[samatman]

> What sort of logic supports that American values are those held by a minority of Americans. What possible values suggest they are the normal ones?

America has been here for a long time. It's fair to say that values which are of long standing, still held by a significant fraction of the population, and them disproportionately descended from ancestors who have been American for many generations, are more American values than ones which fail one or more of these criteria.

Note that the value that people who come to America and join the national experiment become American is one of those values! That's unusual, and needs to be pointed out: values aren't more American because they're held by old American stock, causality flows in the other direction.

Not everything is a pure popularity contest. 51% of people supporting strict gun control (for the sake of argument) doesn't make that position more American, it just means more Americans happen to hold to it. That the Constitution makes altering its own text a matter of supermajority, both in passing and ratification, supports the idea that what it is to be American is not intended to simply shift in the winds on the strength of a bare majority.

That all said, the bottom line is that these five counties feel that their values are better represented by the state government of Idaho than by that of Oregon. Federalism is one of those old American values I was droning on about earlier; I don't see why they shouldn't get the chance to secede from a state which isn't serving their needs, and join one which they think would.

[jameshart]

> values which are of long standing, still held by a significant fraction of the population, and them disproportionately descended from ancestors who have been American for many generations, are more American values than ones which fail one or more of these criteria

So, in an Oregon context, this would mean the values of the Chinook peoples?

[samatman]

Not really, no.

For starters, we're talking about Eastern Oregon, so if you wanted to throw a gotcha, you should have gone for the Paiute.

America is a nation, and it took its time getting to Oregon. The Chinook were never particularly numerous, nor influential on the values of that nation. That's just a fact.

The Iroquois League was more influential, the Founding Fathers were very impressed with their system of governance, though how much of that made it into the Constitution is a matter of debate. Painting with a broad brush, centuries of contact with the native peoples of this continent has certainly left its mark. The Western ethos of self-reliance and freedom owes a lot to them.

The Native American people are both their own nations and a part of the American nation. Speaking as one American, I'm inclined to value their contributions, but it seems a bit presumptuous for me to say that Apache or Navajo values are American values.

To continue down the road you've set us upon, the American descendants of slavery went unheard for many years, but starting no later than Frederick Douglass became a key part of shaping the ethos and values of the nation. They insisted that "all men are created equal" meant all men, and put an end to white supremacy, which was certainly an American value and just as surely is no longer such.

[jameshart]

Well, then I'm confused.

You started off saying that it makes sense for these people to say that the government of Idaho upholds American values more than the government of Oregon, because values' 'Americanness' isn't determined by the majority, but rather by appeal to ancestry and tradition.

But apparently the Chinook (or, if you wish, the Paiute), who I would say have superior claim on that front, don't get to wield the mystical power of American Values because they were never numerous, nor influential.

But surely the population of Idaho and eastern Oregon is also not particularly numerous, nor influential.

And the population of Western Oregon also, surely, has some claim to be a "significant fraction of the population", "disproportionately descended from ancestors who have been American for many generations", so surely that means their values are more American values than ones which fail one or more of these criteria?

So I guess I just don't know what gives these people of Eastern Oregon more of a claim to determine whether Idaho or Oregon is 'more aligned' with American Values. Is it because their ancestors have been Americans since the early days of the old West, and they embody the pioneer spirit of the Oregon Territory? So their values are more American.

But it's maybe worth noting that in 1844, while Frederick Douglass was first publishing his slave story, Oregon passed a law that made it illegal for him, or any other freed slave, to set foot in the state. It remained part of the state's constitution through its admission to the US, and long after the 14th amendment made it unconstitutional.

In 1926, thirty years after Frederick Douglass died, a ballot measure to repeal it was finally passed. But 32% of voters voted against it.

Maybe if white supremacy is 'surely' no longer an American value, we shouldn't be looking to the traditional values of Oregonians as a guiding light. They have a bit of a history of being slow to catch on to changes in what are 'surely' American values.

[jcranmer]

> The Western ethos of self-reliance and freedom owes a lot to them.

So the notion of "self-reliance and freedom" that makes Western ideologies suggests you're referring not to Native Americans but "pioneers"--the people who settled the Western lands without government help. Except, I guess, for the help it provided by clearing the land of its prior inhabitants who somehow didn't know the land wasn't theirs anymore. And providing basic infrastructure like schooling (funded from sales from Township 16). And funding the construction of railroads so that homesteaders could acquire the goods they couldn't make themselves and sell their excess produce to US markets.

[vkou]

Don't be silly, we're not talking about those values.