Goodwill Hunting Leads To Solutions

After we all recover from updating software and tacking new calendars to the wall, a new year awaits. Let’s start it off right - by purging a virus that infects our most precious operating system.

No, not the system that runs computers. The system that’s in trouble is the one that keeps our society stable, just and free: Representative democracy. Cynicism is its virus.

Cynicism poisons faith in our representatives, poisons political support for public services, poisons the willingness to vote and poisons the willingness of good people to run for public office.

This being an election year, with many responsibilities up for grabs, a poisoned political system is a serious handicap.

In troubled times, elections can be curative - but not if they are won with personal attacks and appeals to our resentments. These tactics deepen our doubts and divisions.

What we need is hope and faith. Surrounded by prosperity, freedom and all the tools for political reform, the cynicism of our times is completely unwarranted. And yet it is palpable.

We need to re-establish respect for careers in public service.

Here at The Spokesman-Review Opinion Page, the only institution we assuredly can change is our own. Therefore we pledge that we will strive in the coming year to inform rather than to inflame. To encourage and to praise. And when we criticize, to criticize actions and ideas rather than persons.

We invite readers to join us.

Why do these things? Isn’t it more fun to jab rhetorical sticks in the eyes of persons with whom we disagree? That is a self-destructive kind of fun, for it prevents the victim from seeing issues from the attacker’s point of view.

Besides, the coming year presents challenges that we cannot solve without the help of a healthy political system. Consider:

Low wages and a weak economy harm the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area and surrounding counties. This must change. Many solutions will involve public services: Stronger college scholarships, instruction and enrollment capacity. Tax and regulatory relief to encourage small business. Affordable telecommunications in outlying cities. An adequate growth management boundary. A focus on health technology at Washington State University-Spokane. Re-establishment of the lost funding for highway improvements, mass transit, libraries and law enforcement.

Washington’s regulations helped make health insurance unavailable. Legislators must change them and must enact patient rights’ bills to protect medical discretion and quality of care.

Our region’s farmers are struggling. Federal programs and policies must keep them afloat and open up foreign markets.

Finally, in the fall, we’ll choose new leaders.

Before we can do any of these things, though, we’ll have to set cynicism aside and give public services our informed support.