Social media is today filled with leftists claiming that Republicans asking for disaster relief are all of a sudden supporters of socialism. Not everything done by the government is socialism.

Let’s start with a couple of definitions.

The purpose of government is to provide for mutual defense, settle disputes between citizens, and protect citizens from being victimized by others. Socialism is where a government goes beyond that and tells businesses what goods and services they must produce. Socialism isn’t a synonym for “anything that a government does.”

There was a time when the fire department was a private business. Fire companies would contract with insurance companies to provide fire protection to the properties insured by those insurers. Fire companies would mark their territory with “fire brands” so arriving fire companies would know who had the contract for that particular building.

Fire companies did outrageous things like engage in fistfights to for the right to put out the fire and the right to bill for extinguishing it. Engine crews, knowing that whoever controlled the water would extinguish the fire, would send the meanest, toughest goons they had ahead of the pumper to guard the plug. Anyone from another crew who came near it would have to fight him.

So it was obvious that system didn’t work. Governments began assuming responsibility for fire protection. Fire departments, facing budget cuts due to better building codes reducing the number of fires, began looking for other things that they could do to remain relevant. So they began doing things like EMS, hazardous materials, and other disaster response.

Just because the government is providing a service doesn’t make that service socialism.

Categories: Uncategorized

18 Comments

Anonymous · September 29, 2022 at 3:00 pm

I generally agree, especially on the local scale. But how do we reconcile this non-socialist interpretation when applied to the increased risks associated with come locations versus those with little or no risk of others? It sure seems like I am being forced to provide for others when it was their choice. Why am I paying for hurricane or flooding or tornado responses when I have chosen to live (actually born here) in a place where they cannot occur? Why do I have to support FEMA providing grants to locations on barrier islands for streets and utility repairs? Why are my tax dollars going to build tornado shelters out in the flat lands? Heck, why has FEMA evolved into a directed/targeted welfare distribution system as evidenced in their continuous declaration of emergencies and funding for every bad weather event? I am not sure of the solution, but our current system has evolved into just another part of the swamp that needs draining. Lets get back to local- and state-level control and risk management, and I think we would be much better off.

    Divemedic · September 29, 2022 at 3:17 pm

    You would be hard pressed to find a part of the country that doesn’t have disasters. The Gulf Coast has hurricanes. California has earthquakes and fires. Arizona has fires and flooding.
    Since 1953, there have been 99 disasters in Alabama. 101 in Colorado, 170 in Florida, 107 in Arizona, 82 in Kansas, and 63 in Maine.

    A disaster is a situation that exceeds the capabilities of local resources. I used to respond all over the country to assist other states in disaster response. If we are going to force each locality to deal with problems without assistance from other areas of the country, then there is no need for a country at all.

    See them here:

    https://www.fema.gov/data-visualization/disaster-declarations-states-and-counties

      Anonymous · September 29, 2022 at 3:47 pm

      [sorry about typos] I watched FEMA reports for years – and it made me so mad I had to quit. The bean counts do not reflect the reality on the ground, especially when filtered through a federal agency. Local agencies have caught on here and are making every hiker who ran out of water into a rescue event on TV with helicopters and lots of flashing red lights.
      I had a long response, but deleted it – I don’t want to even imply to criticize the good work and efforts you and the people in FL are now undertaking. Good luck down there.
      PS – it is horrible in Arizona – drought, scorpions, spiders, snakes, heat, people with guns, etc. – so if you are reading this and looking for someplace to go, just keep moving.

    Angus McThag · September 29, 2022 at 11:06 pm

    Anon, you are aware that this planet is perilously close to an asteroid belt, right?

Anonymous · September 29, 2022 at 4:23 pm

If the activity is funded by the organized crime called “taxation”, then it’s Socialism. If the group claims to have a monopoly on pursuing criminals, then it’s Socialism.

If we are going to force each locality to deal with problems without assistance from other areas of the country

Such as the banking laws which prohibited banks from spanning geographical areas, thus preventing the creation of a flywheel effect to bridge a local crop failure. Banning honest commerce is Socialism.

