For the past six years, I have been writing two columns a month for the Deseret News. I said what I have to say and have decided it is time to move on.
Writing a column is an immense amount of work. Distilling one’s thoughts into 700 words is a challenge. The need to be succinct and pointed requires the writer to lay out tightly reasoned theses, arguments and conclusions; this imposes great discipline on one’s thinking and writing.
Several personal governing principles have guided me, but also limited me in writing my columns.
I have been absolutely determined to be civil to and respectful of others.
While a column is by nature editorial, an expression of ideas and opinions, I have striven to find and speak the truth, be accurate in my statements and thoughtful in my conclusions.
Many years as a lawyer and public servant taught me that most issues of public interest are complex, both in their cause and in their solution. I see many nuances in the topics I write about; I also know there are more layers that I probably do not see. This respect for nuance, of knowing I do not know everything, prevents me from being hard-edged and trenchant in many of my conclusions.
Nuance is a scarce commodity in today’s politics. So one who listens to all sides and culls their respective good and bad points can only write interesting material given today’s maddeningly binary politics with difficulty.
After half a lifetime spent in politics, I’ve seen few are able to see that we make progress in addressing most of our problems only through compromise and collaboration with other good faith stakeholders. I have been a part of that or observed it hundreds of times in city councils, planning commissions, the legislature and governor’s office. Sadly, this reality is too frequently ignored.
What have I written about?
Some of my columns have addressed the national debt. It troubles me deeply. It should trouble you, too. What will awaken our nation to the economic and security risks it poses? It is nothing short of a bomb. I do not know when it will go off. But I know it will, and we and the rest of the world will regret not addressing it when we could have.
I think much and have frequently written about poverty. I do not understand all the influences which strand so many in poverty. Many good people live in grinding, unforgiving poverty because of physical or mental limitations, lack of cultural and social capital, systemic bias and racism. Others are lazy and even malingerers. The trick is how to find and work with the willing and to stop subsidizing those who will not improve themselves.
Military service, a caring parent or mentor, or individual initiative have rescued many from poverty’s grasp. A good education has given many underprivileged people a palpable ladder to the American dream. Yet, the grim statistics about the American underclass show we have not been very successful in freeing millions of our fellow citizens from impoverishment. Even though I have spent and still spend much time and effort on this problem, the governmental/social solution mostly eludes me. Indeed, I wonder if government can have much of an effect on diminishing poverty. The one thing I have seen work is a one-on-one case management approach; but that is very expensive and thus usually ruled out.
I leave this valedictory warning: One of the most dangerous, cancerous influences in our country today is the increasing contention and mean-spirited vitriol in our political discourse. You will say violence is a greater evil. But politically based violence is the result of contention. Contention assaults those you engage with, but also frays our civilization. Civil society is not made of indestructible rock and steel but of delicate fabrics of time-tested principles and customs of American democracy. As we become more deeply partisan, more one-sided, more locked in to our views we weaken the influence of those overarching ideals, and we lose the intellectual and emotional willingness and, ultimately even the ability, to discern truth from sources beyond our little bubbles. Sadly, far too many of us have closed our minds to challenging views from across the ideological divide or even from neutral territory.
I appreciate my faithful readers and those who made productive comments. It is a privilege to participate in Utah’s politics.
My sincere thanks to the Deseret News and its staff. The Deseret News is a fine paper.
Greg Bell is the former lieutenant governor of Utah and the current president and CEO of the Utah Hospital Association.