The Weekly Way (4/2/21)
Back to school, to bipartisanship, and to improving our democracy.
Editor’s note:
Sports aren’t for everyone, but anyone can choose to be a fan. That’s the magic of events like March Madness. This past weekend, nearly everyone in the state had something to cheer for:
The Oregon Women’s Basketball team competed in the Sweet 16, falling to Louisville.
The Oregon State’s Men’s team held off Loyola Chicago to get to the Elite Eight for the first time in decades before coming up just short against Houston.
And, the UO Men’s team didn’t get passed USC in a PAC-12 clash in the Sweet 16.
The open invitation for us all to become fans allows lifelong followers and bandwagon riders alike to rejoice in victory and mourn a tough loss.
The chance for us all to be fans means that regardless of where you are in the state, you can celebrate teams in Eugene, Corvallis, Ashland, La Grande, Portland, Klamath Falls, Monmouth, and anywhere else!
Because we can all be fans, we can all celebrate a common cause.
There’s nothing stopping us from being fans of democracy. Right now, we cheer for individuals—politicians and parties; imagine if we cheered for causes. What if we made early-childhood support our collective cause? What if we followed the progress of overdue and extremely necessary infrastructure bills? What if we cheered for voters as they turned in their ballots, regardless of how they voted?
On these issues (and many others), we’re nearly all united. According to John Shattuck of the Harvard Kennedy School:
Bipartisan majorities consider the following to be “essential rights important to being an American today”: ‘“clean air and water” (93 percent); “a quality education” (92 percent); “affordable health care” (89 percent); and the “right to a job” (85 percent). These high levels of demand for economic and social rights are similar to the support for more traditional civil liberties and civil rights like rights of free speech (94 percent), privacy (94 percent) and equal opportunity (93 percent).
So, congrats to the Ducks and Beavers on great seasons. Now, let’s cheer for some democratic wins.
To a better Oregon,
Kevin
To do:
Flex your civic muscle. Join Alexandria Goddard, Cyreena Boston Ashby, and Kevin Frazier for Civic Saturday at 10am.
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Read Kevin Frazier’s piece in The Other Oregon on what motivated this blog.
To Ponder: Most agree that we agree
To Read:
Cameron Scott, a teacher, reflects on what returning to school means for our state and its students, teachers, and parents:
For Oregon schools, spring break is over and the fourth quarter has begun. And for educators just entering the classroom to teach in-person, it is go time—sort-out-the-mess time, get-students re-integrated time, hang-in-there time, pick-up-the-pieces-of-everything time. One year ago education was up in the air with quarantine. Today, our educational system is still sorting itself out.
Mark Hester analyzes some areas for bipartisan progress:
So, in today’s political climate is bipartisanship an achievable goal or mere wishful thinking?
There certainly are issues where neither party is willing to consider compromise and where political dynamics dictate negative consequences for any lawmaker who does. But, conversely, there are at least a handful of issues where the public has shown a desire for compromise. On these issues, legislators who forge bipartisan solutions are more likely to be rewarded than punished by voters. (Donors are a separate question, which is part of the problem.)
Kevin Frazier calls for “Camp Oregon” to help burst our partisan bubbles:
Think to yourself, how many people do you know in each of Oregon’s 36 counties? How much do you know about what it’s like to live in Lake County? Have you ever talked to someone about a typical day in Yamhill County? You don’t need to answer those questions, but hopefully we agree that giving young Oregonians the gift of feeling welcomed by a friend in every corner of the state would move us collectively in the right direction.
Is it time to abolish the death penalty? Read Kevin Frazier’s argument to move beyond Oregon’s moratorium:
No state should be in the business of executing its people. That’s why Virginia, last week, joined 22 other states that have abolished the death penalty. Meanwhile, Oregon, along with California and Pennsylvania, have moratoritums on the use of the death penalty. It’s time our state formalized its opposition to the inhumane practice of killing its own residents.
There are three big justifications for why we punish crime: a utilitarian approach, a retributivist approach, and what my Criminal Law professor deemed the “cousins” of retributivism—vengeance and social cohesion. Let’s focus on the big two: utilitarianism and retributivism, assuming most Oregonians fall into one of these camps. Whichever camp aligns with your views, it’s clear that the death penalty is not serving its purpose.
To quote:
In the long history of humanity the most precious spark is that of individual freedom. It is not too much to say that all human progress flows out of the initiative, energy, and resourcefulness of the individual which flower best under conditions of liberty.
-Governor Charles Sprague
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