Why?
People who climb mountains and those who launch new businesses are different only in the way they choose to pursue their passion.
If you accept this premise (which I don't), then those who shoot heroin, those who choose to live on the street, etc are also different only in the way they choose to pursue their passion. Should society encourage those activities also? I would say no, that what you are arguing is that there is no absolute scale of judgement on activites, and that one activity is as good as another, which to me is moral relativism. There are absolutes. Founding a business in no way equates to mountain climbing.
You could try to prevent risky activities in order to score a short-term gain,
You are assuming a risk of diving in the middle without having read the previous posts. Nowhere did I say that these activities should be prevented - my position is that doing stupid risky things is neither noble nor brave, it's just stupid and risky and if people want to do it let them, but also let them take the responsibilities for their actions. Further, when the stupid risky thing backfires on the risk taker the taxpayer shouldn't have to bail the person out.
The National Park Service pays a total of $3 million annually for SAR activities....most conservatives would agree that emergency response is a legitimate function of government.
I'm sure that the Katrina evacuees who sat there and chanted "when's someone going to do something for us" would agree with you. When I got a ride in the ambulance I got a bill for $250 from the county (which I paid). The same philosophy for these guys should any of them survive (which is looking unlikely) Send them a bill for services rendered.
Third, as to your comment that they were unprepared, the SAR folks on the scene have stated that they were in fact well prepared.
This is an obvious error, since in fact if they were well prepared they would have not been in the trouble they were in.
But perhaps sitting behind your keyboard 2500 miles away gives you some special insight that those on the mountain lack.
And with this personal attack you just lost the argument. I'm quite familiar with the risks of mountain climbing, and a guarantee you that smart climbers don't start out in the face of an incoming storm. (Smart climbers don't do the Eiger wall either)
So the only calculation to be made is to determine whether or not the tiny cost borne by the taxpayer is worth the overall societal benefit.
The "tiny costs" add up and add up until we have the welfare society that we have today. Let me give an analogy: Suppose that you have a friend who is dying, but unlike the real world, the friend can have his life extended by 1 minute if someone else donates 2 minutes of their life. If 20 million people donate 1 minute of their lives, then your friend can get 20 years. Great benefit for your friend, and no one else would ever notice the difference by having their lives shortened by 1 minute. Now suppose the government makes it mandatory that everyone do this for everyone who is worthy. The average life expectance would go down to about 35 years (and aI would die retroactively about 25 years ago), So what the bleeding hearts tout as compassion is really nothing of the sort if is is extracted by force. as far as volunteers go - God love 'em and if that's what they what to do great.
Perhaps that just makes me a "chest pounding phoney macho man".
No it just makes you wrong.
The alternative is to have a bunch of government boot lickers manadate that activity X is off limits for either certain time periods, or always.
For young healthy people, climbing Mt. Hood is the challenge, but it could be equally life challenging to decide you want to walk 20 blocks when you're 90 years old. If you go down then, you're going to consume the resources of society, and I'd posit that the number of elderly who require recovery from trips to the park or walks around the block FAR exceed the number who require recovery from climbing expeditions.
Having "no public rescue" periods would probably also diminish the number of failed expeditions too, because the perception that you will be rescued probably injects a certain amount of moral hazard insurance into the decision to attempt the activity...