Easy Way Out Is Just No Good

This is a good year to make the hard calls. There are plenty to go around. Health care, welfare, Medicare. Social Security. Growth management, local government, a healthy business climate.

Climate? The forests, the fish. Fresh air.

Of course, we don’t have to decide anything. We can soldier on, marginally involved in local issues and deeply divided on national problems.

There is nothing sexy about growth management or a unified city/ county government. There are many details involved in formulating good policy and they are dry as dust. And yet, growth management and unified government offer lasting solutions to the biggest, most frustrating problems Spokane County faces. Congestion. Unresponsive government.

Hard-working people of goodwill struggle to decide these issues, trying to satisfy a disinterested public. Disinterested until the details affect our neighborhoods. Then we whine about the lack of public input when, in fact, public meetings were held but went unattended.

If Congressional Democrats employ obstructionist strategies, nothing will be decided. We’ll experience the same frustrating gridlock we suffered through in ‘94. Angry voters will throw the Republicans out of office and we’ll be right where we are now.

We’ll be standing in the corners, yelling back and forth at each other. Talk radio assassins will continue to make money by feeding our anger. Offering simple solutions to complicated problems. They will try to polarize us, instead of pushing us toward the center.

Because the center is frightening. There is ambiguity. In the center, hard choices are made. Simple solutions get shot full of holes. People disagree but talk in a constructive, problem-solving spirit. In the center, the ideal is sacrificed for the good.

That’s a hard sell for angry people who feel they have already given enough. But it’s not enough. Not until we reaffirm our belief in the right to disagree as individuals but allow the majority to rule. Not until we’ve thought about what the country would be like if we let our anger consume our sense of humor. And it is definitely not enough until we’ve presented our best thoughts on the hard calls.

So this year, do the soul-searching necessary to decide how you would deal with a severely deformed baby. Or terminally ill parents. Or public assistance to poor children. Or the form of local government you prefer. Or how many homes we can build on top of the aquifer.

Get involved and do it soon. Our systems creep toward solutions, but to help reconcile our differences, we need to make some hard calls. Now.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Scott Sines /For the editorial board