Dr. Carl Mumpower has published a list of comments on the thrashed-to-death water dispute in Asheville. My amateur psychoanalysis of the psychologist who used to serve on city council is that he is very conscientious and among the best in resisting string pullers. In typical form, Mumpower opted out of the dog and pony show the city held on Friday to do his own thing. I still welcome advocates of H488 to present arguments in which I can’t punch holes. The best to date comes from Senator Tom Apodaca, who said yours truly tries to look intelligent by keeping her mouth shut.
Mumpower refutes five false claims circulating about Asheville’s management of the water system. As I was telling somebody a couple hours ago, I was covering the story a decade or so ago, and I’ve watched the lies from the anti-Asheville group mutate. The anti-Asheville arguments were internally-inconsistent in the beginning, they felt creepy, and even politicians have flip-flopped their positions.
Of greatest interest is Mumpower’s #3:
“Asheville deserves what they’re getting.” – City residents and neighbors with a conservative take on the issues have every right to resent and resist Asheville’s liberal propensity for special interests, spending other people’s money, social reengineering, and “anyway you like it” values. In America, people of principle fight those misbehaviors with engagement, voting, active protest, and other responsible means. Revenge politics whereby core principles are betrayed, truth is manipulated, and theft is validated represent power politics – not leadership. It is not possible to get to good places through bad means.
That made me think about all the direct action we could take if we didn’t have to be politically-correct. If we could still say it is wrong for kids to be having babies, it is wrong to gobble up all the welfare you can and get your friends addicted to it, it is wrong to buy beer and cigs until there is not enough left to pay the bills – we wouldn’t have to put cities under siege to control the costs of behaviors known since the beginning of history to wear and tear society.
