If the Government Doesn't Do It Who Will?

By Tom Rhodes, 9/27/2012

Statists, mostly Democrats and Republicans work under the false assumption, a lie, that if the government doesn't do it, then nobody will. This is a lie, the people can and will do for themselves if the government would get just out of the way.

Consider emergency services like fire/rescue other first responders. Having well trained first responders in a community is necessary, but taxes and the government are not necessary for the people to have safe effective first responders in a community. Statists hate and work at eliminating where the people, not the government, take care of themselves. Right now Hillsborough county and its supporters in the leftist press are denigrating volunteer fire/rescue plans. This is a power grab not actually for the benefit of the citizens. It is trying to force a one-size-fits-all plan of government control on everybody.

The fact is at zero cost to the taxpayer and zero cost to patients in southern part of Hillsborough county basic life-support services are provided by the Sun City Center Emergency Squad. This all-volunteer organization is entirely supported by donations within the community and periodically by community grants. Let me repeat that, at NO COST TO TAXPAYERS OR PATIENTS.

It is a pure fiction that if the government doesn't provide a service that the service will not happen. Covering southern Hillsborough County, highly trained and licensed volunteers went on 6,100 emergency runs, all without billing a patient or taxpayers a single dime. To replace that free service to the community and patients, Hillsborough County would have sent over $4Million and charged each patient.

Even where effective zero cost to taxpayer systems are in place, statists want to eliminate that and institute "better" government provision of those services. They denigrate organizations like the Sun City Center Emergency Squad not because that organization is not doing a good job, but because it is a clear demonstration that we don't actually need the government for everything. Statists cannot allow actual real proof that private charity and the people can take care of themselves. The reality is that many, if not most, of government services could be supplied privately. The problem is control, statists want central control of public services, as it provides a means to control the masses. If the people can and do take care of themselves, it shows that the people don't "need" the government, but worse for statists it means that the government has less power, and less authority. Volunteer fire/rescue also puts more emphasis on local governments, not big county or state or federal agencies. Statists want more control in fewer hands, not distributed control subject to the will of the people.

The call to replace volunteers with "professionals" is not a call to provide better services, it is a call to take away local autonomy and centralize control and make people dependent upon the state not themselves. It should be rejected. The fact is if the government doesn't do it, we the people will; the 440 volunteers at the Sun City Center Emergency Squad are proof.