In particular, I’m speaking of fire and police departments across the country. These programs leech off us, allowing the government to steal money from our hard-earned paychecks for the sole purpose of saving homes, businesses, and people from the carelessness of liberals who want no accountability for their actions. Instead, they want the government to swoop down and intervene whenever a few flames engulf their property or lives. It’s a slippery slope toward ever-increasing government control and interference in our lives.

We shouldn’t have to pay to save them from their laziness. They should be responsible for their own actions and protection.  The free market should dictate who is saved, when they are saved, and attach a fair price. It worked wonders for ancient Rome’s Marcus Crassus, and it worked after the great London fire of 1666, when homes certified by fire insurance companies got plaques indicating that they should be saved first. Homes without insurance didn’t get plaques, and the private fire brigades viewed them as so much kindling.

Public funds are growing scarce. Who wants to save the neighbor’s house when he’s constantly having annoying parties with loud music and an overgrown lawn which resembles an automobile hospital triage?  Not anyone with any sense.

We must not let this Red fascination with “common good” invade “common sense.” We should allow those places who refuse to pay for protective services to get what they deserve. The owners of potentially burning properties need to take personal responsibility to keep fires at bay.

The bleeding heart crowd loves to sell out our country to a communist idealism that is present within modern-day fire brigades and police departments. These publicly funded bureaucracies are too inefficient to deal with today’s modern crime and fire. Privatization is the only way to go. Let the so-called victims of fire, theft, or other acts of man or nature pay a fee for services rendered before they happen. That’s the way business works in our capitalist democracy; you pay for services, and the more you pay, the better the service. If you can’t pay for the service, then you lose, or you give your property as collateral.

It’s a simple plan, and it will save us from the Godless Communism that threatens our sovereignty. The Founding Fathers would never have agreed to anything related to the Common Good, I’m absolutely certain of it, and since being certain without reason is good enough for our President, it’s good enough for me.

Links:

• http://www.chicagofirepatrol.com/Chicago_Fire_Insurance_Patr.html

• http://rawstory.com/news/2007/As_public_firefighting_decays_billion_dollar_1210.html

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassus

• http://www.reason.org/ps152.html

• The Guardian’s Rose Shapiro ponders: “Could this be the moment when alternative medicine finally gets the reputation it deserves and is seen for what it is - a massive social and intellectual fraud?” (The answer is, of course not. AM believers aren’t about to let a little thing like “evidence” shake their faith.)

• If getting coffee is part of the job description, the fact that she’s a woman doesn’t mean that asking your secretary to get coffee is sexist. (Asking her to serve it topless is DEFINITELY sexist. Or the theme for a Maxim photospread. But I’m being redundant.)

• You can be legally married by clergy in Pennsylvania, as long as it’s the right kind of clergy. (God Bless America. No, not your god. My god. Duh.)

• The Child Online Protection Act is still unconstitutional. (Being elected to Congress means never having to say “The law we passed infringes on the constitutional rights of adults to view acts of consensual sex. Our bad.”)

Roger Ebert posted an item on his website that purports to be from someone practicing selective breeding of M&Ms.

Here’s how he describes the selection process:

I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them breaks and splinters. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, along with a 3×5 card reading, “Please use this M&M for breeding purposes.”

Aside from a hearty chuckle, I had a couple of reactions. First, this method doesn’t guarantee that the fittest will survive the process. The survivor is always the winner of the last “duel.” If a superior M&M, weakened by the stresses of several previous rounds, happens to splinter when paired up with an inferior, but previously unsqueezed specimen, then the “winner” of this final matchup might be less fit than many others in the bag.

The only way to prevent this would be to create a bracket system, like in a sports tournament. Only match winners against winners from other rounds, and make sure that each contest is played out between individuals that have been subjected to the same number of stressful squeezings. This would go a long way toward ensuring that you’ve chosen the fittest to survive.

My second thought was that I’m a gigantic nerd, and I really need to knock it the hell off once in awhile.