What’s with all the hero worship and expectations of local, state, and national politicians? Does anyone really expect any solutions from a government that has grown beyond belief since the sixties? No one seems to blame a downhill societal decline, often fostered by government idealists, even as those ideals meant a cushy tax-supported career for multi-generations of government employees removed from the daily grind. Multi-generations of government careers and government social program recipients. That includes the military. Also, Higher Education, in multitudes.
Those dreamy ideals also provided a somewhat removed from reality existence for multi-generations of poor people. People made poorer as industries left for cheaper labor. People not looking for work, and not counted as unemployed for decades? Statistics lie. Just look around. Best thing going is government employment, and if it’s all you want in life, gov’t assistance.
Even the military is now often multi-generational, and is a better career choice than most in private enterprise. It’s been all volunteer since the seventies, and expensive.
Real production chased cheap labor elsewhere, and unpleasant labor intensive occupations are now being filled by people from far away. Export industry that you don’t want in your backyard, then allow/import people to do what makes life more pleasant. Make sure you train your children to know they’re better than that, and shield them from all unpleasantries. Help Higher Education in their marketing efforts as they make promises they can’t keep.
Meanwhile, hit Walmart, Amazon, and Ebay and buy stuff cheaper than I ever imagined. Life’s great if you’ve got some money. Good times for some of us, buying amazingly inexpensive products while riding the backs of working stiffs all over the world. Working stiffs with little hope of a bright future.
Isn’t everybody tired of false marketing about everything until you don’t believe anything you read or hear until proven otherwise? Slick marketing became cheap and available to almost everyone with the onset of the internet. For years now, I’ve watched the illusions multiply from early TV and written media, to personal websites and now all the social media possibilities today. Comparing the online illusions to reality is depressing and laughable at the same time. Anyone can see that ain’t really you.
Has no one else compared the illusions shown to you and how far removed they are to real life experiences? Do you believe all the marketing hype strewn everywhere, even on this forum over there?……>
Read the below “interview” carefully as you try to fill in the REAL facts that are omitted. View it entirely as marketing fabrications to be picked apart. Remember, this so-called interview was via email, so he or whomever had plenty of time for embellishment. What is the real truth?
Mochen retired, with a pension and moved to Ashe. Why?
He mentions the wonders of dealing with the population explosion in Florida and how that relates to here. What? Look at where he came from, and decide.
As a new arrival, he offers no real reasons for choosing Ashe. Girlfriend? Family? Floridian acquaintances already here? Saw a job opening online? The answers may be out there, but I don’t do Facebook, twitter, or Instagram.
http://ashecountyline.com/e...365-95.htm
Check out Stuart, FL and compare it to anything in Ashe County. Ever been through that area? Do many of you feel the four-lane will cause a population explosion here? Watauga doesn’t have that many jobs. The leftover wealth of the Golden Era will eventually disappear. I’ve seen money from selling the original big trees here last sometimes three generations. One hundred years ago is not a very long time. Old money is disappearing. More wagon loads of money will need to be hauled up the mountain to continue.
In order to bolster the local economy, any new businesses will have to provide good paying, long lasting jobs. Where are those, other than in government? What non-government employers will provide a lifelong job remotely comparable to those in government and education, including the military? Can everybody make a good living selling ice cream, sandwiches, and alcohol?
Look at law enforcement in the city of Stuart and Martin county. The population explosion mentioned in the “elect me” email I’d say resulted in a budget windfall gladly spent by those in local government, law enforcement, and fire and rescue. Helicopter, patrol boat, flashy, new buildings, and a social club atmosphere in a coastal tourist playground area.
https://www.coastall...rt-florida
https://www.facebook...epartment/
https://www.facebook...ffsOffice/
Martin County is third in per capita income in Florida.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...ta_income#
https://www.google.c...p;ie=UTF-8
Although Ashe County has benefitted greatly from altitude and the resultant property tax windfall, it ain’t Martin County, and probably won’t ever be. Some of us don’t want it to be.
What are the choices for sheriff? A number of candidates with basically nothing but government employment as a background. An outsider, a young up-and-coming multi-generational descendant of past local government employees steeped in local privilege, and others.
Talk about multi-generational government career families, look at this. Very slick in a social media sense, and very appealing, as it should be, considering past experience with technology and social media. But all the candidates have known basically only government former employment.
I appreciate the teaching for concealed carry, and at first glance, it seems a dedicated LEO admitting they can’t be everywhere always, and that law-abiding citizens have the right to protect themselves. But my skeptical side says it provides a little extra income for the instructor and the sheriff’s department, and feel-good exposure.
He mentions the problems with stealing, drugs, and other county ills. My wife and I for decades hoped for a rural retirement here, but after listening to stories of break-ins, trespassing, and after realizing you can tell it’s a weekend out in the boonies without a calendar, decided to heck with that. We like good, close by neighbors.
http://philhowellforsheriff...boutbphil/
Having left home for military service and for-profit job opportunities fifty years ago, and returning to escape heavily populated areas and the aggravations that brings, a number of members of my Old Farts Club recognize that low population density, a fairly mild climate, and a regional identity are part of what makes the area most attractive. A quiet place to retire without the headaches of increased population.
Once that quiet place to sit, enjoy, and reflect in what seemed all these years to my wife and I as a relatively unspoiled corner of NC is gone, so is the area’s appeal to many.
I have nothing personal against nor strong feelings for any of the candidates for sheriff. I’ve never needed their assistance. I am pro-law enforcement, but expect budgetary restraint to reflect the reality seen by those outside government employment. For decades, except for a few cases that require intensive investigation, it’s arrest, incarcerate, release, repeat. Even the new jail was touted as a money-maker years ago. Law enforcement is just another long-held government institution doing the same thing over and over and an expensive burden.
The worst thugs are shipped elsewhere to run the prisons from inside, where the real working class dogs of law enforcement ride herd, while local law enforcement tries to decide where to go eat.
Don’t bombard me with feel-good popularity contest-based social media hype. Don’t make it a social club for law-abiding citizens. Admit that it’s basically an impossible job that won’t solve our problems, but has great pay for the local area along with early retirement and a pension. The type of career that has disappeared from the landscape outside government. I barely made it, and feel a little guilty compared to young people working outside government, and their bleaker futures.
Even most of the opinion editorialists in newspapers are products of government and educational institutions and have only known tax-supported careers.
I just hope my government dependency, mainly Medicare, remains solvent long enough. We Boomers lived in really good times, and many of us now stroll about eating ice cream, specialty foods, drinking craft beers and wine, while looking to buy something not mass-produced, all over the country in touristy/gentrified areas. Hopefully it doesn’t come to mean Boomers and Busters. Supposedly the Roaring Twenties was a lot of fun for some. Not my family.
