What’s Important to Me
By JIM COWMIA
I need to step back and think about where to focus my attention as a conservative old white man in the Asheville area.
Welcome to Asheville/Buncombe
I recently turned 63 years old. I am a divorced grandfather living in Arden, North Carolina (about 12 miles south of Asheville). The mountains are beautiful here! The politics? Not so much!
Why? Well, take a tour of our elected officials in this area:
- The Asheville City Council consists of the liberal mayor and six liberal council women.
- The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners is composed of a single Republican representative and 6 democrats.
- We have three democrat statehouse representatives,
- one democrat state senator and one Republican state senator.
- We have a county sheriff who believes that it is okay for his office to refuse cooperation with US Customs and Border Control agents.
- Asheville seems to have a revolving door on its city police department. In fact, we are on the 5th city police chief since I moved here ten years ago. We have seen our share of police defunding protests, and because of that, the City manager has had to set her officer diversity program aside and focus instead on officer retention.
On the Flip Side…
Despite the politics, the naive populace and immature government representatives, I believe that I just might want to remain here for the rest of my life. There is plenty of high quality health care, senior living facilities and fresh air. The climate is nice, and the neighbors are friendly. However, this area is “blessed” with more than its fair share of liberals.
If left unchecked, I am concerned that liberals in this area and across this country will move ever closer to marxism. For example, they are already inviting non-citizens to re-locate to this area. Asheville’s mayor was photographed sitting rapt on the front row at a speaking engagement of the author of ‘The 1619 Project’. I anticipate that she and her woke city council and board of county commissioners will work to bring that garbage into our public schools.
I will not allow the liberals to decide that I do not belong here and then push me out. The amount of work that needs to be done here in order for me to stay safe, comfortable and happy is overwhelming! I can’t do it all at once, but I need to work on getting it done! I have to focus my attention as a conservative old white man in the Asheville area on what I think is most important to me and use that understanding to help me determine where to put my effort and how to pick my battles.
So, What is Important?
I am grateful for so many important “things” in my life! I am in decent health. My pets are healthy and content. I love my beautiful home and my partner. However, in this post, I am interested in identifying those things of importance that can be affected by me, my government and my community. For what and against what must I fight?
The list below is my starting point. It will be dynamic in terms of content and priority. I can use this list to guide my focus – where might I really bring some attention and influence?
- Freedom, as guaranteed by the constitutions of the United States and of North Carolina.
- Law enforcement and order. Public safety and Defense of Policing.
- Election Integrity.
- Responsible and effective elected officials. Fiscal responsibility in government.
- Identify and demand the destruction of corruption – punishment of corrupt persons and addressing the lack of preventative measures.
- Prevention and remediation of illegal immigration.
- Identify and prevent attempts to indoctrinate children to the leftist agenda.
- Responsible and balanced media.
- Small government vs. Big government.
- Destruction of tech oligarchy.
- Military strength.
- Limiting China’s local and world influence.
What’s Next?
Having created this list of guiding principles, I can now create a plan of actions that will help me support them. I will use this blog to keep track of these action items. If I can build any support for this blog, I can use it to solicit ideas from like-minded folk. In addition to keeping track of action items, I can track issues and questions. I can report on actions completed and what (if any) affect they have had on influencing the above principles.
This is all just a work in progress. I have no blogging experience or experience working with government. To those who peek at this blog and who do have the experiences that I lack, I hope you will be kind in offering suggestions and comments.
Thank you for reading this post!
