By Jim Dickson
This time of the year, like many of you, I sit down and think about the pro’s and con’s of the year that has passed. 2023, like other years, brought some good news and some bad.
On the personal side it brought some very good news. Both my wife and I had what could have been a serious threat to our health, but thanks to catching it early and the wonderful skills of Drs. John Adams and Stephen Sisco, along with the excellent staff of Beaufort Memorial Hospital, we were able to put that behind us.
Beaufort is very fortunate to have a facility like Beaufort Memorial. Not only does it provide wonderful care, but amazingly enough the food is pretty good too, and that is a combination that is hard to beat.
Getting a new mayor in Beaufort was both bad and good. I was sorry to see Mayor Steven Murray resign. I think that he did a lot of good for the Beaufort area, chief of which was bringing new industry and the Tech Incubator. As a businessman and entrepreneur he understood the need to provide opportunities for young people to work and live in Beaufort outside the service and tourist industry. The good news was that former City Councilman Phil Comer stepped up and was elected, and I think he will be an excellent Mayor.
There is very good news at the state level. The Beaufort County delegation continued to gain seniority in 2023, and with seniority comes influence on what laws are passed and how state funds are spent. For many years, although Beaufort Country was a major contributor of tax money to the state, very little of it came back our way.
Senators Campsen and Davis are now powerful committee chairs, Representative Erickson is now a committee chair, and all of the county delegation are now in positions of influence at the State House, and the results can be seen in additional funding for roads, schools and public works projects coming to Beaufort County. Most important is, that thanks to their efforts, work has actually started on the section of I-95 north of the Georgia state line, which has been a disgrace and dangerous for years.
On the very bad news side, what started the year as a crisis at the southern border has become a full blown disaster. The Biden administration has looked the other way and refused to do anything about slowing down the millions of illegal immigrants, and tons of fentanyl that is pouring over both borders. It’s causing massive disruptions in our cities and killing thousands of our citizens with drug overdoses. Let’s hope that the White House and Congress can find some consensus to bring about a logical and workable program for legal immigration in 2024. We need immigration, but we also need to know who they are and why they are coming here.
The other bad news was that the Republicans in Congress gave up an opportunity to lead and pass much needed legislation because they were frightened by the far right wackos in the party, and the few real Democrats that are still in congress were afraid to come to the middle and compromise because they feared the wackos on the far left. I am hoping that enough members of both houses will remember that politics is the art of compromise and that words like civility, and compassion will not be lost, and they find a way to get together and move the country forward in 2024.
The best news is that going into 2024 we are blessed to live in what is still the greatest and freest country in the world, and if you have been taught to think otherwise by the “Woke” agenda in public education, please look around you. You will see that millions of people from all over the world are risking their lives to come here, and most are leaving oppression in countries that are run by communist dictators. Count your blessings, not your complaints, you could have been born in North Korea or Russia.
Born, raised and educated in the Southwest, Jim Dickson served in the U.S. Navy Reserve in Vietnam before a 35-year business career. Retired to St. Helena Island, Dickson and his wife are fiscally conservative, socially moderate and active in Republican politics, though they may not always agree with Republicans. Having lived around the country and traveled around the world, Dickson believes that the United States truly is the land of opportunity.
