With New Mexico in the news, particularly Bernalillo County and Albuquerque in very negative ways, which the inimitable Roman Balmakov of "Facts Matter" clearly reports on, let us use that as an opportunity to
reframe what has been defined as the issue, from a different perspective. I want to zero in on the apparent misuse of what has been labeled as a "public health emergency" for what is, instead, a series of law enforcement emergencies. To do that we can consider a minimal amount of a few actual public health issues that can and do escalate into numerous individual emergencies, and compare those problems to an intention to recategorize a law-enforcement issue, instead, as a priority public health emergency
How about mosquito infestations as a public health issue, and the fact that some cities and counties do not spray unless they use pesticides, without ever informing people they will be spraying so they can at least plan around the initial damage, because the pesticides used are damaging in the short and long-term health of people and pets? Their smell tells on the pesticides with known damaging chemicals that should have been made illegal for use years ago, if not by the federal government then by the state government. Another problem arises when people rightfully point out the toxic pesticide problem, then cities and counties simply chose to not spray, instead of using available effective products that are non-damaging to people, pets, plants, and beneficial insects.
How about the myriad of very local problems that is the stench of dog litter when dog owners refuse to clean up their own yards.? Given increasing urban density, why are those same irresponsible people also encouraging their dogs to become pests because of frantic ongoing barking for hours at at time, or intermittently throughout a day or night, which of course interferes with the daily lives and sleep of those nearby whose lives are totally disrupted by the unnecessary, irresponsible noise and stink problems. After high humidity, drizzling, or rain, the stench of the dog litter becomes unbearable, making it impossible to let in fresh air. It is impossible for people nearby to do any needed work in their yards without barking and stench. The experience of enjoying yard work or the thought of simply sitting quietly for a time to enjoy being outside in fresh air and nature as the cooler air of Autumn is showing up, is not possible for people in nearby homes - because of the barking and stench. And of course, unaddressed, the problem spreads, throughout a block, community, and neighborhood,the same as the problem of naughty children spreads to other children, when ignored and unaddressed.
How about when local city and county councils vote to put fluoride into the water, some shortly before covid was known to be the public health emergency it became, although fluoride had not been in of the water for a number of years, for good reasons. Could anyone be blamed for considering it to be a transparent nefarious effort to use one of fluoride's notorious properties to calm the riff raff as was done during the Nazi regime? It is common knowledge there are no dental benefits to fluoridating the water, and that it accumulates in bodies to eventually contribute to and cause health conditions. Fluoridation is clearly an issue that requires a vote from a citizenry knowledgeable about it.
How about the larger scale dangerous and damaging toxicity that FDA still has not mandated be removed from what is supposed to be potable drinking water; and the fact that few water utilities will voluntarily go to the expense, themselves, of doing the filtering and sanitation required for adequate removal; and that few of the industries creating problems, will responsibly do the needed amount of filtering of their waste water before dumping it into what eventually becomes part of the public water supply?
How about doing something about quality of life issues, backed by ordinances at the city and county levels which are creating long-lasting on-going very real public health complications - some in very local areas, some regionally wide-spread?
All levels of government need to stop trying to ignore ongoing actual public health issues which have risen to the level of emergencies for increasingly more individual, the marginalizing made worse by trying to recategorize law-enforcement issues as priority public health emergencies instead, when law-enforcement emergencies of children being killed are not and never have been public health emergencies, but a problem with how crime is handled. As an aside the article "DOH releases data on child deaths in New Mexico" reports the numerous incidents of childhood deaths according to the New Mexico Department of Health in the New Mexico Child Fatality Review 2022 Report:
- 14%, or 23 children, died from child abuse, neglect, or homicide
- Almost 23%, or 37 babies, died from Sudden Unexpected Infant Death
- Youth suicide represented 27% of those deaths, or 44 children
- Unintentional injury made up most of those deaths - representing 36%, or 59 child deaths
There is a difference between emergency law-enforcement issues and public health emergencies. Emergency law-enforcement issues are a matter of life or death, often being immediate life or death incidents. Public health emergencies are almost always due to natural disasters thus injuries, with shelter, water, and food not being readily available, or as we experienced in recent times, a pandemic - plandemic as some would maintain, a label not less rational by those who research and deal in facts. To ignore the warning signs of slowly developing problems due to a lack of law enforcement, and due to ignoring on-going problems that slowly lead to creating public health problems, is unacceptable.
Public health issues depopulate slower, and cumulatively when not addressed, with children always being the most vulnerable. They are far less obvious. People should never have to wonder or ask if the problems are due to ignorance, negligence, or intentional life-threatening problems that slowly erode quality of life, and immune systems, through slow toxic pollution of water, air, and soil as a way to introduce directed toxicity into people's lives, small scale, large scale, and everything in between. - whether domestic or foreign directed. Such issues slowly become individual emergencies, often in clusters with cluster effects not looked for, thus they go unnoticed, officially, although they are evident and indicate growing problems. Eventually, after decades policies are revised or inacted in some cases, eventually, instead of exposure shining a light on intentional public neglect. Consider the eight year water crisis in Flint Michigan, until 2022 which was a full blown public health emergency yet it lingered on and on not seeming to be recognized as such.
We all know enough about toxic pollutant issues, either through casual conversation, as common knowledge, as common sense, or as academically based available scientific research. So it is impossible for any city, county, state government or federal departments to credibly feign and claim ignorance of the dangers. If that does not suggest a corruption problem that creates a variety of innumerable individual public health problems that cumulatively lead to an unrecognized public health emergency, then what is it if not corruption?
How can normal people have any amount of trust in elected and appointed government and public officials, who resort to the drama of extremism as a way to call attention to problems? Doing so looks like a clear case of hiding behind alarmism as a smoke screen to hide the fact nothing has been done about long term dangerous problems other than ignoring them. Then, someone responsible in a top-down way, for not requiring what was possible to manage the danger, suddenly zeros in on an already long-term danger as being an emergency - worse a public health emergency when it is, instead, a long-term life-threatening series of public dangers that have been ignored far too long?
Funny thing, totally without actual humor - the extreme effort in New Mexico to reframe blame in a way that violates the way a state constitution is used to interpret our nation's Constitution. As it should have, but did not, the proposed solution has addressed nothing to do with the dangers of damaging parenting and the children damaged for life by it, who are not required by parents and "the village" (e.g. school, religion, neighborhood, family, friends, ad infinitum) to be responsible. While they may be taught, there is not enough adequate oversight and enforcing of safe parenting after children have been harmed. Good parenting is work, challenging work at times. It isn't for sissies or people who can not step up and do it right. Instead some children are allowed to run wild without supervision and become an uncontrolled danger - managed instead by opportunistic criminals. As such they damage a number of their peers directly and indirectly in some way or another, not only through bullying, violence, and introducing illicit drug-use, but also through engaging in gang recruiting. That is no way for individuals and "the village" to raise children as the valuable assets they are and have the potential to become as responsible law-abiding adult citizens.
