Thomas Lucente: Flint water crisis — You can’t make this stuff up

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The hypocrisy of the left is always entertaining, though quite dangerous. The thing is, they simply don’t see it.

Let’s take the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The crisis was a failure of government at all levels.

First, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality ignored residents’ concerns there was something wrong with the water they were getting from the Flint River water system, which was being used temporarily because city officials refused to renew its contract with the Detroit Water and Sewage Department and instead chose to go with the Karegnondi Water Authority and its proposal to bring water in from Lake Huron, which was still a few years from being completed.

Initial reports would have you believe the switch was made to save money. That fits in with the leftist narrative that austerity and responsible fiscal management is bad and government spending — the more the better — is always good.

However, that was not the case.

Government officials chose the KWA because the new project, while more costly to Flint residents, would create jobs and stimulate the economy.

That’s right, it was a stimulus project.

But the government clown show didn’t end there.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allowed the DEQ to use a faulty test to measure water quality and, of course, it failed to catch the problem.

Still, the DEQ could have solved the problem by adding phosphorus to the water at less than $50,000 a year but chose to do nothing. Then, when the EPA realized DEQ was not adding the phosphorus, what did it do? Nothing. It issued no warnings to the public. It remained absolutely silent.

Then the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services ignored blood tests showing increased lead levels in Flint residents.

While all this was happening, General Motors, a private entity, stopped using the Flint water because it was corroding car parts.

The leftist response to the Flint water crisis after it became public? We need more government.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Seriously, folks, if you can’t trust your government not to poison your water supply, how can you trust it to run your health care system? Or your retirement plan? Or your schools?

Don’t you just love leftists who clamor for government to regulate everything under the sun from cradle to grave and then seem shocked when government actors abuse that power? Then, without the least bit of irony, they call for more government control.

What has government given us in the last 15 years: Warrantless wiretapping; torture, kidnapping and detention; the growing surveillance society; the Patriot Act; government secrecy; no-fly lists; political spying; abuse of material witness statute; attacks on academic freedom; increasing police brutality and shootings; annual trillion-dollar deficits and a $19 trillion national debt; raids on farms selling raw milk; civil forfeiture on a grand scale, etc.

I could write a book on the dangers of government — one as large as the ever-growing Federal Register with numerous examples of how government ruins the lives of ordinary Americans on a daily basis.

Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus, said it best:

“A government that will lock you up in a cage for smoking weeds grown in your back yard is a government that will take your children away from you for playing basketball unsupervised in your own yard. That same government will also seize your cash and keep it from you even if you broke no law and are not charged with a crime. They’ll anally probe you against your will with a forced colonoscopy if they suspect you are hiding a small amount of drugs. They’ll break into your house with a SWAT team, kill your dogs and throw stud grenades that explode in your toddler’s face. …

“… For those of you who put faith in the government and tolerate them regulating your life, allow them to tell you what you can and can’t put in your body — which plants and weeds and what type of milk you’re allowed to ingest, accept government laws that force employers to pay their workers a mandated wage, etc., be careful what your wish for.”

By Thomas Lucente

[email protected]

Thomas J. Lucente Jr. is an Ohio attorney and night editor of The Lima News. Reach him by telephone at 567-242-0398, by email at [email protected], or on Twitter @ThomasLucente.

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