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Opinion
Now
is the time to work on cleaning up elections
November
13, 2006
There
are valuable lessons to be learned from every election.
Whether we learn them, of course, is not always a sure thing.
In fact, if this election season is representative, we haven’t
learned anything since we earned our independence.
It must
be amazing and amusing to foreigners how we treat each other.
It must be even more puzzling how we ever get anything
accomplished. The cutthroat politics we engage in, the names
we call each other and the underhanded things we do have to
make even some of us wonder how we can survive in a world of
ever-increasing volatility where there are people always
looking for an opening to destroy us and our way of
life.
Just mentally review the political process in South
Carolina. Forget the national bickering and
finger-pointing.
WE JUST FINISHED GETTING
all we needed to tell us that something must be done
to bring a sense of civility back into politicking. At least a
degree of civility must be restored. Sooner or later the
candidates and the people of the state will find themselves
unable to overcome the heat of the battle by simply
attributing it to “it’s just politics.” After a while the
bitterness could easily cease to fade with time and become
ingrained. What then?
Let level heads prevail. Now! The
elections are over. There’s no better time for a bipartisan
effort to rid South Carolina politics of the rancor and
pettiness that are working against everything we should be
doing to keep the pursuit of politics an honorable,
respectable, and, yes, gracious part of our way of
life.
Petty describes the gutter politics we’ve just
witnessed. So does childish. Dirty fits, too. Nasty? Yes.
Lies?
Sometimes, yes. And worse.
IF SOUTH
CAROLINA HAS statesmen and women, now’s the time for
them to take the lead and get something started.
Democrats.
Republicans, Independents. Libertarians, Others. Get together,
study the problem - it is a problem - and propose
reforms.
Proposal: How about the chairmen of the political
parties getting together and inviting others from academia,
the clergy, medicine, business, etc., to form a committee to
come up with a plan to clean up campaign rhetoric. Keep the
numbers within reason so the group won’t be too large and
unwieldy.
Oh, yes. By all means, invite representatives
from the media ..... print and electronic. They have much to
learn.
Editorial expression in this feature represents
our own views.
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