The Counter-deception Blog

“The Bush administration has no use for these complexities, caveats and constraints. They are comfortable in their assurance that they already have all the answers. All that remains is for them to serve their sponsors, and, as GOP activist Grover Norquist crudely puts it, drown the beast (namely our constitutional republic) in the bathtub… This government - our government - is what the Bush and his supporters wish to drown in a bathtub. They desire this, firm in the conviction that a disconnected aggregate of self-serving private individuals, in absolute control of their private property, will serve us better.”

Privatized Hell
June 28, 2003
By Ernest Partridge, The Crisis Papers

In colonial Philadelphia, firefighters were employed by private insurance companies which, of course, had financial incentives to minimize damage to their clients' properties. Plaques with the insurance company's insignia were placed on buildings, so that the fire fighters would know whether or not it was their business to put out the fires on the premises. (These plaques are often found today in antique shops). If the wrong plaque was on the building, well, that was just tough luck. Of course, with their attention confined to a single building, fire fighters were ill-disposed to prevent a spreading of the fire to adjacent non-client structures.

posted by Dr. Frank Stech  # 8:29 AM