San Francisco 1906: A Libertarian Paradise
In 1906, an earthquake measuring between 7.7 and 8.25 hit California. San Francisco took the brunt of it. What wasn’t leveled outright burned later in uncontrolled fires. At least 3,000 people were killed and almost 300,000 were left homeless out of a population of 410,000. The Army was instrumental in keeping order and providing basic necessities until the civilian authorities could come to grips with the extent of the devastation.
Despite knowing full well that the area was prone to earthquakes, there were insufficient building codes in place, leading to hundreds, if not thousands, of unnecessary deaths. Afterwards, in the rush to rebuild, what little codes were in place were actually weakened until the 1950s. If San Francisco had experienced another quake of similar intensity, those older buildings would have been death traps just like the ones that preceded them. But who cares? No doubt the builders made money and they wouldn’t be the ones living and working in those houses and buildings anyway! And for the record, all those people in 1906 should have known better than to live in an earthquake zone and shouldn’t have expected help after their houses collapsed! Bootstraps, people! Bootstraps!
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Behold the Libertarian Paradise!
There used to be buildings and houses here. Hooray for the "free" market!
When a conservative/Libertarian says that government regulations “kill jobs” what they really mean is “costs money.” Every year, tens of thousands of people are injured or killed due to corporate malfeasance. And that’s with laws that are supposed to prevent that from happening. How many misfiring neurons are required for a right winger to believe that corporations would behave better with less regulation? No EPA? No FDA? The next time some jackass spouts off about how much better the country would be without that pesky government interference, ask them exactly how many lives are worth increasing the bottom line? How many children have to die from food poisoning? How many infants have to choke to death on a toy that breaks apart too easily? How many elderly have to die from “medicine” with known, but concealed, deadly side effects? All so a CEO can make millions to hide in an offshore account. Ask them for the price tag in lives for “FREEDOM?” At what point did money become more important than lives?
I think you’ll find the answer most revealing about how little they think about the real world consequences of deregulation and “FREEDOM” or how little they care about their fellow human being.
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