-Caveat Lector-
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From: "JILL" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date sent: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 06:08:24 -0400
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Subject: [PCL] Socialist Fire, Socialist Death
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http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=740
Socialist Fire; Socialist Death
by Walter Block
[Posted July 30, 2001]
The headline in the newspaper was horrendous: "Wildfire kills 4
firefighters in N. Cascades." Pictured was Pete Soderquist, the fire
management officer in charge on the Cascade Mountains in central Washington
state, who explained that the deaths occurred "when what had been a
five-acre fire exploded into a wall of flame that trapped the crew."
Also featured in photographs were the four firefiighters who perished:
30-year-old Tom Craven, 18-year-old Karen Fitzpatrick, 21-year-old Devin
Weaver, and 19-year-old Jessica Johnson, all who lived in either Ellensburg
or Yakima, Washington.
Any time there is a death of a human being, it is a tragedy (the reaction
of the overpopulationists to the contrary notwithstanding). When death
occurs for any reason other than old age, it is even worse. When death is
not instantaneous and relatively painless, this is worse yet.
When the victims are four people in the prime of their lives, the degree of
catastrophe rises even more, in view of the now never-to-be-realized
potential these four youngsters might have attained had they lived.
So far, these comments are pretty conventional. Very few would demur. But
there are two controversial points to be made about this tragedy, both of
which may teach important lessons.
First, this calamity occurred on public property, not private. The flames
that consumed these four people were in the Okanogan and Wenatchee National
Forests and are believed to have been set near Thirty Mile Campground,
another example of socialized land ownership. Now, I am not saying that
deaths never occur on private property, nor am I maintaining that these
particular occurrences necessarily would have been avoided had these lands
been under private control.
The two are related, however. When a forest fire consumes private timber,
there are individuals who feel it in their bank accounts; this is not the
case with socialized land holdings. This means that profit-making
individuals have greater incentives—by how much is an empirical matter—to
take greater precautions regarding their property than their public
counterparts do.
If we have learned anything from the fall of the Soviet economic system—and
this is a highly debatable point—it is that things work better under
private ownership. These four young people will have not died totally in
vain if we use their deaths as a rallying cry for privatization of the
forests. Perhaps if we succeed in this effort, other lives will be saved.
Second, there were two females amongst the death toll in this fire. I see
their smiling faces shining out at me from the newspaper coverage of this
event. Both young ladies were very pretty.
There was a time in our past when no such thing could have occurred: when
firefighting—along with other such dangerous activities as mining,
policing, soldiering, lumberjacking, deep-sea fishing, etc.—were the total
province of men. Women and children died in calamities, to be sure, but
only if they were caught up in them as victims. Nowadays, with our modern
dispensations, we place females in the front lines.
This is no less than an abomination. Females are far more precious than
males. It is not for nothing that farmers keep a few bulls and hundreds of
cows. It is due to patriarchy that we owe our very existence as a species.
Imagine if our cavemen ancestors had sent their women out to hunt and face
the lions and tigers when they came a-calling, instead of throwing
themselves at these enemies and sacrificing themselves so that mankind
could persist.
After World War II, the adult male populations of Germany, Russia, and
other countries that suffered the most from the fighting were virtually
wiped out. Yet the next generation, thanks to the relatively few men who
survived, was able to come into being as if those losses had never
occurred. Imagine if this war had been fought primarily by the fairer sex;
there would have been virtually no next generation. It cannot be denied
that, biologically speaking, men are, in effect, expendable drones.
So let us use the unfortunate deaths of these two young girls to resolve to
turn back the clock to an earlier day when women were treated the way they
should be treated. Let us return from "firefighters" to "firemen." Let us
no longer blithely acquiesce in the senseless slaughter of precious
females. Let us, instead, place them back up on that "pedestal" from which
the so-called feminist movement has thrown them.
Now, of course, in a free society, people should be able to hire whomever
they choose. Females should not be prohibited from trying to enter
dangerous professions. And, of course, there are certain police jobs for
which only women are by nature qualified to fill—e.g., prison guard in a
female facility (but not to help wipe out prostitution, which should be
legalized in any case).
So this plea that we use the deaths of these two young Washington women as
an inspiration for ensuring the safety of future generations cannot be done
through compulsion. But at the very least, let us rescind all laws that
require equal representation, or "balance." This should be done in all
occupations, but first in the dangerous ones. Freedom of association is not
only just, it will promote the survival of our species as well.
--------
Walter Block ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) teach economics at Loyola University, New
Orleans. See his vita, which includes links to his articles. This article
originally ran on Lewrockwell.com.
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