    Divemedic · September 29, 2022 at 4:53 pm

    Overly simplistic and plain wrong. Just because you personally don’t like something doesn’t mean that it is socialism.
    Socialism is and always has been defined as a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

    Taxing something isn’t socialism. Taxing something as a means to control its consumption, distribution, or production is socialism. There is an important distinction there.

    The government is by definition a monopoly on the pursuit and punishment of criminals, as government is the only one who defines what a crime is. Without government, you have no laws, without laws you have no crimes, and without crimes you have no criminals.

    The attempted punishment of criminals without government is despotism.

      Anonymous · September 29, 2022 at 6:12 pm

      Socialism is and always has been defined as a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

      Right, like government taking over the means of putting out fires, which was your example.

      Taxing something isn’t socialism. Taxing something as a means to control its consumption, distribution, or production is socialism. There is an important distinction there.

      There is precisely no distinction there. Every tax by its very existance alters consumption, distribution, and production, because people alter their economic behavior in response to the incentives/disincentives of taxes.

      The attempted punishment of criminals without government is despotism.

      As an objection, that’s just name-calling. If your morality allows government to make the moral rules, then how can your morality object to the genocides of the 20th century, which killed an estimated 250 million? The top four deadly governments (China twice, Russian, German) carefully declared their genocides to be legal.

        Divemedic · September 29, 2022 at 6:50 pm

        Right, like government taking over the means of putting out fires, which was your example.
        Firefighting as a government service is no more socialism than is a military. No one is saying that a person cannot establish their own firefighting service. In fact, many companies do so. Oil refineries do so as a matter of routine.

        There is precisely no distinction there. Every tax by its very existance alters consumption, distribution, and production, because people alter their economic behavior in response to the incentives/disincentives of taxes.

        It’s an important distinction. Taxation to pay for government services has the effect of altering consumption, but that is the case with any government action. The important difference is the purpose behind the government action. If that action (in this case, taxation) is done for the legitimate purpose of funding government operations, then it is not socialist. If that taxation is being carried out with an ulterior motive, as in taxing cigarettes or guns to make them less popular, then that tax is in fact a socialist act.

        As an objection, that’s just name-calling. If your morality allows government to make the moral rules, then how can your morality object to the genocides of the 20th century, which killed an estimated 250 million? The top four deadly governments (China twice, Russian, German) carefully declared their genocides to be legal.

        I did not say that all laws are justified or moral. It’s just that you cannot, by definition, pursue criminals unless they exist. If there is no government to create a crime, then there can’t be any criminals. Without a government, who decides what is or is not a criminal?
        It is axiomatic that the only real power any government has is the ability to create laws that declare acts to be criminal acts. Individuals cannot do so. That isn’t to say that all laws are just or moral, but they are laws nevertheless.

Tom762 · September 29, 2022 at 9:46 pm

Whelp, since Arizona get two mentions, Ima gon make it 3!

Article 2, Section 2, Arizona Constitution.
“…governments…are established to protect and maintain individual rights.”

Washington state has the language also. All states Documents, and the US Constitution *should* have that language, also. And then it should be vigorously defended at all times. It is the ultimate stated purpose of government.

Glad that you rode the storm well. The coast looks bad the little I saw.

    Divemedic · September 30, 2022 at 6:23 am

    Ah, the libertarian position rears its head. Anything that any government does is an abridgement of someone’s right to do something somewhere and is therefore not legitimate.

Anonymous · September 30, 2022 at 1:16 am

Firefighting as a government service is no more socialism than is a military.

A military is Socialism (“means of production, distribution, and exchange [of product or service] should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole”).

No one is saying that a person cannot establish their own firefighting service.

A few years back in Florida, I asked a firefighter about re-opening a station that had just closed as a volunteer station, since the equipment was already there. She said “volunteer” stations all had paid captains, and without the county’s blessing, which I would not be getting as an independent, I would not be allowed to operate the station and equipment for the purpose it was originally purchased by taxes for.

taxation is being carried out with an ulterior motive, as in taxing cigarettes or guns to make them less popular

Motive, when we think we can guess it, is only interesting as data for the short time until we get better data by observing actual real-world effects. Then we discard motive as the previous best guess of intended effect, and decide if the actual observed effects are the ones we want. If closing the fire station was only about saving budget, then there would be no objection to me reopening it as for-real volunteer. I conclude the actual motives are to squash self-reliance.

