Libertarianism at work, for realz

Aw. Aren’t the flibbertigibbertarians adorable when their “principles” come, literally, under fire? Glenn Fucking Beck sure was. He waxed all racist on a family who didn’t pay the $75 mafia extortion protection racket subscription fee the local fire department charged, in line with the whole Small Government Run Like a Business thing. And when their house burned down, the newly liberated fire department stood by, crossed their arms, and let it.

And when the incident was duly noted and criticized by progressive media sites, the defensive reaction was fun to watch. Alternet’s Josh Holland also makes the interesting point that it would be cheaper and more effective to run the government like a government, not a private, for-profit business:

Anyway, Think Progress reports today that they’re expanding the subscription service to additional towns in the county. And, also, that providing full fire coverage for the entire county would result in a whopping 0.13 percent increase in property taxes.

Which, I’m guessing, comes to much less than $75 per household, on average. (Especially with the US housing market in a state of collapse. That was Dubya’s “Ownership Society” at work, remember?)

Actually, this is the reason “socialized” (tax-funded) fire departments are such a success, while “subscription” (i.e. mafia protection racket) ones flop time and again. (That, and the arson associated with that latter. No shit, it’s happened repeatedly.) What’s the point of having a fire department if it only fights SOME fires, and lets others burn?

But to the flibbers, it’s no matter. As Think Progress notes, the flibbers were too busy debating what injects “crunchiness” into “our soggy, fallen world” while that poor family’s house was burning. And that’s entirely in line with what they’re like overall, anyway. So obsessed with their bogus principles that the practical just totally eludes them. They aren’t fit to run a pop stand, much less our world, on the basis of that epic-fail ideology. But since they’re well financed by wingnut welfare, it’s not like they have to really care, or even put much intellectual effort into it. Any fatuous nonsense they babble will get published, clockwork-like, by some right-wing stink tank or other.

If any of their houses were on fire, and they hadn’t paid their protection racket money, I wouldn’t chip in to save them. I wouldn’t even offer them a full chamber pot. Let them put it out themselves, if they’re manly enough to. Let them piss it out.

Hey, it’s the principle of the thing!