KentForLiberty pages

Thursday, June 07, 2018

The cost of dependency



Apparently 5 NYC taxi drivers have recently committed suicide. This is being blamed on Uber and other ride-sharing innovations.

Instead of dropping the taxi business and its precious "medallions" like a rotting gopher, the drivers are killing themselves. Can they not imagine a way of life without their expensive government monopoly? If liberty is killing the taxi monopoly, as they claim, why not adapt and start driving for one of the other options? Why demand a place on the sinking ship?

Government tries to outlaw liberty, but liberty finds a way. You can either adapt or die. And, in some cases, I guess those who don't want to adapt will kill themselves.

"Waaaa! Our government-promised monopoly is dying! I might as well kill myself instead of giving up the teat!"

One of the whiners demonstrated his lack of ethics by saying "... [Uber, et al] should be regulated like taxi cabs." Yep. "I had to do it this way, so I want everyone else violated in the same way I was." It's the statist faith in action.

How about this instead: taxis and ride-sharing services should both be unregulated, except by customer choice.
Anything less is pathetic and statist.

-
Thank you for helping support KentForLiberty.com
Follow me on Steemit and Medium

The truth about forest fires and Smokey



It seems I have confused or bewildered some people with my comments about Smokey Bear.

The problem is that through Smokey Bear people came to see forest fires as only bad.

And it's simply not true. In fact, this bit of ignorance almost destroyed forests.

Small, frequent forest fires help clean up forest debris. As long as the debris is cleaned out regularly, the fires stay small, fast, and relatively "cool". The bark of healthy trees would get scorched, some dead branches would burn away, and the loose branches and dry underbrush would burn. But the fires wouldn't get hot enough, or stay burning long enough, to burn through the bark of healthy trees to seriously injure or kill them. The fires would keep infestations of tree pests under control, as well, plus many other benefits. Forests evolved under pressure from frequent fires, and recover quickly from the natural renewal process which naturally frequent fires represent.

Then the Forest Circus came along, with Smokey Bear as their anti-fire spokescritter. By focusing on human-caused fires, they convinced people that all forest fires were bad. ("Only YOU can prevent forest fires!")

Well, the truth is human-caused fires serve the same purpose as lightning-caused fires. Not only that, but the Forest Circus actively fought all fires, since "Forest fires are bad, Mmkay?".

So forest fires were artificially reduced in number, but nature finds a way. This allowed flammable debris to build up on the forest floor. Fewer in number meant greater in intensity. When the inevitable fire started, whether caused by humans or something else, the fire raged. It burned hotter and longer due to more fuel available. It burned through the bark of healthy trees, killing them and often adding them to the fuel. The forest fire fighters then airdrop chemicals on the fire and bulldoze firebreaks.

This is all quite a bit worse for the forest than what would have happened if they had just minded their business and let forest fires occur naturally as needed.

Also, pests were able to attack trees unchecked, so more chemicals were used to try to save trees.

The "solutions" are worse than the original problem.

Now, because bureaucrats are so wise, they set prescribed burns, and sometimes let forest fires (which are more deadly due to bureaucratic policies) burn, in the name of healthy forests. Too little, too late.

If they had simply stayed out of it to begin with, it would have just been a lot better.

As always, the solution involves property rights, not government policy or "laws".

This is why Smokey Bear is a government propagandist, not a friend of nature.


-
Thank you for helping support KentForLiberty.com
Follow me on Steemit and Medium