Without a government, who decides what is or is not a criminal?

So if there was a one-world government, which declared genocide of innocents to be legal, then you would have no moral-intellectual framework from which to decide that genocide to be evil?

The correct answer is that I decide what is criminal, because only my brain can operated my finger to dial 911, or press a voting lever or gun trigger. Humans are not ants and do not operate by central planning like ants do.

    Divemedic · September 30, 2022 at 6:58 am

    You are confusing “government service” with “socialism.” That is the exact bullshit that the left wants you to believe- that some socialism is good because the fire department. Are there things that governments provide at public expense? Yep. That isn’t the same thing as socialism.

    You wanting to reopen the closed fire station was a capitalist venture that was held back by the socialism of the county? No. You wanted to use the county station, the millions of dollars in public firefighting equipment, their communications, dispatch, and 911 system, thereby causing the county to assume legal liability when you screw up and either hurt yourself or someone else, but are complaining that they won’t let you open your own fire department?
    Nothing will stop you from buying and equipping a fire truck, and then putting out fires on your property, or even upon the property of those who wish to allow you to do so, but that isn’t what you were attempting. You were asking for free shit, paid for by taxpayers, then becoming petulant when they refused to grant your wish. Not socialism.

    Your theory that outcome discerns intent is the same childish argument that is being used by BLM- anything that hurts a black person is racist. Except in your case, it has become “anything that is paid for by government that I don’t like is socialism.” Childish nonsense.

    So if there was a one-world government, which declared genocide of innocents to be legal, then you would have no moral-intellectual framework from which to decide that genocide to be evil?

    You are conflating crime with morality. You said that individuals should have the ability to pursue criminals, not pursue evil. Those are two different things. Governments decide what behavior is criminal, and thus decide who is a criminal. I never said that governments decide what is moral or just. You are correct that each of us decides our own morality. You are incorrect in the belief that you have the right to impose that morality upon others through the use of force.
    Individuals each deciding what is a crime through the use of their own moral compass is the very definition of anarchy, not socialism, and certainly not freedom. What if one person decides that you owning a house is a crime, and another decides that owning a house is a human right? Which is correct? Do they each get to press the trigger of a gun? Sure, you can call 911, but that doesn’t mean that what happened to cause you to do so was a crime, nor was the person who did it a criminal.
    Humans are social animals. They operate best by cooperation. Those who operate as complete lone wolves never succeed, even if the reason for that is that other humans banded together to enslave them. I happen to agree with the phrase:
    That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed
    That is the purpose of government- those being governed grant some power to the government, and yes that means granting the power to declare some things to be crimes, and pursue criminals. That isn’t socialism, either.
    It seems as though you have fallen into the libertarian trap. I once did myself. Once you get there, it takes awhile to see that libertarians are no more correct than communists- its a system that looks great on paper, but will never work in reality. Libertarians, communists, socialists, all of them are bullshit artists who promise utopia when utopia is impossible, so instead they stand around arguing about who is the best at being a communist, or libertarian, or socialist.
    It’s pseudointellectual mental masturbation.

D · September 30, 2022 at 11:06 am

I disagree somewhat. I think government-controlled Fire/EMS *is* socialism. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I worked as an EMT.

The internal private conversation at work when levy time came around every 4 years was “if they don’t pass the levy, we’ll cut services, *NOT* our salaries, retirement, etc…”

It’s atrocious.

I live pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There are three houses down my 1.5 mile road. Police take about 15 minutes on average to respond. My local fire department takes about 10. One of the guys on my road is on the all-volunteer fire department.

I have a manufactured home on the property. There’s a smoke alarm in *every* room. The master bedroom, the master bathroom, the hallway, the kids room, the kids bathroom, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the laundry room, and the “breakfast nook”. My office is an outbuilding. It has two smoke alarms. One on each level. Even my pumphouse (which is perpetually damp) has a smoke alarm.

All the smoke alarms are networked together (Google Nest). Setting off any one will set all of them off.

