OPINION: Washington City leaders seek forgiveness versus permission or maybe neither
Written by Dallas Hyland
Last week I ran a piece about Washington City officials numerous and incredulous accounts of just what exactly they were doing at the Warm Springs, otherwise known as the Boilers.
They still have not answered questions in any way that does not confound the intelligent mind, and so a bit of a quagmire has ensued. Meanwhile, inquiries continue to be made not only with the City, but with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, local citizens and experts, and lastly, the mysterious developer who is working with the City in an “in kind” arrangement purported by the mayor.
But to momentarily digress on another matter to incite if you will another relevant conversation about a glaring hypocrisy that bleeds from the very seams of the Utah community at large, Utah is a reportedly predominantly red state inhabited largely by a predominant Mormon culture whose often unspoken creedo is that they will someday restore the Nation’s Constitution.
In light of how blatantly this state flagrantly ignores the core tenants of the country’s founding documents, one is left to wonder if their plan is not so much to restore the constitution as it is to simply rewrite it in their own favor.
The State’s insistent stance on issues such as gay marriage, land rights, and alcohol lend to an overlying tone of a double standard whereby the validity and freedom guaranteed this culture by way of those documents cannot be held against them while at the same time that very yard stick is used to apply their own moral imperatives upon others, constitutional or not.
This lays the foundation for some bad days ahead. Especially here locally.
Emo Philips famously declared, “I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.”
Put another way, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?
They do not feel the least bit compelled to answer directly to the charge that they acted impetuously and out of turn without abiding their own policies and procedures, let alone state and federal laws. Instead they bullishly make counter accusations at those pesky “pot stirrers” and try to divert attention from direct questioning by asserting that anyone who cannot see the good they are doing is simply missing the point.
This is a prevalent theme in the anti-eco-political sphere here that mirrors with succinct resemblance the same things Utah citizens decry about an overbearing federal government. Sick and tired they are of corporate lobbyists who shape legislation by way of the power of financial influence creating backroom deals that benefit their friends at the cost of the constituent.
Sometimes I am a little slow on the uptake folks but this situation at The Boilers smacks of the same things. Deals made between leaders and business owners with neither consideration of the voters consent nor their permission.
But the glaring question is this: How the hell do they keep getting away with it? The answer sadly falls upon an apathetic voter base which is complicit by default.
That’s right, I just blamed the scum baggery of local government on you, the reader. Think about it.
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