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To: Carry_Okie

Weather turning wildfire outlook from bad to worse.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=052404a1_wildfires

I wasn't aware that it took a person of a certain
political stripe to suffer from wildfire or even to
organize to defend from them. After all, firefighting
is something the taxpayer pays for. And the taxpayer
gets to ortganize how that's done, up to and including
the ANG in the case of large air tankers.

I do know that in the pioneer days, often one town
with taxpayer resources would refuse to send
another town (or anybody outside the town's tax grab)
to help with taxpayers' superior firefighting resources.

Then, there are the cases where everybody pitched in
to help on the fire (or even to build a barn in the
aftermath). Is that socialist too?


61 posted on 05/24/2004 7:18:23 AM PDT by JohnA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies ]


To: JohnA
After all, firefighting is something the taxpayer pays for.

And pays, and pays, and pays. The worse the forest gets, the more we pay. The more Federal bureaucrats get involved the slower they get. The slower and more ineffective the firefighters are, the more money they make. That's just how the motivational architecture works. Did you read that link I put op on the other thread about the Winter Fire?

I do know that in the pioneer days, often one town with taxpayer resources would refuse to send another town (or anybody outside the town's tax grab) to help with taxpayers' superior firefighting resources.

Ever heard of a cooperative contract?

Then, there are the cases where everybody pitched in to help on the fire (or even to build a barn in the aftermath). Is that socialist too?

Not at all. Volantarism has nothing to do with socialism. Of course, today the wood for the barn would come from Siberia because the charred poles on FEDERAL land a half mile away would be off-limits because the courts let them rot before deciding what to do (besides, the sawmill is long gone). Then the brush comes up and together with the residual fuels you get an even hotter fire a decade or so later.

Great system. At least the lawyers are making money.

63 posted on 05/24/2004 7:38:33 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to be managed by central planning.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies ]

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