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Because you are part of the community, you use the services supported by taxes, and because you are supposed to have a conscience. 

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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What with the recent revelation that a Clark Co. candidate has never voted, or appears to have never voted, I would like to know how many elections the candidates have missed in the last five years.....these candidates and all of them.

Seems to me that there are two fundamental requirements of citizens here, voting and paying taxes.

posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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I suspect that you describe yourself as an agnostic, it being so much superior to other possibilities, in your view.  Seems to me that you have a broad brush of condemnation.  By the time a thinking person has lived a long life, why should they not have come to some conclusions about beliefs?  I am an atheist because I think religion is pretty silly.  How long should a person work on the great understanding of religion?  I think it is right up there with turning straw into gold and I have no respect for it at all....aside from nice things like the arts, inspired by and paid for by religious institutions. And why do you limit your criticism to Americans, when Europeans are moving out of religion in record numbers and have been for a long time?

posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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When I give money to the art museum for my membership and then get big, ritzy, multicolor pamphlets announcing the exhibits, I just wonder where my $60 has gone.  For all that I know, it wasn't enough to pay for the mailings.  It is discouraging.

I also wonder how small groups are faring outside of Portland. There is really no easy reason for the folks in Bend or The Dalles or K Falls to contribute to Portland organizations, unless they get some benefit from them.  The symphony travels a bit, or did, but does the art museum or the opera or the ballet?

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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