What If Rush Limbaugh's House Was on Fire?
I wonder what Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Senator Jim DeMint, or the right-wing "tea party" crowd would say if they lived north of Los Angeles and their homes were threatened by wildfires.
I live in Pasadena, California where, only a few miles from my house, firefighters are currently battling the intense wildfires. These courageous government employees are risking their lives - two have already died - to save others' lives and properties. Since it began a week ago, the fire has swept through 121,000 acres - an area almost the size of Chicago. Residents of thousands of homes have been evacuated and many more are on alert. By any standard, the 3,600 fire fighters have done an outstanding job under extremely harsh conditions. Fire officials, meteorologists and others from many municipal and county governments, as well as the state and federal governments -- including the National Weather Service and the U.S. Forest Service - have seamlessly coordinated their efforts.
This catastrophe, and the heroic efforts of these public servants, is taking place while the country is debating whether government should play a larger role in health care. For weeks, conservatives - in Congress and in dozens of town hall meetings - have been attacking President Obama's health care plan by demonizing government in general. They claim that government is inherently inefficient compared with private business. They also argue that there is no "right" to health care. People who want health insurance should pay for it themselves. If they can't afford it - tough luck. Keep government out of our lives.
But I doubt that any of the conservative Congressmembers, the right-wing talk show hosts, or the angry tea-party activists who've been disrupting town meetings believe that fire-fighting is something that we should leave to the private sector. Homeowners purchase insurance from private companies in case their homes get destroyed by a natural disaster. But when it comes to protecting their homes from fires, the real insurance is the local Fire Department.
Fighting fires is a responsibility of government. It should not be done for profit or provided only to those who can afford to pay for it on a fee-for-service basis. We pay taxes so that government can employ firefighters, meteorologists, and others to protect people from harm, regardless of income, because it is in the public interest to do so.
President Obama's health insurance plan doesn't call for doctors, nurses, and other health professionals to become government employees. Hospitals and clinics, and the health professionals who work there, will remain private. What Obama has proposed is that government provide health insurance for people who can't afford, or don't want, private health insurance - essentially, an expansion of Medicare. That, too, is an appropriate role for government. But only if you believe that having affordable health insurance should be available to everyone, regardless of income.
The Limbaugh lunatics and their political allies are on a crusade to demonize government as evil, inefficient, and an abuser of liberty. Let them try to sell that ideology to the thousands of government employees who are fighting the fires north of my home - and to the families whose homes and lives are being saved by these courageous public servants.
If Rush Limbaugh's house were on fire, he'd feel right at home.
September 2, 2009 6:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
But I doubt that any of the conservative Congressmembers, the right-wing talk show hosts, or the angry tea-party activists who've been disrupting town meetings believe that fire-fighting is something that we should leave to the private sector.
Ohhh, no, I'm almost certain they would. Of course, they wouldn't say that each homeowner should purchase individual fire services. But I'm fairly confident that their view would be that municipalities, or even smaller communities within municipalities, would do better by contracting out fire-fighting services to the private sector. Of course, some large industrial complexes do employ private on-site firefighting services.
But in any case, I suspect that this is a bad analogy to use, since firefighting falls into the area of a "natural monopoly". You generally want only a single firefighting service handling a piece of geographical territory. This is not the case with health care.
September 2, 2009 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/us/18firefighters.html?_r=1
September 2, 2009 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Fire officials, meteorologists and others from many municipal and county governments, as well as the state and federal governments -- including the National Weather Service and the U.S. Forest Service - have seamlessly coordinated their efforts."
Many government agencies are working together--well. What's not happening? None of our taxes are going to line the pockets of anyone in the private sector.
September 2, 2009 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course they are.
The mountains around Los Angeles are, in their natural state, worthless dirt and uninhabitable by anyone other than cabin-building hermits.
Give the mountains fire protection and development follows and land owners' pockets bulge with cash -- all provided by the taxpayer.
September 2, 2009 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
What If Rush Limbaugh's House Was on Fire?
Well, if it were up to me, I'd let it burn.
September 2, 2009 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd ask him to go home and check to see if he left the iron on...
September 2, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lol
September 2, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
My immediate reaction to your use of Limbaugh in the title and as a story hook: it looks to me like you very much want to be mentioned on his show. Just sayin'
It's kind of curious how many Dems/progressives/liberals in the blogosphere not only let guys like Limbaugh frame conversations and the general national political discourse, always reactive, and sometimes even promoting their power in a way.
September 2, 2009 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would not cross the street to piss on it.
C
September 2, 2009 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would.
September 2, 2009 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a sack 'o crap. You are either dumber than a box of hair or a deliberate liar.
