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The central rural parts of Oregon are killing their communities out of ignorance. In 2014 Josephine county voted down a tax to keep their jail open. Another c

The central rural parts of Oregon are killing their communities out of ignorance. In 2014 Josephine county voted down a tax to keep their jail open. Another counties entire sheriff's department resigned recently, due to lack of funding to properly staff the office; they were all burning the candle at both ends. There are other examples of this behavior over the last decade that are easily Googled, so I'll avoid posting it all. If you talk to these people, or see their commentaries online, many of them are thinking they'll just make taxes low, and of course someone will build a factory, in the middle of nowhere, with a poorly informed workforce, and no social services. The locals don't want to shoulder the cost of education and security, but of course some private business owner will.

magduf 8y ago
I don't see the problem here, though I am questioning who's providing police services in that county now. If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice. Of course, that could have some pretty nasty consequences, but again, they voted for it, and it's their choice. I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments. As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves". The people in these rural counties are getting the government they deserve.
- pimmen 8y ago
  Parent post didn't use the word wrong, the statement was that they're killing their communities out of ignorance. It sounds from your post that you whole heartedly agree it is ignorance. So, I definitely see a problem with it!
- ip26 8y ago
  As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves". Yes, but we can still castigate them for it.
- cbg0 8y ago
  > If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice. You can't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to vote against funding the fire department as well. If the whole town goes up in a blaze, then will you expect the federal government to step in and help them? If yes, that means everyone foots the bill for their stupidity; If not, can we still call ourselves humans? Some basic services should be funded, and if you don't want that, you should be able to go live in the woods, or at least that's how I see it.
  - sneak 8y ago
    > You can't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to vote against funding the fire department as well. While I despise your position, I admire your honesty about the fact that these policies are paternalistic and violate consent. What makes you the person who gets to decide for them what they should or shouldn’t spend their money on?
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      > What makes you the person who gets to decide for them what they should or shouldn’t spend their money on? I don't know who is qualified to be that person, but somebody has to if you want to avoid tyranny-of-the-majority. "You can do any goddamn thing you want as long as you can convince 51 voters out of 100 to back you" is not sustainable. (See e.g. unpunished lynchings in the post-Civil War South.)
      - magduf 8y ago
        It might not be sustainable in your opinion, but it is literally what democracy is. Do you support democracy or not?
    - 8y ago
- kamarg 8y ago
  > If they want to go without, that's their choice and then later > I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things So they get to choose to go without paying taxes for local policing but we need to tax everyone to police them? Seems like we're only letting them choose if they want to pay into the keep everybody safe fund. They're going to get the service regardless of which way they vote.
- rnernento 8y ago
  What about the minority of residents that didn't vote for that government. What about the children?
  - magduf 8y ago
    Do you support seizing children from their poorly-voting parents and placing them in better (or foster) homes?
- jigi8484ncnc 8y ago
  You appear to have inferred a moral conclusion that wasn’t in the post as I read it. That said, there is a history of rural areas cutting off their nose to spite their face then taking a bailout later. See the soybean situation. It’s hypocrisy and in a social system such as ours, they’re not as strictly isolated as the corporate and state propaganda they consume lead them to believe.
  - magduf 8y ago
    >That said, there is a history of rural areas cutting off their nose to spite their face then taking a bailout later. This is why I think these rural voters should be forced to pay for their bailouts, even if it means seizing their property and evicting them into homelessness. They voted for these stupid policies, so they should be forced to live with the consequences of their votes.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  " I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments." You know that won't happen, and the rest of the taxpayers are going to end up subsidizing them.
  - magduf 8y ago
    I know, and that's what I don't agree with at all. They're getting to benefit in the short-term from their poor, selfish choices, and then getting the insurance of getting bailed out later when the SHTF. It's just like the auto industry bailouts; those companies should never have been bailed out, they should have been broken up and sold off for pennies on the dollar to better-managed foreign companies instead of being bailed out by taxpayers for the benefit of executives and maybe the employees.
sneak 8y ago
“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” —Heinlein It seems to me that believing in democracy also requires in believing in democratic outcomes even when they are not your own personal preferences or opinions. Not everyone wants to be forced to buy more things from the government.
- ip26 8y ago
  Your parent never advocated forcing anything. Democracy doesn't mean we have to like, agree with, or approve of what others do with their communities.
  - unethical_ban 8y ago
    The Heinlein quoter is suggesting that taxation is theft, and it's immoral to force someone to pay for a public service if they personally don't want to.
    - michaelmrose 8y ago
      I love this philosophy. If I don't want to have kids why should I have to pay for schools! Carefully ignoring their own education, their desire to live in a functional society, their care and keeping when they get old etc.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- RIMR 8y ago
