This week Glen Canyon Dam engineers deigned to turn on their taps for the benefit of the Grand Canyon ecosystem. Environmentalists and academics call for the simulated flash flood to be conducted yearly, but the hydroelectric folk want to wait another several years to study the results. Relinquishing water to the Grand Canyon costs them millions in lost energy revenue. Can you bet that when the dam was first conceived, there would have been no question of threatening the health of the Grand Canyon.
Today conservationists have to beg for scraps where originally there was no businessman at the table. How many assumptions must we safeguard in anticipation that bean counters will eventually challenge the cost, regardless the original parameters?
It could no doubt be decided that ambulances would operate more cheaply if they waited for patients to expire before transporting them. No EMT training would be necessary, and insurance rates and gas consumption would be lower because with a deceased passenger there’s no need to hurry. Soon enough we’ll have accountants weighing in, not about whether to adopt a dead-body-only policy, but asking us to justify how live-bodies would merit the extra expense.
We think Communism came up against the harsh reality of human nature, look where Capitalism is hitting the wall. Inanity hath no rival like greed unglued. Smart people can build an institution, but if they don’t chains the managers to a strict constitution, heavy on the ethics and what to smart people would have been common sense, you can expect antithetical calamity.
Look at the rationalizations being made for global warming, toxins, inhumanity, disparity, war, torture. You could tell Alberto Gonzalez to his face, excuse me, but he’s got his boot on your foot, and he’ll respond impassively that it’s neither your, nor his, concern.
