David Forbes of the Mountain Xpress has published a number of should-be controversial items in the budget Asheville City Council is expected to adopt next Tuesday. They are not controversial because they have caused no public outcry. They should be because they represent large public expenditures on causes other than basic city services. We’re talking about the usual greenways and cultural stuff that working-class taxpayers will never enjoy, and extensions of government inefficiencies into the private sector. If anybody in elective office is reading this, us peons out here know overhead costs.
Is there any need to belabor evidence of government not performing its basic responsibility of protecting personal liberties and not, as current experience dictates, granting some liberties to trounce all over all they survey? On a recent trip to a government agency, we saw many signs telling how this, that, and the other thing had to be cut due to budgetary constraints, and we saw bureaucrats uninterested in enforcing requirements of other agencies, even though a hazardous situation was in need of abatement. Although I am not at liberty to go into detail, I would like to share that the only people interested in solving the problem were those willing to step outside procedures and make extensive personal sacrifices. In essence, the state was saying one person’s right to do something commandeered hours of half a dozen others’ time for what may be an indefinite duration. But since those with compassion are not credentialed, we continue to have a situation.
Stepping up to the global level, the Hendersonville Times-News reports:
About a third of women worldwide have been physically or sexually assaulted by a former or current partner, according to the first review of violence against women.
If you follow the logic, another greenway will create more jobs, putting more money in the economy, lifting more people from poverty, and allowing more women to be liberated from oppression.
