Maybe that’s not the best way to wish Cindi Scoppe well as she takes the helm of the Post and Courier‘s editorial pages, but it sounds right to me. No one ever greeted me that way when I was an EPE, but of course they should have.
Anyway, she deserves it. The best possible person is now heading the only functioning editorial board in the state of South Carolina, and that’s good for the paper, and good for all of us.
Here are her thoughts on her new job. An excerpt:
Now, back to the main topic: The values that are most important to me and us involve how we live together in society and how we find solutions to the problems that most of us face regardless of our politics.
That starts with focusing on improving our communities and state rather than winning prizes or appealing to people who already agree with us. We’re happy to win prizes, but the real prize is guiding conversations and decisions in a positive direction.
It means focusing on what’s best for our communities rather than us personally. A small example: I hate the law that says you can’t touch your phone while you’re driving, but I wrote editorials advocating for it (and yes, I obey it), because it would save lives with only minor inconvenience.
We aim to be pragmatic and strategic in what we write about and what we don’t. We’re not worried about offending readers or lawmakers, but we’re not going to do that absent a good reason; we pick our battles….
We believe there’s rarely a single right approach to any problem, and we support consensus and compromise rather than an all-or-nothing answer. We’re not going to reject solutions that match our values perfectly, but we’ll rarely condemn a solution that gives us only part of what we want.
In other words, Cindi is continuing the mission. She could have written the same words to describe our approach back in the day at The State. The place where we used to do that is now rubble. So it’s great that the Post and Courier still provides her with a platform from which she can carry on.
Congratulations to Cindi, and especially to the Post and Courier for being smart enough to see she’s the one for the job.
This is going to be good…
By the way, Cindi starts in her new role on the day before the GOP primary decides who will be the next governor and attorney general of South Carolina. (I’m talking realities here, however much you may believe a Democrat has a chance of winning in November at this moment in our history.)
So if the paywall lets you, here are the links to those two endorsements by the Post and Courier:
Alan Wilson was the best SC GOP choice Tuesday; he’s the best choice today
David Stumbo is the clear choice in GOP runoff for SC attorney general
In case you find the Wilson headline confusing… it ran on the 13th, so the “Tuesday” it refers to was June 9, the day of the original primary. There was little reason to delay going ahead and endorsing Wilson. There was nothing further to consider, with the choice between him and the other remaining candidate.
Wilson was clearly the vastly better candidate on “Tuesday,” as well as yesterday, today and tomorrow. And any time in the foreseeable future…
I wish Cindi the best in her new role. Your shared enthusiasm for Wilson is misplaced, perhaps out of desperation.
Alan Wilson tried to overthrow a free and fair election of a president of the United States. And now we find him once again slavishly worshipping the ringleader, the most manifestly corrupt president in our history.
You think you’re being pragmatic or a realist by backing Wilson and glossing over his fealty to a man who undermines our core democratic values every single day because he’s maybe not as bad as the other candidate groveling at the president’s feet?
This isn’t about some little policy dispute politicians work out amongst themselves in a back room. Neither candidate belongs in public office, and neither one should be getting some sort of glow-up from you or the Post and Courier. Because these candidates support a man who is destroying our institutions and our standing in the world. And they support his agenda. Just ask them.
The country is wallowing in the slop these corrupt, rudderless and forever self-serving weasels dish out like daily specials at the diner.
Character matters. Sometimes standing up against the inevitable is the only decent choice.
The cellphone law is unenforceable and broken thousands of times a day in the state. Even harder to catch than speeding which occurs on every highway in this state.. the average speed on I77 is 75+.. we need fewer laws not more.
Yeah, laws are broken all the time. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be laws.
I mean, what are you suggesting — that we shouldn’t have speed limits, or we should check to see what speed the lunatics out there really want to drive, and make THAT the limit? Say 100, or 120. That would make our enforcement look perfect, and would, from what you are suggesting, make those good laws…
Yeah, I know. You just want less government.
