked: How can we work together for the good of the people? With no plans of their own, they only attack, distort and disrupt. Not all Republicans are bad. Only those that engage in destructive politics. Unfortunately they are the ones that shatter the credibility of all with their spurious complaints, defunding of programs, and constant threats of censure and impeachment. I am a citizen deeply concerned about the housing crisis brought on by the financial and banking industries. Once upon a time these industries were regulated and America succeeded. I want to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and eat food
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Where are the minds of the Republican leadership? Boys, it is time to grow up. The House and Senate are not private fraternities. not contaminated. I want our country to address global warming, a reality substantiated by most scientists and evidenced by the change in weather patterns. I want an educated populous and the resolution of our immigration and employment problems. I believe in religious freedom, but don’t want a takeover of the government by religious zealots. I could care less if our president wears an American flag on his lapel, chooses Grey Poupon mustard over regular mustard or radicchio over head lettuce. I don’t care that he flies on Air Force One to Hawaii or vacations in the Hamptons. Much ado about nothing. Any thinking person knows Obama was born in the United States, and we need not continue to go round and round about his birth certificate. Yes, his skin is dark. Get over it. It is his mind that counts. I don’t need your anonymous emails spewing hatred and bigotry. The country is way beyond that now. Obama is not a socialist, communist, fascist or Muslim, nor does he run around with terrorists. These are specious arguments. He is the president of the United States of America and not the enemy. He deserves some credit. After all, he ordered the killing of Osama bin Lad-
en, cleaned up the mess left us by the Bush administration, ended the war in Iraq, is ending the war in Afghanistan, and given millions more the ability to seek medical care. Where are the minds of the Republican leadership? Boys, it is time to grow up. The House and Senate are not private fraternities. They are exalted halls of government, and we expect you to lead. The silliness of your thoughts makes you ineffective and unworthy of the positions you hold. It isn’t hard to figure out why wealthy men are willing to give the Republican Party barrels full of money. Do we really think the American Legislative Exchange Council, representative of big corporations and oil interests, was created for the good and welfare of the United States? Do they really think we are that stupid? Big money talks. Billionaires Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers have purchased the Republicans’ loyalty. We, the people, are not rich. We can only vote once. But let me assure you, we are tired of the sophomoric pranks and false arguments. We are tired of the bullying. Americans and America need to move forward. As Reagan said: back to that shining city up on a hill. — Phyllis Greenbach lives in Sunriver.
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Full portraits of political greats show us we can be like them By Stephen L. Carter Bloomberg News
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inally saw “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter� the other day. Once I stopped worrying about the divergence of even the nonsupernatural time line from actual history, I had plenty of guilty fun. I also came away wondering at the upsurge of interest in our 16th president these past few years. Every season seems to bring a dozen new Lincoln books. Or maybe more than a dozen: Starting this year, visitors to Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., have been able to view a 34foot tower constructed largely of some of the 15,000-odd books published about Lincoln. That’s an average of about 100 books each year since he was assassinated. Even an amateur Lincoln buff such as myself can always find fresh reading material. The Great Emancipator has long been an attractive subject for filmmak-
ers, and over the years many a great actor, from Henry Fonda to Gregory Peck, from F. Murray Abraham to Sam Waterston, has portrayed him. Not every Lincoln appearance in fiction is accurate or even respectful, of course, and few of the many biographies published each year will make the serious buff forget Carl Sandburg or David Herbert Donald. But the way we keep returning to Lincoln suggests a trend, and some explanation is in order. I suspect that our fascination with Lincoln says less about him and his times than it does about us and ours. Many Americans, looking around at a nation and a world whose problems seem unsolvable, turn toward the past. Our leaders today seem small compared with the heroes of history. There were giants upon the earth in those days, we tell ourselves, even if deep down we know it isn’t true. History runs over the facts like
rushing water, wearing the jagged edges smooth. When today’s politicians invoke the name Lincoln — and they all do, all the time — they mean us to envision the bearded Father Abraham who saved the Union, freed the slaves, and broods over Washington from his intimidating Memorial. They do not conjure the canny politician whose handpicked managers printed thousands of counterfeit tickets to the Republican convention that nominated him for president in 1860, allowing them to fill the seats with “Lincoln men�; or the single-minded commander in chief who, during the Civil War, allowed his secretary of state to shutter opposition newspapers and throw journalists in prison for impeding the war effort. In any moment of democratic life, we do — or we should — value the means more than the ends. This bias preserves our liberty. Thus it is not enough, or shouldn’t be enough, that
the government pursue the right goal. It must also follow a proper method in pursuing its goal. Otherwise we might as well appoint a dictator with whose views we agree, and let it go at that. This inchoate sense of the importance of means is part of why we pay so much attention to the scandals of a given moment, rather than taking a longer view. Scandals, as a rule, involve abuse of means, not ends. Viewing events through the lens of history, however, we tend to magnify the ends, not the means. What we see are Lincoln’s acts — winning the Civil War, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, demanding a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery — and not the means that he might have used to attain them. In historical terms, this may be correct. We don’t mind the ends precisely because the acts themselves were so mighty — and so moral. But we are able to make this judgment because
of our ability, as it were, to look up the answers in the back of the book. We minimize Franklin Roosevelt’s role in the Japanese internment because of our reverence for the New Deal and the victory in World War II. We don’t tear down the Jefferson Memorial because of the third president’s dalliance with a slave (bearing in mind that due to the power relation, we could use a stronger word than “dalliance�). But the end of the book that is the current era has not been written — and won’t be written, in fact, until almost everyone now living is long dead. We should try to remember what Lincoln knew, for he rarely cited other politicians as authority. Rather than invoking the greats of the past, Lincoln preferred to give reasons for his actions, and to leave judgment to the American people. — Stephen L. Carter is a columnist for Bloomberg News.