Power Line's Paul Mirengoff writes of the news from eastern Oregon.
Voters in five rural Oregon counties — Baker, Grant, Lake, Malheur and Sherman — approved ballot measures to advance efforts to have these jurisdictions leave Oregon and become part of Idaho. The five counties join two others — Jefferson and Union — that already had approved such measures.Maybe what's happening in the U.K. with Scotland isn't such an outlier after all. Mirengoff suggests it could happen here; I agree the idea isn't entirely far-fetched.
The seven counties are sparsely populated. However, they make up three-quarters of the state in terms of area, according to this report. The counties in question are all conservative. The residents’ desire to leave Oregon stems from disgust with the left-wing policies the state’s liberals want to impose on them.
The fact that residents of seven counties want out of Oregon has significance. It signifies that, increasingly, conservatives don’t want to co-exist with liberals — not in the same political entity, anyway. And I believe the feeling is mutual.
If conservatives and liberals don’t want to co-exist in the same states, it’s fair to ask whether they will want to co-exist in the same country.