President Obama's health insurance plan doesn't call for doctors, nurses, and other health professionals to become government employees.>>
Of course it doesn't. It doesn't say Prez -0- is a Marksist either. But the eventual effect of a single-payer program inevitably leads exactly to that. Then it's too late -- altho liberal chowderheads like you will never admit it and never do the basic "due dilligence" to learn it for yourselves.
Hospitals and clinics, and the health professionals who work there, will remain private.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA -- they will Go Gault. The ones left behind will have First Aide merit badges and a Swiss Army knife.
What Obama has proposed is that government provide health insurance for people who can't afford, or don't want, private health insurance - essentially, an expansion of Medicare. --
What R U? Stoooopid or somethin'? Try readin the Bill. See the part about fining businesses that won't Play Doctor w/his O-ness? You're an idiot, a myrmidon or just have a serious reading-for-comprehension problem?
That, too, is an appropriate role for government.
"APPROPRIATE" ??? WHAT A MAROOON!! Look up "U S CONSTITUTION". Better yet - have someone find the page for you. We have RULES to run this government and APPROPRIATE ain't one of 'em.
Consider: Personal Responsibility. OOoops! Never mind. I forgot. You're flaming LIBERAL. All you believe in is stealing from Responsible Earners to "redistribute" to morons, laggards and idiots like you and your little audience of fellow clods here.
But only if you believe that having affordable health insurance should be available to everyone, regardless of income. --
Hard work, log hours, touogh courses and tons of tuition money went into getting health care as good as it is in America. Health Insurance would do quite well, thank you, if you and your amubulance chasing lawyers and smarmy politicicans (sorry, that's redundant)would get their greedy paws outta our pockets. Try "Tort Reform" if you need a hobby.
Damn you people are aggressively ignorant. No wonder the country has problems. Flame on. I gave up listening to the intellectually flaccid for Lent.
September 2, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Dreier,
I believe someone has answered your question on the wingnuts' behalf in this here Website.
Some may say it's a parody, but I say it's real - as real as death camps for old folks, and Barack HUSSEIN Obama's Kenyan birth certificate.
September 2, 2009 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
We pay taxes so that government can employ firefighters, meteorologists, and others to protect people from harm, regardless of income, because it is in the public interest to do so.
Damn right. Subsidizing UC-Berkeley professors and Marin County millionaires is right at the top of my to-do list.
Plant more eucs!
September 2, 2009 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd happily pee on it.
September 3, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rush Limbaugh lives on the east coast of Florida, he has said many times on his radio program that in hurricane season if the authorities order him to evacuate he does. Unlike the California boneheads standing in their front yards with garden hoses who refuse to admit they're taking a risk (or making a personal lifestyle choice) to live in a bankrupt state, run by environmental wackos, and next to a highly combustible forest!
Both New Orleans and California-specifically Los Angeles have been run by democratic party controlled governments for the last 50+ years, these liberal politicians have spent all their money on feel good social problems and now that a natural disaster is or has devasted their precious environment they want another bail out.
Nice way to confuse 'governments' too Peter, there'a a world of difference between allowing the Federal government in Washington to administer national health insurance (or is it health care? They can't seem to separate the two) and getting the local firefighters to put out a grass fire.
September 3, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it was Engels who said capitalists would haggle about the price of rope as they were on the way to the gallows. The "privatizers" remind me of nothing so much as that.
Somehow they have this suspicion that no public service is ever possible. All government can do is produce toxic waste.
Really?
If y'all don't want to be hypocrites, then you must (MUST!) drive no more than 20MPH on those government-built freeways. After all, you can't trust the government to build a good road.
According to them, the sacred private market produces the best and really only good outcomes. Pay no attention to Enron, Adelphia, Worldcom, the S&Ls, Teapot Dome, etc.
Only the truly clueless believe this is a fight between D's and R's. Democrats can kowtow to private interests, and subvert public service, as effectively as Republicans. Republicans are simply more transparently in the pocket of the interests that corrupt the public policy process.
Incidentally, one reason that New Orleans didn't beef up its levees is that they spent the money on the Superdome. One unconfirmed reports says that the dissenting parish leader who was standing firm for levees was put in a mental institution.
Meanwhile, the Superdome was built for the private interests that owned the NFL team playing there. You know those footballers are exempt from anti-trust legislation, so they can extort stadiums and other favors from the locales where they're popular by simply threatening to leave.
London has 13 soccer teams, none of them holding the city hostage by threatening to leave. But teams there don't get an anti-trust exemption. (Surprisingly, this is neither taxes nor spending, yet turns out to be *very* valuable.)
Finally, did you know that 3/4 of George W. Bush's reported net worth came from scamming the citizens of Arlington Tx out of a stadium (a mere $600 million subsidy to an otherwise money-losing sports team)?
September 4, 2009 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink