Bushfires are terrible, and I can't imagine what it would be like to lose my home in a fire. I remember a couple times in my life where looking out from the veranda of the family home, seeing the dry grass on the low hills in the distance, steadily turning black. And a couple times whilst living in Cairns, the rain-forested mountains burning. I have friends who have lost their homes to forest fires, and it seems like a horrible experience.
Having said that, even the things that are irreplaceable, they are still just things. Personal things though, and often, and especially at times of loss, we identify heavily with the items that we have lost, even if they are at other times, those same items are incredibly insignificant.
What has been interesting in the Hollywood fires raging now, is that a lot of those affected are among the most privileged people on earth, and many of the homes burned are worth many millions, but aren't necessarily the largest part of the owners wealth. When a normal person loses their home, they likely lose the largest investment they have, but that is not necessarily the case here, with billionaires and people worth hundreds of millions living in the area. Regardless of the wealth though, the house and contents is still a home for most of these people, and it is of course going to hurt.
What I have found though, is that it is harder to be as compassionate for their plight, even though the media is really trying to push the situation. This fire may be the most expensive in history, but is it the most devastating in terms of human life? Is it the hardest to recover from?
The other aspect I am interested by, is how the blame is being put on the liberal government by those who have been supporting that saw liberal perspective. The lack of unpreparedness for what is a common event in the area, is astonishing, but it is also par for the course in much of the US, isn't it? There are also mass flooding events and widespread sage in places where hurricanes hit, because the infrastructure isn't designed for the conditions. And a lack of equipment to deal with snow and ice, in places where it often snows and freezes. At least from the outside looking on through the lens of the international media, it seems that the money of the wealthiest country on earth, isn't spent on being prepared.
Maybe it is by design?
I saw an estimate of current costs of the fires at around 60 billion dollars, but that isn't lost money, it is a future spend on rebuilding, isn't it? This makes it an economic stimulus package for the area, and will generate more wealth, whereas the cost of preventative measures are just that, a cost. The LA fire department has had its finding decreased recently, because the governments have to be more efficient. This might not do much though, as the governments are also incompetent. Giving them more money doesn't mean a better outcome.
I saw the "outrage" at some celebrity I didn't know who was asking if anyone had access to private firefighters. Geez, the entitlement. However, why didn't the same celebrity pay for private forest caretakers? Instead of hiring an entourage of assistants to cater to every need and desire, maybe the most privileged on earth should have invested a tiny portion of their immense wealth to be prepared, and pay to maintain the forests and clear the dry brush?
The argument of course is that this is what their tax money pays for, but also remember that these people are not paying the same tax percentage on their wealth as the average person, because at their level, they have access to all kinds of taxation reductions and loopholes. I wonder how many of the owners of the houses burned, have their money on tax haven?
None of this takes away from the fact that governments are indeed incompetent. But, it is also this incompetence that allows for the wealthy to have financial privileges that the rest don't have access to. If the government is meant to treat all citizens equally, why would the Hollywood hills have any more resources available than Compton?
But we know that is not the case and it is unequal.
Governments are terrible at identifying community needs and allocating resources, so is it any wonder that fire hydrants have no water available? And remember, fores in California are no outlier event, they are common, with tens of thousands of smaller ones each year. But when conditions align, things can get out of control very fast, and become an outlier event.
As unfair as it might sound, perhaps the most privileged shouldn't be relying on government incompetence, because they can afford not to. They spend huge amounts to get their kids into private schools and probably pay more on insurance per year than the average person earns, and often pays for private security. Why not with a little of their hidden from tax money, they fund their own private resources?
Would the average citizen have any objections?
Yes.
It would likely be seen as unfair, even though the system already in use is possibly even more unfair. Even if it frees up resources to be spent elsewhere, people don't seem to like seeing better conditions for the wealthy, just because they are wealthy.
There are obviously many caveats to be considered here, because there is a lot of complexity, but what we do know for certain is that resources are not used well by governments. If however we could choose how our resources are used, would it be as bad?
For example, if there was a flat tax rate that everyone paid, and 50% of it was available to the government to cover essential services and basics like, basic schooling, infrastructure, roads and military defense, and 50% was allocated by the users to other things like, additional schooling military offense, would distribution of expenditure change at all? If the Hollywood hills burn because the money available was spent by the people to save fish in reservoirs, then responsibility lays equally on the government and the people.
Responsibility is important, but paying for a government means that we don't have to take responsibility for the decisions of the government. This isn't a question about left and right either, because government ineptitude to effectively spend resources is on both sides of the aisle. But when people are spending their own resources directly, they are far more careful and thoughtful about where it is spent. Even the extremely wealthy. Maybe, especially them.
We shouldn't be political activists, we should be responsible citizens. But in order to take responsibility for our actions, we need to have access to our resources. We shouldn't have to beg and convince others as to how we are going to spend our own money, should we?
We keep on seeing it spent poorly and blame those we proxy to make our decisions, and then proxy the next as if they are going to be better. Governments aren't getting better, they are getting worse, because they are not in the policy game and they aren't held accountable for their actions.
When kings and queens fucked their people over too much, it was off with their heads, one way or another. Now, we have professional politicians that no matter how poor they are, they can have a career for life. We have professional politicians, with very little accountability.
How many times must the system of government fail, before we change the system instead of the government?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