  That quote is peachy and all, but do understand that that attitude is exactly why America has awful education and healthcare systems, right? I plan to go child-free, but I still vote for tax increases to fund my local schools, because I care about children in general, not just the ones related to me.
  - behringer 8y ago
romed 8y ago
If you look at the rhetoric of the "State of Jefferson" proponents it's clear that they believe simply clear-cutting the remaining forests will fund their society.
wpietri 8y ago
That seems part of a larger pattern. The excellent book _Sundown Towns_ [1] pointed out something I had never noticed. People from suburbs and exurbs expect without question to be able to use big-city facilities. E.g., parks, libraries, and all manner of for- and non-profit organizations. But suburbs and exurbs often either restrict facilities to residents (as with parks) or don't have them at all (as with drug treatment centers, halfway houses, homeless support, hospitals). That worked well enough for the suburbanites in the early decades of suburbanization; well-off people moved out of town and stopped paying for the central facilities. But as those communities become less homogeneous over the generations, they too started needing drug treatment, homeless support, etc. Except that the residents are very used to low taxes, so city managers don't have the money to fix things. I get the desire for low taxes; who doesn't like as low a price as possible? But there's a toxic combination of penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking and pure IGMFY out there that seems so misguided to me. I don't have kids myself, but I still believe strongly in making things better for the next generation and the one after that. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-American/dp/0743294483 https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-Americ...
dgzl 8y ago
I grew up on generational property in rural Oregon (near Josephine county. OP says that it's in central Oregon, which isn't even remotely true), and it's true that there's plenty of anti-tax sentiment, including from myself. Grants pass town (Josephine county) is generally a bad place to be, with lots of bad drugs and crime. But the country nearby has really scenic lakes and mountains, and is a good place to live if you have property. It's about an hour drive to anything better (Jackson county), so it's somewhat isolated. It looks like the county wanted to levy property tax from $0.58 per $1000 of value, to $2.57 per, which was their plan to fund the sheriff Dept., DA, and juvenile detention. The people fought back and won. [0] A small town near where I grew up ceased it's police force, and is instead patrolled by county sheriffs stationed in nearby towns. The truth is there are many people out here who just want to live their private country lives, many of who have small income, and spend their year fishing and hunting for food. It's hard to expect people who want to live small lives to pay for other people to have bigger lives, especially when the gap is large. Oregon isn't too bad of an example, but I was living in Illinois recently, and I saw the same situation there but much more drastically imposed. Chicago is obsessed with huge funding and high taxes, and the rest of the state is being dragged along unwillingly with an entirely different view. Unfortunately Chicago is about the only interesting thing in Illinois, so you can imagine which side gets votes. [0] https://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/josephine_county_begins_disman.html https://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/josephine_...
- poulsbohemian 8y ago
  > (near Josephine county. OP says that it's in central Oregon, which isn't even remotely true), References to geography in Oregon are funny. Portlanders always refer to Bend (for example) as "Eastern Oregon" even though it is the center of the state. Actually, it's to the west-center if anything. Wallowa, Union, Baker counties might as well be the other side of the planet. ;-D
  - dgzl 8y ago
    I don't think I've ever heard someone call Bend Eastern Oregon. That's just ignorance
kodablah 8y ago
> The central rural parts of Oregon are killing their communities out of ignorance. Are you sure? I am not sure about this instance, but in many other rural instances where these measures are voted against, it's not out of ignorance. Rather it's out of disagreement with money mismanagement. Again, can't speak to this case in particular, but too often outsiders judge these actions by voters as anti-funding instead of anti-waste. Then they call them ignorant and wonder why they vote the way they do in larger elections that do affect them. On the opposite end, I am seeing more and more people guilting their fellow citizens into raising taxes because something can't be funded otherwise as though the amount currently taxed isn't enough. Nobody ever wants to fix/reroute budget-making/spending at the top, they just want to assume you need to take more to fund anything and label their peers as ignorant who disagree (not saying you are doing this because, again, I don't know about that county in Oregon).
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  I agree that it's short-sighted to assume ignorance in these cases. Selfishness is a major factor as well.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    I suppose technically, with regards to money, the selfishness factor grows alongside increased poverty. A pretty easy target to be sure.
- ip26 8y ago
  The libraries needed more funding because county revenues were plummeting as the timber industry declined in the area. Maybe residents also felt the libraries were being mismanaged, but the crisis wasn't brought about by ballooning library budgets.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    In hard times, prioritization is required. Mismanagement can include the mismanaging of these priorities by reducing choice to more taxes or less library. If, as these citizens have fallen on hard times, the library actually was at the bottom rung of the prioritization ladder for funds, it is reasonable for it to be cut first. The appalling thing is blaming those on hard times for not ponying up more money. A lowering tide affects all boats so to speak.

