Next week the first referendum on the SC ballot is to create a limited constitutional right to hunt and fish in the state constitution. At the same time, the effort to create a state constitutional right to something better than a "minimally adequate public education" wasn't deemed worthy to submit to the voters. I let Bubba have it in this week's newspaper column with the radical (for SC) idea that children are more important than ducks and trout. Bubba won't be getting my vote this week.
Children are more important than hunting or fishing. Unless we pay attention to what matters, we’ll see South Carolina’s wildlife sporting tradition fade away along with everything else which makes living in this state worthwhile. Our incapacity to commit the state to that basic reality is at the core of our failing struggle to advance as a state.
The first statewide referendum on this year’s ballot creates a constitutional right for South Carolinians to go hunting and fishing by requiring that “the citizens of South Carolina shall have the right to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife traditionally pursued, subject to laws and regulations promoting sound wildlife conservation and management as prescribed by the General Assembly . . .”
Proponents of this Amendment say radical anti hunting and gun control forces threaten hunting and fishing in SC. This is a lie. There is no significant effort to strip South Carolinians of their statutory right to hunt and fish. The Democratic Candidate for Governor hunts and fishes as do many Democratic and Republican members of the legislature, judiciary and executive branch. In the past several years, the right to hunt as protected and granted by statutory law has been expanded to include alligator hunting. The right to own and use firearms has been expanded, under President Obama’s signature, into National Parks where it was not allowed under President Bush.
The purpose of referendums like this is to boost someone’s chances of being elected by scaring marginal voters into driving to the polls on election day. It lengthens lines at the polls, discouraging others who may need to get back to work from voting. Since SC already has passed a constitutional provision prohibiting gay marriage and a provision enshrining the Confederate flag seemed too risky, someone decided to toss the red meat of hunting and fishing on the table.
The referendum which should have been in this location on the ballot would have been one which raised the state’s constitutional standard for public education from the current “minimally adequate” to something which would increase our state’s chances of achieving a competitive place in the global economy.
For years thousands of South Carolinians have been asking that the following amendment be put before the people, “The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free public schools open to all children in the State and shall establish, organize, and support such other public institutions of learning, as may be desirable that will provide a high quality education, allowing every student to reach their highest potential.”
East Cooper’s public schools far exceed the “minimally adequate” South Carolina Constitutional standard. Wando High School remains excellent, as do our middle and elementary schools. They can call on a legion of parents to contribute financial support and volunteer hours. The local business community knows generous support for public education here is needed and expected. It is the foundation of our area’s property values, economic competitiveness and quality of life.
This is not an opinion. Hard testing data and shelves of competitive state and national awards prove it. While donations are down in hard times, our public school’s lead over the status of schools in less fortunate areas is solid and holding.
However in the poorer parts of out state children attend classes in buildings which are deteriorating relics and emerge from classes where they find themselves further behind students elsewhere every year. Economic opportunity has fled these communities. Few local businesses remain to support these schools. Property values and tax base sink. Many of these children will live out lives trapped there. Families with talent and ambition leave, ensuring a downward spiral. It is from these places that the test scores and evaluations erupt which drag our entire state down in the national rankings, a stone around the state’s neck when it is time to recruit jobs and industry.
The voters of South Carolina should have been given the opportunity to decide on a constitutional amendment committing our public educational system to a higher standard, before we worried ourselves over the status of hunting and fishing, which aren’t threatened anyway. I will vote against this hunting and fishing amendment, and anything like it, until the day I am given the opportunity to vote on a higher constitutional standard for public education for every child in our state.
Hunting and fishing are fading as a part of our culture. Crazy PETA protestors aren’t the reason. A declining real standard of living robs people of the considerable time and money wildlife sports require. There is no high speed way to hunt deer. Expensive equipment is called for. Training and experience are needed. The time to travel into the woods, find a spot, wait for the game and if one is successful to deal with what’s brought home usually consumes the larger part of a day. Fishing also requires time, sometimes a boat and the space in one’s life to wait on the tide or time of day.
A state of low paying jobs, often without benefits, where increasing numbers of people work well over 40 hours per week to meet basic necessities, leaves many people little time to hunt to fish or to pass that interest and skill along to their children. Many of our state’s jobs allow no paid vacation leave. People with the skills and education to earn a good living without having it consume all their time and energy are what hunting and fishing need. It is entirely possible you would enable more hunting and fishing by doing a better job teaching math and science in our rural schools than you would by handing out free Ammunition and giving people bait and fishing licenses for nothing.
Education has to come first. It enables everything else. Those who insist on making it wait on secondary issues will do so without my support at the polls.