Goddam those socialist firefighters

[barking_iguana]

Tina Dupuy at Huffington:

Firefighting in the 1800's: A Corrupt, Bloated, Private For-Profit Industry

...

Firefighting used to be a private for-profit industry. In the 1800's, the early days of urbanization, in cities like New York and Baltimore, there were private "clubs" or "gangs" who were in charge of putting out fires. The infamous Boss Tweed started his illustrious political career at a volunteer fire company. The way it functioned was the first club at the scene got money from the insurance company. So, they had an incentive to get there fast. They also had an incentive to sabotage competition. They also often ended up getting in fights over territory and many times buildings would burn down before the issue was resolved.

...we'd have socialism-phobic South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint on the TV every chance he could get saying things like, "Do you want a government bureaucrat between you and the safety of your home?"

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio would hold press conferences and ask, "Do you want your firefighting to be like going to the DMV? Do you want Uncle Sam to come breaking down your door every time some Washington fat cat says there's a fire?"

I remember reading about the private fire companies in other contexts before. They had as much in common with Farenheit 451 as with suburban volunteer fire companies.

h/t Karl Frisch

Comments

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Actually I think those guys would scream ‘Fire!’ and tremble curled up in a corner.

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

But... but... frei market uber alles! Don't you know governments are corru...

screw it, I can't even muster up the energy on this one for a good lampooning of the randroid response.

Glad we're still living in pre-revolutionary times. Still can't help thinking Ayn Rand has the potential to be to the 21st century what Karl Marx was to the 20th. Let's keep reminding people of things like this.