The fact that FEMA and fire authorities have tried to prevent people from rescuing others is not just an indictment of the individuals doing that. It’s not even just an indictment of FEMA and those paricular fire departments.
It’s not even just an indictment of the Biden administration.
It shows us two thing that happen in a society where people defer authority to the State on nearly everything.
First, many people themselves become helpless.
Second, the agents of the State become heartless.
The more the State takes sole responsibility for compassion, protection and rescue, the more it becomes a bureaucratic task the agents of the State own.
Their individual morality doesn’t increase in these jobs-it declines. Because it’s just a job.
And the bureaucratic mindset intrudes. Eventually, these people are more interested in protecting their turf than in the reason the job exists in the first place.
Protecting the fact that this is ‘the governments business’ becomes more important than actually saving people.
It begins sensibly enough. There are reasons why a cordon is established around an emergency. There are times where it makes sense to ‘leave it to the experts’. But institutions strip people of individual accountability and judgement.
Hellbound and Down 