RALEIGH – There’s a lot going on in and around North Carolina. There always is.
Gov. Mike Easley is trying to reengineer his public image in preparation for a 2004 reelection bid. He’s got a new stump speech, some new ideas, and a new state budget. The General Assembly is responding, in its own way, to the governor’s opening pitch while moving some bills of its own through the legislative process. The North Carolina House is still trying to organize itself. The North Carolina Senate is adjusting to the presence of many more Republicans and the possibility of scandals overhanging the political organization of its leader.
We have a U.S. Senator running for president (John Edwards), a U.S. House member running to replace him (Richard Burr), a long string of Republicans thinking about running to replace him (Vernon Robinson, Peter Brunstetter, Virginia Foxx, and so on), and several other U.S. House members in hot water for controversial statements. We have racial conflicts raging on the Guilford County Commission and in several communities struggling with school reassignment. We have local efforts to build support for new publicly subsidized sports arenas or convention centers in Charlotte, Raleigh, Hickory, Asheville, Wilmington, and numerous other cities. We have potholes, achievement gaps, economic problems, and regulatory morasses galore to occupy our political time.
And yet, that’s not what we’re talking about. I’ve just spent the past couple of days traveling through central and western North Carolina. In personal conversations, at civic clubs, on talk radio – wherever you go, North Carolinians are discussing and debating the impending war in Iraq.
North Carolina has the same stake that the rest of the country has in a favorable outcome, including enhanced security and an economic recovery, but our state is also home to a disproportionate share of the military forces deployed either in the Iraqi theater or in Afghanistan, where the campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda continues. Meanwhile, on many of our college campuses, concerned students and the remnants of the old anti-war Left are finding common cause and questioning U.S. policy.
Obviously, we have a natural interest in these critical issues. And we’re talking. Good. The only place where the talking needs to stop is the United Nations, quickly becoming a self-parody and an obstacle to peace and freedom in the world. In a free, democratic society, debate is valuable. In a den of thieves and petty tyrants, debate is either subterfuge or a distraction. Let North Carolina, and America, continue our traditions of representative government and free, open debate. The goal here, you see, is for people elsewhere in the world – starting with Iraq – to develop the same traditions.