I’ve got fire *detection* covered.

On the property, I have three sources of water:

My well pump isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. It can easily provide enough water for two green lines, and I have enough hose to reach every point on my ~9 acres at least once. I can reach the house/office/pumphouse 4 or 5 times from various spigots.

The other two water sources are a small pond with about 25,000 gallons of water and a pool with about 8,000 gallons of water (and I’d estimate I would be able to use about 6,000 gallons of it before the water would drop below the pump suction).

I have *two* Champion trash pumps for those water sources, capable of providing some pretty good flow to 2 inch hose lines and both can easily reach the house, office, and pumphouse.

The pumphouse also has a generator that can keep the well pump powered should the electrical service to the property fail due to fire (or maybe being the cause of the fire).

I actually had a small house fire twice. Once when a young child woke up at 4 AM, decided they were hungry, and they tried to make ramen. They turned on the wrong burner and caught an oven mitt on fire.

We woke up to alarms going off and a 5-year-old panicking. I grabbed a mitt that wasn’t on fire, grabbed the mitt that *was* on fire, and tossed it into the sink and put it out.

The second one was a cheap piece of chinese computer tech in the master bedroom that decided to burst into flames at 9 AM on a weekend when I was in the shower. The fire alarm alerted everyone, the kids immediately left the house and went to our pre-planned emergency spot, and I put the fire out with a CO2 extinguisher.

What do I need a fire department for?

Medical services maybe? I’m nearly 50. *Zero* medical issues my entire life. Never broken a bone, doctors say I have the “heart of an 18-year-old”, never been in a car accident, etc…and I’m of the opinion that if I do stroke out, either my wife can drive me to the ER, or I can happily expire after having lived a better life than most people.

So why do I have to pay hundreds of dollars in taxes every year? Why can’t I refuse knowing full-well that I won’t get any sort of fire or medical aid?

I mean…just the cost of fire/EMS taxes alone means I could buy a new trash pump every year. If I were to take care of my trash pumps, the money I’ve paid since living here could have gone to digging a bigger pond and buying a brush mower to more efficiently help me clear a defensible space. It could have paid for my smoke alarms and probably even a professional fire suppression system.

By my calculations, I’ve spent about $7,500 in fire/EMS taxes just in the time I’ve lived here. I’ve spent nearly $20,000 in my lifetime.

How many times have I used fire/EMS? Exactly zero.

Thanks government.

    Divemedic · September 30, 2022 at 11:11 am

    I actually agree that fire departments can be bloated, expensive, and often over staffed and over funded.

    That doesn’t mean that they are socialism.

      D · September 30, 2022 at 1:46 pm

      What do you call it when your time and money are taken by force to help serve other people?

      Every few years “mob rule” (er…I mean “democracy”) votes, and if 51% of my neighbors vote to steal *my* money to give the fire department more money or buy the police department a new armored vehicle, I *must* comply or I will be caged like a dog, have *my* property confiscated and sold at auction to someone else, and I will be shot dead if I think that’s socialsm and try to resist.

      All property taxes are socialism in disguise. You literally get to vote to screw over your neighbor. If you’re a renter, you get to vote to screw over your landlord and your property-owning neighbors.

      Let’s just say I *did* have a horrible medical condition that necessitated an ambulance ride every few weeks…if I had to pay out-of-pocket to staff an ambulance it would potentially cost me millions of dollars per year…

      Instead of paying millions, I’ll just vote to screw myself out of $500/year, and force the rest of the community to pick up the millions-of-dollars tab. Sounds fair, right?

        Divemedic · September 30, 2022 at 2:14 pm

        You are still not getting that socialism has a specific definition, and that definition is NOT “things that the government does that I don’t like.”
        Socialism has a specific meaning. While all socialism requires taxation, all taxation isn’t socialism.
        Kings of old used to tax their serfs and use some of the money to provide services to the kingdom. That wasn’t socialism. It is something that all socioeconomic and governments do.

        There are a few socioeconomic systems:

        At one end of the spectrum is where one man owns and controls the means of production. That would be despotism. A great example of this is North Korea.