magduf 8y ago

I don't see the problem here, though I am questioning who's providing police services in that county now. If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice. Of course, that could have some pretty nasty consequences, but again, they voted for it, and it's their choice. I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments. As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves". The people in these rural counties are getting the government they deserve.

pimmen 8y ago
Parent post didn't use the word wrong, the statement was that they're killing their communities out of ignorance. It sounds from your post that you whole heartedly agree it is ignorance. So, I definitely see a problem with it!
ip26 8y ago
As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves". Yes, but we can still castigate them for it.
cbg0 8y ago
> If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice. You can't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to vote against funding the fire department as well. If the whole town goes up in a blaze, then will you expect the federal government to step in and help them? If yes, that means everyone foots the bill for their stupidity; If not, can we still call ourselves humans? Some basic services should be funded, and if you don't want that, you should be able to go live in the woods, or at least that's how I see it.
- sneak 8y ago
  > You can't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to vote against funding the fire department as well. While I despise your position, I admire your honesty about the fact that these policies are paternalistic and violate consent. What makes you the person who gets to decide for them what they should or shouldn’t spend their money on?
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    > What makes you the person who gets to decide for them what they should or shouldn’t spend their money on? I don't know who is qualified to be that person, but somebody has to if you want to avoid tyranny-of-the-majority. "You can do any goddamn thing you want as long as you can convince 51 voters out of 100 to back you" is not sustainable. (See e.g. unpunished lynchings in the post-Civil War South.)
    - magduf 8y ago
      It might not be sustainable in your opinion, but it is literally what democracy is. Do you support democracy or not?
  - 8y ago
kamarg 8y ago
> If they want to go without, that's their choice and then later > I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things So they get to choose to go without paying taxes for local policing but we need to tax everyone to police them? Seems like we're only letting them choose if they want to pay into the keep everybody safe fund. They're going to get the service regardless of which way they vote.
rnernento 8y ago
What about the minority of residents that didn't vote for that government. What about the children?
- magduf 8y ago
  Do you support seizing children from their poorly-voting parents and placing them in better (or foster) homes?
jigi8484ncnc 8y ago
You appear to have inferred a moral conclusion that wasn’t in the post as I read it. That said, there is a history of rural areas cutting off their nose to spite their face then taking a bailout later. See the soybean situation. It’s hypocrisy and in a social system such as ours, they’re not as strictly isolated as the corporate and state propaganda they consume lead them to believe.
- magduf 8y ago
  >That said, there is a history of rural areas cutting off their nose to spite their face then taking a bailout later. This is why I think these rural voters should be forced to pay for their bailouts, even if it means seizing their property and evicting them into homelessness. They voted for these stupid policies, so they should be forced to live with the consequences of their votes.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
" I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments." You know that won't happen, and the rest of the taxpayers are going to end up subsidizing them.
- magduf 8y ago
  I know, and that's what I don't agree with at all. They're getting to benefit in the short-term from their poor, selfish choices, and then getting the insurance of getting bailed out later when the SHTF. It's just like the auto industry bailouts; those companies should never have been bailed out, they should have been broken up and sold off for pennies on the dollar to better-managed foreign companies instead of being bailed out by taxpayers for the benefit of executives and maybe the employees.

sneak 8y ago

“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” —Heinlein It seems to me that believing in democracy also requires in believing in democratic outcomes even when they are not your own personal preferences or opinions. Not everyone wants to be forced to buy more things from the government.

ip26 8y ago
Your parent never advocated forcing anything. Democracy doesn't mean we have to like, agree with, or approve of what others do with their communities.
- unethical_ban 8y ago
  The Heinlein quoter is suggesting that taxation is theft, and it's immoral to force someone to pay for a public service if they personally don't want to.
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    I love this philosophy. If I don't want to have kids why should I have to pay for schools! Carefully ignoring their own education, their desire to live in a functional society, their care and keeping when they get old etc.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
RIMR 8y ago
That quote is peachy and all, but do understand that that attitude is exactly why America has awful education and healthcare systems, right? I plan to go child-free, but I still vote for tax increases to fund my local schools, because I care about children in general, not just the ones related to me.
- behringer 8y ago

romed 8y ago

If you look at the rhetoric of the "State of Jefferson" proponents it's clear that they believe simply clear-cutting the remaining forests will fund their society.