Here’s the thing — when something is against the law, lots of people will obey the law because it’s the law. And in the case of speed limits, that makes the roads safer than they would be if there were no laws, or no one obeyed them…
The cellphone law is sufficiently vague that it has no value. Can’t even HOLD the phone or even have it on your lap? Why? How is that dangerous? That’s just stupid. I can hold a sub sandwich legally but not a phone? Or put anything else in my lap? I just question that brain function of the type of person who thinks up this nonsense.
And how is glancing at a phone any different than looking at/fiddling with the video screen in the car dash for the radio to find a station or looking at the climate controls which are typically even lower?
I’m fine with laws that punish bad behavior more harshly – cause an accident while texting, sever penalties. Cause an accident while driving at an excessive speed – throw the book at them. But to set a speed limit and then EVERYONE knows (and cops will tell you) that you can go 8-10 mph over that limit and they won’t bother to ticket you — unless they are below their revenue generating quota for the month (which they will deny exists).
We need fewer laws, plain and simple. And harsher penalties for actual crimes that injure/kill other people or damage property. I’d start with abolishing all laws related to the sale of alcoholic products except to minors. The morons who came up with the liquor sales laws could never justify them if forced to. Want a mini-bottle of vodka from a liquor store after 7 PM? Sorry. That’s dangerous. Please just go across the street to Applebees and have 6 vodka shots and then get in your car and drive home. Maybe you’ll get in a DUI acciden that kills someone and one of our legislator lawyers will make sure to sue you and the restaurant that served you.
How do you feel about immigration laws? Should they be enforced?
Yep, pretty much the way other administrative matters are enforced. Like if you get stopped by a cop for speeding, and your licence has expired, you get an additional charge for that.
What you DON’T do is create a jackboot-stule army of masked marauders who invade cities (that generally don’t want them) to round up thousands of people to enforce that ONE thing, and build ramshackle prison camps to put these prisoners in until you can send them into some hellish situation back in their birth countries — all because they didn’t obtain the right paperwork before coming here.
And it seems to me that a libertarian would be MUCH more bothered by that approach than I am. You get offended about the cell phone law, so it seems you’d REALLY hate all that government expenditure to kick down doors across the country, and terrorize people, because you suspect that they MIGHT not have the right paperwork…
I’m opposed to every illegal immigrant who takes jobs and resources and doesn’t pay all the taxes on the money they earn and steal identities and drive without licenses or insurance.. and who commit acts of fraud to steal tax dollars with fake day care, hospice, and autism treatments.
Yeah, very similar to driving 10 miles over the speed limit…
Well, it’s not as bad, since you can kill people speeding. But you’re missing the fact that those offenses — false identities and tax-dodging and driving without insurance — are the kind of things that people could be charged for, and should be charged for, independently (or in addition to) failing to get the proper permission to be in the country.
Which murderers and rapists who are in the country illegally would you like to remain? Maybe you can house one of them in your spare bedroom.
Oh, I forgot that they’re all murderers and rapists — I should listen to Trump and take notes when he says that, bless him and his wisdom.
Doug, that’s a bogus argument. You charge murderers and rapists to the full extent of the law. If they committed such crimes (crimes that, by perspective, reduce illegal entry to the level of a parking ticket), our justice system should deal with them. IF they commtted them in their home countries, send them there.
I don’t see what this has to do with their immigration status, aside from Trump’s efforts to make us fear every destitute peasant who comes here at risk of life and works like a slave at the most difficult kinds of labor in order to feed their families.
If they weren’t here in the first place, the murders and rapes wouldn’t occur. Why should we wait until they commit additional crimes besides being in the country illegally before we prevent that from happening at all?
4 people killed this week along by illegal truck drivers who somehow were given licenses despite their status and inability to read English traffic signs. Those are preventable deaths that come from enforcing the law.
OK, Doug. I’m not going to try to persuade you that things like that happen whether there are illegal immigrants or not.
I don’t know what to say when someone suggests that when somebody kills someone in an accident, it’s somehow BECAUSE the somebody is here illegally. And therefore crossing the border illegally EQUALS vehicular homicide. I just don’t know what to say… Or maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re suggesting, in which case I apologize.