On Crimes against Reason in Flint, Michigan

      On Crimes against Reason in Flint, Michigan

 

          I give two definitions to the phrase “crimes against reason”. A crime against reason, in the lesser sense, is a crime that makes no sense in its own terms. By flaws in planning, tactical or inherent, the misdeed cannot achieve the perpetrator’s goals. In retrospect the perpetrator shouldn’t have bothered to commit a crime with no reason.

          A crime against reason, in the greater sense, is a crime against Reason itself. It is a violation targeting the victim’s ability to think, and thus self-defend against the perpetrator’s other predations.

          The lead poisoning of the water in Flint, Michigan was a crime against reason, in the lesser sense. By saving $100 a day for three months, for a grand total in the tens of thousands of dollars, the manager of Flint did damage to the city pipelines that will cost many tens of millions of dollars; a loss-to-savings ratio in the thousands.

What’s more, lead is a neurotoxin, gravely affecting brain development in the very young. For many decades hence, thousands of children then alive in Flint will fall behind in IQ and impulse control, as a direct consequence of the Governor’s meddling in Flint’s water supply. Therefore the poisoning of Flint was a crime against reason, in the greater sense.

I submit that crimes against reason, in the greater sense, tend to turn into crimes against reason, in the lesser sense; for even the greatest crook is at the mercy of the stupidity of his neighbor.