Oregon Governor Kate Brown betrayed her constituents by giving our ventilators to another state while at the same time urging Oregonians to do all they can to combat Coronavirus in Oregon. The media, the White House, and of course every New Yorker including their governor have been praising her all day as an example of how Americans should stick together and what a difference this will make in New York. So, what is the problem?
The problem is that Kate Brown was not elected to serve the rest of the country. She was elected to serve Oregon and lookout for Oregonians first and foremost. At a time when Oregon is lucky not to be in the same situation as New York, California, or Washington yet, her job is to keep it that way and make sure that if thing get worse, Oregonians will have as many resources available as possible. Her job is not to give away life saving medical equipment that Oregonians will likely need to other states before we will probably need them. How will this decision look when Oregon runs out of ventilators and New York is still short of ventilators despite not being as short as they were before? Do you really think New York will send those ventilators back?
If they agree to send back the ventilators, how long will it take them to get here and how many Oregonians will die after Governor Brown asks for them back and before they get here? If that number is greater than zero then Kate Brown has made the wrong decision. Now, some people might say that the number of lives she saves by letting New York have the ventilators for now will easily exceed the number of Oregonians that could die waiting later, so it is the right choice. Even if New York keeps the ventilator, the total death tool nation wide will probably be less if New York has those ventilators now even if Oregon needs them later. That would be true if Kate Brown were the President of the United States and her job was to lookout for all Americans equally, but she is not the President. She is a governor of a state and like all governors of all states her job is to lookout for her own people first. As such the correct formula to use when deciding whether or not sharing resources is a good idea does not weigh every American equally. It assigns a value of one to every person of your state and a value of zero to all other persons. When using that formula the correct decision can be reached by crunching the numbers and deciding that if the result is greater than or equal to one do not choose that course of action. Does that mean the right choice for Governor Brown to make could cost New York hundreds or thousands of their people in order to save one of her people?
The cold hard correct answer to that is yes because her job is to serve Oregon. The people of Oregon are her people. The people of New York are not her people. The correct answer is that simple.
This is sure to anger Marxists both cultural and traditional. After all, Marxists tend to value every person on the planet equally and seek to redistribute wealth and resources until no one person has more than another. Many if not most of Governor Brown's supporters in Oregon are Marxists, so she is surely to become more popular in Oregon as a result of this decision. Her supporters pride themselves on giving away what they think they can afford to give away in times like these and forcing their neighbors to do the same, even if there is a risk that they will suffer serious consequences later. Some may not regret that later because they are so convinced that people can live in a society of equality. Now, equality is not a bad idea or goal to strive for, but it is not a realistic goal due to human nature. It is human nature to compete and compete in groups that seek to better themselves and their group at the expense of others and other groups. Now, some might say that sacrificing one's self or ordering that one's group sacrifice themselves is the right choice if most of the people in their group support such sacrifices, that is how democracy works. The problem with that is that America is not and has never been a democracy in the true sense of the word. America is and has always been a democratic republic. A democratic republic has a lot in common with a democracy because it is a collection of democratic communities where issues between the communities are settled in a democratic way by a vote of representatives from each community. Each representative is supposed to vote in the interest of their community. When a representative chooses to vote in the interest of another community that representative betrays their own community. That is the case even if most of the representative's community supports working against their own interest because often doing the right thing is not popular. Sometimes a representative needs to do what is best for their community because most people in their community are not mentally competent to do what is in their own interest. Governors are the same way.
When the majority of a community is not competent to make the cold hard decisions necessary for their own survival. It is up to leaders to say that despite the opinion of the majority, that opinion does not reflect the math that must be done to decide what decision is best. That is rarely a popular answer. I hope that Oregon is lucky enough not to need those ventilators back, but whether we need them or not, this decision shows that Kate Brown does not have what it takes to lead this state in a time of crisis and therefore is not competent to govern at all.
When Donald Trump faced impeachment for using his position and national resources to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden on behalf of his campaign, democrats were quick to call him a traitor. They said he was serving the interests of Ukraine instead of those of the American people in exchange for personal benefits in the form of future votes. Personal benefits directly related to his own re-election. Today Kate Brown chose to serve the interests of New York in exchange for personal benefits in the form of future votes. Personal benefits directly related to her own re-election. If Donald Trump is a traitor to the American people then Kate Brown is a traitor to Oregonians.