Cook column: Integrity 101: Do the right thing

Published 12:00 am Friday, August 15, 2008

Boy, was I wrong about John Edwards. When Edwards campaigned for U.S. Senate in 1998, I thought he had promise. Compared to most stodgy politicians, he was refreshing and bright ó a man who could advocate strongly for North Carolina and for progressive causes.
Edwards may very well be sincere in supporting causes like improving health care and fighting poverty, but after revelations about his affair and his persistent denials, his credibility lies shattered on the ground. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put John Edwards’ political reputation back together again.
Oh, he’ll do something. Even Jimmy Swaggart still heads a ministry. But John Edwards will pay penance for this mistake for years and years. As he should.
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Integrity is doing the right thing, even when nobody is watching. Edwards failed that test. We all do in some way or another, though not usually in so ignomious a fashion. Nobody’s perfect.
I wonder about the people who post some of the comments on the Salisbury Post’s Web site. Anonymity ó the lack of anyone watching ó enables them to say whatever they want without being held accountable. Some of it’s pretty horrible.
There’s a good reason for some anonymous comment. A teacher, for instance, might not want to jeopardize his or her job by criticizing a school board decision. Yet who knows more about schools than teachers?
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of hate spewing out from behind the shield of anonymity on lots of Web sites, and it overshadows other commentary. If these comments paint an accurate portrait of human nature, we are in bad shape.
Reasonable debate deteriorates into name-calling. Some topics get beaten to death, with the pro and con ricocheting off each other over and over as people try to get in the last word.
OK, everyone is not going to agree on incentives. There are pros and cons. Ditto on whether you should have a college degree to be a county commissioner.
And the people whom City Council permanently offended with annexation have convinced the world that they hate the city and feel violated. OK. We get it. You win.
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So who am I to criticize the critics? I’ve written sharp words. And neither I nor Chris Verner, the Post’s editorial page editor, sign the editorials we write for the editorial page (over there in the lefthand column). We write each editorial as more than personal opinion; it’s the newspaper’s editorial opinion.
And you know who we are; our names are right there on the page. If you want to challenge something we say, you can call, send an e-mail or write a letter to the editor.
I am grateful that readers take the time to visit our site and weigh in with their opinions. People who vent through negative anonymous comments may have suffered injustices and hurts that I don’t understand.
And the politics of insults is hardly new.
But time out, folks. Let’s review the situation. We’re all in this county together. Life can be hard, and it definitely is not fair. So give people the benefit of the doubt. Reasonable people can disagree without being evil. Be decent ó even when no one’s watching.
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Rowan is a big county with hard-working people, strong agriculture, diverse industry, a wealth of churches and rich natural resources. Salisbury, too, has strengths: three colleges, thriving arts groups, an active downtown, strong neighborhoods, a diverse population.
And these are two major problems we have together, in the city and the county, that we can work together to change:
– Education: Rowan’s education and income levels lag behind those in surrounding counties, a remnant of our textile-mill past. You can have common sense without “book sense,” but that won’t land you a good job. As long as children grow up thinking of school as a bother instead of a ticket to a better life, this won’t change. Rowan needs to push up its graduation rate and the pursuit of post-secondary education and training.
– Jobs: More children are falling into poverty every day as their parents struggle to earn a paycheck. More than 22 percent of the under-18 population in Rowan lives in poverty, according to 2005 Census estimates, compared to 13.5 percent in Cabarrus and 16.6 percent in Iredell. Job growth is essential, within existing industries and through recruitment, to bring more opportunity to Rowan.
So many issues are intertwined with the need for better education and more jobs ó drug abuse, access to health care, family support, available transportation and child care.
We elect people to help us fight those problems, but all too often we’re reminded not to put too much faith in political leaders. They’re only human. Sometimes integrity is just an election slogan. Lesson learned.
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Elizabeth Cook is editor of the Salisbury Post.