Privatizing Life and Death Matters Commodifies Human Life.

Marcus Crassus, of the late Roman Republic, profited handsomely as a real estate developer and entrepreneur, only his tactics were a bit questionable. You see, Crassus' private fire brigade would rush to burning homes and places of business, however refuse to refused to douse the flames until the  the building's owner and threatened neighbors sold the property to him for less than one-fifth the market value.  It worked like a dream...that is, until several years later when Rome crashed and burned.

Fast forward 2,010 years and  firefighters watch a home burn to the ground in Tennessee over a $75 fee. Either not much has changed, or we've come full circle, and like Ancient Rome, we've lost the moral foundation upon which our society relies:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

So how is watching a house burn down over a $75 fee, or letting people suffer and/or die due to lack of health insurance, or allowing children (America's future) to go hungry or suffer the consequences of neglect and a system that puts their needs dead last, synchronize with the belief, that all men are endowed with "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" that is interwoven throughout our Constitution and Bill of Rights?

The Republican agenda to privatize everything under the sun, including essential matters of life and death, while at the same time, supporting corporate welfare and the military industrial complex, contributes greatly to the greed and arrogance that corrupt  the atmosphere and culture of  today's society.  This "atmosphere" is eerily similar to the greedy and power hungry faction of wealthy capitalists and nobles that began to use the Roman mob to promote their own selfish interests and expand the Roman Republic for gain and the acquisition of even more power.

If we can't trust firefighters to put out fires, then the breakdown of all trust - essential to a capitalist society - is sure to follow, hence, the collapse of the American empire.