After the devastating California fires, and the heroic efforts of hundreds, if not thousands, of firefighters, it's time to ask a question that I heard from Michael Moore while being interviewed a while back?
Do firefighters ask homeowners if they have insurance before saving their homes from a fire?
Of course firefighters do not. Nobody questions this -- in fact the silliness of the question is what makes hit home so hard -- nor does anyone question the amount of money it costs to fight fires (I heard on the radio this morning the cost of fighting the fires here is easily going to exceed $100 million dollars).
Yet when it comes to your own health, your own body, your own heart and lungs ... you'd damn well better have insurance.
Why is property given a higher value in our culture than body and health?
To take this a step further, what has more value, the lungs of the planet, or the short-term economic gain or a few companies who profit from destroying rainforests? What has more value, the climate of the entire planet earth, or the profits of a few already-rich oil companies?
If we're going to fight a war to "protect our security", shouldn't that war be fought against those forces which are actually destroying the health of the planet, the very lungs of our "homeland?" Our "homeland", after all, is the planet earth.
Asking these questions cuts to the quick of what it means to be "liberal", or "progressive" -- and that is, to simply have some common sense about what is right and what is wrong, and what makes sense.
Health of our bodies, health of our environment, health of our planetary home -- these things are threatened all at the same time -- see the redacted portions of the CDC's report on global warming, if you can -- and these are the things that human beings, as a species, as a collective people, should be dealing with -- because they are not property, and they are priceless.