Posted by
Jack Wyle on Saturday, August 25, 2007 6:30:12 AM
Hello! My name is Jack Wyle. It's not my real name, but if I told you my real name I'd get messages and postings asking me if I'm related to a celebrity known to the football world (the answer is I'm not certain, but I'll find out).
I live in Portland, Oregon, and I'm just a working stiff trying to make his way in a town that makes it hard to make way anywhere. Looking at those wonderful red/blue county-by-county maps, I'm sure that those of you who live in cities like Portland have their own stories to tell of the sort of policies that make life just a little worse than it has to be. I know the rural people have great stuff to say too, and I want to hear all about it.
Portland is a great place to live. But like any other city in the country, Portland is ran by leaders who would bend over backwards to appear congenial and tolerant at the expense of civic responsibilities. Portland Mayor Tom Potter, for instance, has refused to let the Portland Police Bureau cooperate with the Justice Department's Joint Terrorism Task Force, so's not to offend the terrorists. And, for all intents and purposes, we're an illegal alien sanctuary city in all but name. We recently had an ICE raid on a local Del Monte produce facility, and it seemed as though the mayor didn't like it one bit. These, and a whole host of other things, are but a couple of examples of the lengths to which our civic leaders would like to appear.
It wasn't always this way. I've heard how things were different in the good ol' days, before the Bagwan Rahsneesh and his cult settled in the pricker-brush and nettles of central Oregon. We used to have a thriving timber industry, and a strong predilection for rugged self-reliance. And we were a state that didn't cotton too well to visitors. A popular bumper sticker at the time of Governor Tom McCall said, "Welcome to Oregon, now go home." We knew how beautiful Oregon and Washington were, and we wanted it all for ourselves, even if it didn't have the ostentation of California. Our major newspapers weren't outlets for propaganda, though I would say they were fairly committed at one point to presenting news as it was. Things weren't necessarily hunky-dory: We had race riots here, or so I've been told. And Portland has something of a sordid history of underworld seediness stretching back to the days when people were literally kidnapped off the streets, taken underground, and pressed into service aboard a ship bound for China (hence the term, "shanghaied").
When I get home from the Army, I witnessed a bunch of protest marches decrying the president as member of the National Socialist Party of Germany and that the War on Terror was entirely staged. There have been gay pride marches in this town, or so I'm told, but I don't remember anything remotely like that when I was little, except in San Francisco. What happened?
Well, all I know for certain is that it didn't take very long for my state to go nuts. Many people around here blame the influx of Californians fleeing from situations many of them voted for in the first place, and I think there's truth in this. But I think it's more than that.
I believe we're coping with a legacy of the peace movements of the 60's, where the young hippies traveled to and fro with their free love and drug induced haze preaching an end to the war in Vietnam and touting Noam Chomsky and Timothy Leary as modern philosophers. It's very easy to imagine how adults in those days must've felt that these youngsters wouldn't amount to anything until they grew up and grew wiser. After all, once people experience the true pains and joys of life, they tend to become wiser for the wear. It's very natural to make such an assumption.
But the hippies grew up, and they filled voids left by their betters in business, academia, and politics. They had families, and they stayed in the pristine Pacific Northwest, and they gradually crowded out those they felt did not understand their compassion. They felt they helped end an unpopular war, and such a period of such effect is going to have a profound influence on a young addled mind that it extends well into his adult years. Their influence led to policies that raised taxes, repelled industries that might consider operating here, extinguished a native industry or two, and hamstrung law enforcement. Today, Portland is a city of panhandlers and strip-clubs (Portland has one of the largest number per capita of strip-clubs and lingerie modeling shops in America), and we have a leadership at city hall that's willing to arbitrarily change the definition of marriage without a discussion of the matter to the citizenry. Pick up a copy of the Portland Mercury, and you might find just how seedy our town really can be.
Today, a popular bumper sticker around here says, "Keep Portland Weird!" How inspiring.
I believe most people are generally apolitical; guided primarily by a motive of self-interest both to themselves and their families. A typical apolitical response in the wave of high taxes, fewer jobs, and more crime is to leave for more profitable places, usually further away from the coastline. Not everyone can afford such policies. So they left, taking their votes and their influences with them elsewhere.
So here I am, in a city that prides itself on being almost as weird as San Francisco. It occurs to me that keeping Portland, and other cities on the West Coast, weird is not some amorphous movement that has its group rituals from time to time at the whims of fancy, but is a deliberate, conscious effort to keep less those that are less so away, lest they might come here and offset their power.
I love Portland, though. I love Oregon. I grew up here (mostly), and I want the best for my home and for others who want to come and make a living here, no matter their socio-political views.
So I tell people the truth about Oregon that Oregonians don't want the rest of you in the world to know about: That the Pacific Northwest is gorgeous, that it doesn't rain as much as you have been led to believe, and we need your help to make Oregon, Washington, and yes, California great places of where freedom reigns once again. The way I see it, going back to that marvelous red/blue county map of the USA, if I can help to spur a small migration of legal citizens here to Oregon, odds are most of them will be, at the very least, sympathetically fair-minded people who have nothing against religion, who only want to raise their children and support their families for success, and happen to love their country.
That's all it takes, because the character of the hard-working self-reliant American will defeat any tyrannically capricious impulse only so long as it doesn't let such depravity win the field. Because good people only tolerate nonsense for just so long. It is, however, the job of souls such as mine to get you to stay for a fight. There will be setbacks.
I'm not just talking to conservatives here, but liberals too. Those of you who consider themselves liberal might object to this sort of rhetoric, claiming that it's hateful. I'm not at all demanding an end to the parades and the protests. Go ahead and march, if you like. I insist. Please. Be as loud and as proud as you want. You have nothing to fear, trust me. Just don't make a mess - I like my Pioneer Square relatively debris-free.
Because I don't hate you. I don't even know you on a personal level. I reserve my hatred for those that really deserve it. Nope, it's better that we all get to know one another. It's my opinion that liberals don't really get conservatives, and we, conservatives, don't get you as often as we should. I'm certain the more we interact on a more personal level, we'll come to an understanding without self-aggrandizing pundits to tell us what to think of the other side.
We don't mingle enough, and we let media do most of the talking. I've talked with a lot of people with lots of different viewpoints and for the most part we generally agree on a lot of different things once deleterious noise-machines are removed from the scene. True, I've had some unpleasant moments with irate individuals, but this isn't too often with me. I love talking with you. And I know this: Believe it or not, we have more in common than you may think. Until you come to Portland sometime, you can talk with me on this board.
And so, I formally call for a new migration. Like the Manifest Destiny of the 19th Century, this migration will not be without difficulty. Taxes are high, housing is spendy, and traffic is bad; not much recommends us save the scenery, which will take your breath away. So come to Oregon! Come to the West Coast! Bring your votes and your influences, and help make Oregon and the West Coast a better place!