Salem-News.com Op Ed articles Page 6

Op Ed: Reaganism Redux Repeats Errors
Shadows Tax Reform
Past Proven Probabilities Provide Potent Passage Points

Part two in Henry Clay Ruark's continuing series: Signals from Seaside.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Opponents of fully-informed courageous action by our Oregon Legislature make the ultimate error in their ready reference to “Reaganism redux”.

Many studying Reaganism in recent years have found actions of this past president particularly peculiar; he first denied then defied specific facts that were provable, easily verified points.

Opinion: Fight Fire with Fire

In order to protect ourselves from the threat of future fires, we must become a society of fire fighters.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - The fireman is a bold and noble figure in our society. He embodies the virtues of bravery, sacrifice, and duty toward others. The fireman is technically proficient.

He skillfully executes his duties using both mind and body, and relying on a set of tools that he has mastered in order to perform his task.

Tax Policy: Measures 66 & 67

This is a companion piece to “Tax Policy: History & Ethics of Taxation.”

(EUGENE, Ore.) - In this piece I will look at the practical economic ramifications of the tax increases being put before the voters in the 2010 ballot measures 66 & 67. The vote is a long way off, but there is no reason to not begin considering these issues now.

Tax Policy: History & Ethics of Taxation

Taxation is a major part of the budget for any individual or business. Looking at this issue with clarity is essential to your financial well being.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Taxes are a source of perennial angst for most citizens. Most people believe that they are being taxed unfairly, and most of them are probably right. Historically, taxation has frequently been a source of injustice.

Op Ed: Reason-Assaulted
Abandons Rationality
Threatens Consensus

Public Sphere Distortion, Perversion Eroding Democracy.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Democracy demands consensus supported by the majority. Without consensus, support surely and certainly slips away, sooner or later.

Consensus is the overwhelming consequence of the “conversation at the heart of democracy,” as John Dewey, famous American educator/philosopher, has declared. ANY such “essential conversation” must depend on rational, reasonable, factual sources.

Op Ed: Nobel Award Proves `Rational, Reasonable`
CAN Win Change

But the process demands patience, trust, full support.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Our 21st Century world was never constructed in any single day, despite faith-based myth, magnificent stories, and centuries of systematic religious teachings.

Since the Reformation and the Enlightenment, millions around the world have come to depend on the difficult, demanding, dangerous application of rationality --with reasonable action so-shaped/and/driven-- for any advances whatsoever shared by all nations now.

Landowners Need to be Able to Defend Property from Wolves

When I see the emotional polarization in the news and wolf forums and opinion boards, I realize this 'wolf experiment' is a very complex issue.

(JACOBS RANCH, Keating Valley, Ore.) - On Good Friday morning three generations of Jacobs' got to experience firsthand the havoc two wolves could wreak. Just a two-minute jaunt from our sleeping households, four of the five documented wolf attacks occurred on what we call the "Home Ranch," a 640-acre chunk of farm and pastureland, just a part of what we make a living on in this high desert country.

From that day in April until today, Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife and Animal Damage Control confirmed 29 lambs, a pet goat and one calf killed on two ranches. This act stirred and spread the hotbed of debate in our small ranching community of Keating Valley to the Legislature in Salem and beyond.

Worst Case Scenario / Best Case Scenario ...One and the Same?

I believe that we will be handed back our country once the profit margin is out of the picture.

(SALEM, Ore.) - Regarding economics, most people can agree that a "worst case scenario" would be the total collapse of the monetary system, and for us Americans, the fall of the dollar into Weimar Republic style inflation to the point of worthlessness.

`Listen and Learn`: NOW or NEVER On Healthcare

Millions-Deprived Equals Rage, Revolt “Sooner or Later”.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Ever since Teddy Roosevelt’s tenure in 1912 this “richest nation in the world” has been allowing many millions of its too-often otherwise-enslaved citizens to be deprived also of their world-recognized human right to adequate, available, affordable healthcare.

Op Ed: 5-Stage Fascism
Nearing Rapid
U.S. Action

Level Building Since KKK, Pandering Produces Deadly Product.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - That long-threatening fear-word “Fascism !” has now reached what world authorities for decades have declared as “the final stage” --right here in our beloved America, home of “The Dream” and the Bill of Rights.

Constant concentrated erosion and inevitable attack ever since early Colonial days --driven at first by rabid determination to continue and consolidate slavery-- has already forced the U.S. through four known preliminary stages. It clearly began with the notorious KKK.