        There is oligarchy, where a few people own and control the means of production. This system is what the Soviet Union actually was, and Russia to a great extent still is. It seems as though this is also China, but I haven’t studied them and their politics much. I admit that I probably should.

        Socialism is where the means of production are owned by a small subset of the population, but are controlled collectively by the public at large. To my knowledge, there are no socialist countries. The system is inherently unstable and soon degenerates into something else.

        Communism is where the means of production are all under collective ownership AND control. Like socialism, there are no true communist countries. They always fail and morph into something else.
        Capitalism is where a large number of people own and control the means of production, and employ people who produce goods and services for them in exchange for a portion of the profits. There was a time when the US was capitalist, but that hasn’t been the case for quite some time.
        What you (and many who claim to be libertarian) are advocating for is an anarchist system, but that is another unstable system that cannot sustain itself. People being people, some will inevitably gain more money and power than others and will use that to wrest control.
        Then there is a system like exists in the US today. What we have is sort of a crony capitalism, where a few people own the means of production, and use their money and influence to control the government.
        The founders of this nation knew this and attempted to keep the central government weak and relatively powerless. The problem lies in what happened in this country after the civil war. The rich have spent their time since taking the safeties off of the system and we are seeing it morph into something else. Perhaps an oligarchy. Time will tell.

          D · September 30, 2022 at 3:25 pm

          “Socialism is where the means of production are owned by a small subset of the population, but are controlled collectively by the public at large.”

          Quoth the wikipedia: “The means of production is a term which involves land or labor”

          Let’s see if I get this right. Money is basically a unit of exchange for time. Time is money, money is time.

          Putting all that together, how I read it is: “Socialism is where my money is owned by a small subset of the population (just me and my family), but are controlled ‘collectively’ by the population at large (my community)”.

          If I spend my time doing my job, the employer gives me money. It took some of my limited time on this earth and converted it into something I can use to buy a cow (for example) which took a fraction of someone else’s limited time on this earth. It’s mine. I *own* it. Or at least I should.

          Now the population at large gets to vote on what I’m *forced* to spend *my time* (money) on….and recently it was a tank for the local police department or hire wages for the EMS service which already makes (wages and benefits) 3 times more than the average income in my county.

          How it the public voting on how I’m forced to spend my money *not* socialism?

          Take it to the extreme. Let’s just say the local police department managed to put a levy on the ballot that said “100% of a person’s income will go towards police taxes” and the public stupidly kept licking boots and voted to pass it–thereby making all my time and labor in service of government thugs.

          At what fraction does my time become socialism? 18%? 34%? 100%?

          It doesn’t matter if the government is directly controlling the time and labor of the “cow business” and redistributing it amongst the population, or if they are taking the money which is *related* to the “cow business” to redistribute”.

          One is “direct” socialism, the other is “indirect” socialism. The neat thing about indirect socialism is it gives the appearance of being capitalism and the government isn’t micro-managing the business, but in reality the government “owns” and controls a chunk of *every* business through their bureaucracies. i.e. the FDA controls food, livestock, farms, medicine, etc…other agencies control land-use and “water rights”. There are plenty more that control various goods like guns, lightbulbs, swimming pools, transportation. They all get to exert control with a root-cause being “the population at large voted for us”.

          Feel free to argue my understanding of the definitions, but it certainly seems like socialism to me.

          Divemedic · September 30, 2022 at 3:47 pm

          No. Money is a convenient means of transferring value. Money by itself is not labor or a means of production. Money isn’t time, because not everyone’s time is of equal value. A person whose only skill is pushing a broom will see that his time is worth less than a person who can perform brain surgery.
          Twisting the definitions in the way that you have means that ALL socioeconomic systems are socialism, because in every single one of them, the government takes a slice of your money to provide a service.
          So you are sour that an EMS person makes more than the average in your county? Perhaps that is because the average person in your county is an unskilled rube whose only skill is breeding more unskilled rubes.
          The EMS personnel are trading something of value- their skilled time- to the community in exchange for money. In a socialistic system, the money taken is simply given away because everyone gets a share.
          Anyhow, we have reached the end of the tree. This thread has run its course.

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