Asheville – Why is it that so many weakly educated, well-intended people seem to always think that the solution to any perceived problem is to throw more money at it? Even when there is no problem, these folks like to throw more money at their perceived problems as though that will somehow improve and blow away the ghosts they conjure up.
Lately, this stupidly hostile thought process has shown up in the ra-ra vote to raise Woodfin’s Town Council wages by 300%. For what? Why? because they are paid less than some other city council members. Only the severely uninformed and weakly educated would give credence to that argument. To begin with, no one has to run; they have only to want to serve. I know ‘serve’ is a term that has fallen out of fashion for many, especially those feeling that somehow serving is a pejorative expression meant only for belittling someone. It is certainly not a term that a young lawyer would want to have to wrap around himself.
Secondly, many woke folks assume that earning less is a sign that someone’s education has been stripped from them. It certainly can be a sign of this, as is being proven out in our schools today: the government’s own data shows that a third of its government schools’ victims may not be capable of performing basic mathematics due to its dumbing down standards, and hence certainly the outgoing crop may make a good deal less. However, there is no reason whatsoever to assume that the reverse is true. Simply being paid more does not guarantee that good thinking will follow, nor does it guarantee that a willingness to serve harmoniously will ensue.
No one is crying out that a pay rise is perhaps not deserved. However, it does by no means follow that it is because of some sort of manufactured white privilege, or low-income wages in other professions, that holds others back. Many can serve who truly want to. However, there are, in addition, other elementary considerations that could be considered to improve the credibility of the members of the council first. Have they all read the Constitution? Have they all read the Declaration of Independence? What did each one know about their land use? What is the state of health care? What can be done to improve learning for all? Etc. Etc.
There are many questions that need to be considered before ‘how does our pay stack up against Marion’? Anyone asking that is simply asking the wrong question to begin with.
Our main concern should be trying to answer the question of what we would like to see Woodfin become, not with questions that have little or nothing to do with that.