wpietri 8y ago

That seems part of a larger pattern. The excellent book _Sundown Towns_ [1] pointed out something I had never noticed. People from suburbs and exurbs expect without question to be able to use big-city facilities. E.g., parks, libraries, and all manner of for- and non-profit organizations. But suburbs and exurbs often either restrict facilities to residents (as with parks) or don't have them at all (as with drug treatment centers, halfway houses, homeless support, hospitals). That worked well enough for the suburbanites in the early decades of suburbanization; well-off people moved out of town and stopped paying for the central facilities. But as those communities become less homogeneous over the generations, they too started needing drug treatment, homeless support, etc. Except that the residents are very used to low taxes, so city managers don't have the money to fix things. I get the desire for low taxes; who doesn't like as low a price as possible? But there's a toxic combination of penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking and pure IGMFY out there that seems so misguided to me. I don't have kids myself, but I still believe strongly in making things better for the next generation and the one after that. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-American/dp/0743294483 https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-Americ...

dgzl 8y ago

I grew up on generational property in rural Oregon (near Josephine county. OP says that it's in central Oregon, which isn't even remotely true), and it's true that there's plenty of anti-tax sentiment, including from myself. Grants pass town (Josephine county) is generally a bad place to be, with lots of bad drugs and crime. But the country nearby has really scenic lakes and mountains, and is a good place to live if you have property. It's about an hour drive to anything better (Jackson county), so it's somewhat isolated. It looks like the county wanted to levy property tax from $0.58 per $1000 of value, to $2.57 per, which was their plan to fund the sheriff Dept., DA, and juvenile detention. The people fought back and won. [0] A small town near where I grew up ceased it's police force, and is instead patrolled by county sheriffs stationed in nearby towns. The truth is there are many people out here who just want to live their private country lives, many of who have small income, and spend their year fishing and hunting for food. It's hard to expect people who want to live small lives to pay for other people to have bigger lives, especially when the gap is large. Oregon isn't too bad of an example, but I was living in Illinois recently, and I saw the same situation there but much more drastically imposed. Chicago is obsessed with huge funding and high taxes, and the rest of the state is being dragged along unwillingly with an entirely different view. Unfortunately Chicago is about the only interesting thing in Illinois, so you can imagine which side gets votes. [0] https://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/josephine_county_begins_disman.html https://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/josephine_...

poulsbohemian 8y ago
> (near Josephine county. OP says that it's in central Oregon, which isn't even remotely true), References to geography in Oregon are funny. Portlanders always refer to Bend (for example) as "Eastern Oregon" even though it is the center of the state. Actually, it's to the west-center if anything. Wallowa, Union, Baker counties might as well be the other side of the planet. ;-D
- dgzl 8y ago
  I don't think I've ever heard someone call Bend Eastern Oregon. That's just ignorance

kodablah 8y ago

> The central rural parts of Oregon are killing their communities out of ignorance. Are you sure? I am not sure about this instance, but in many other rural instances where these measures are voted against, it's not out of ignorance. Rather it's out of disagreement with money mismanagement. Again, can't speak to this case in particular, but too often outsiders judge these actions by voters as anti-funding instead of anti-waste. Then they call them ignorant and wonder why they vote the way they do in larger elections that do affect them. On the opposite end, I am seeing more and more people guilting their fellow citizens into raising taxes because something can't be funded otherwise as though the amount currently taxed isn't enough. Nobody ever wants to fix/reroute budget-making/spending at the top, they just want to assume you need to take more to fund anything and label their peers as ignorant who disagree (not saying you are doing this because, again, I don't know about that county in Oregon).

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
I agree that it's short-sighted to assume ignorance in these cases. Selfishness is a major factor as well.
- kodablah 8y ago
  I suppose technically, with regards to money, the selfishness factor grows alongside increased poverty. A pretty easy target to be sure.
ip26 8y ago
The libraries needed more funding because county revenues were plummeting as the timber industry declined in the area. Maybe residents also felt the libraries were being mismanaged, but the crisis wasn't brought about by ballooning library budgets.
- kodablah 8y ago
  In hard times, prioritization is required. Mismanagement can include the mismanaging of these priorities by reducing choice to more taxes or less library. If, as these citizens have fallen on hard times, the library actually was at the bottom rung of the prioritization ladder for funds, it is reasonable for it to be cut first. The appalling thing is blaming those on hard times for not ponying up more money. A lowering tide affects all boats so to speak.