Kim Kardashian's Private Firefighters Expose the Fault Lines of America | Hacker News Reader

Kim Kardashian's Private Firefighters Expose the Fault Lines of America

theatlantic.com

21 pointsshenanigoat16 comments

Article fails to explore the apparent conflicts of interest, which remain even if you happen to think it's fair for private parties to hire their own firefighters.

For a start, are Kim's team allowed to tap public hydrants? This will reduce pressure available to any public firefighters nearby.

I don’t understand the issue here. Couple buys very expensive item that few others purchase; item is very expensive to insure; for hire firefighters are cheaper than replacing the item (and any dependencies) at a loss; insurers dispatch said firefighters to avoid total loss.

Doing this for everyone wouldn’t scale, which is why towns have firefighting units.

Also, people have a weird aversion to insurance for expensive items. So many people (at least on Reddit) advocate against purchasing AppleCare and additional insurance for $1000+ items but balk at the high cost of replacing a broken screen... that’s much cheaper to fix with insurance.

I think the reason many are both emotionally and logically concerned about this is that see it in the broader context of the growing wealth inequality and life inequality in America.

In principle, having the wealthy rely on their own firefighters, water supply, police force, education system, or medical system should not reduce the quality of said service to the rest of the people, but in practice, it always seems to.

Whenever there is a widespread social problem, its best to solve it for everyone. If the 0.01% are drinking from the same water supply and relying on the same firefighters that we are, it is in their best interest to maintain a high quality of service. Once they have a way to solve that problem for themselves, they are less likely to support using their taxes to improve and maintain these services.

In what ways are these private equivalents better than their public counterparts, especially in the US?

Private firefighters for the wealthy and slave labor fighting the fires for the rest of us. Truly disgusting.

most of 13th amendment's text pertains to the slavery loophole that Lincoln signed. It was clearly written to not end slavery, but disadvantage minorities and poor people for a perpetually-immobile and captive workforce that would be nearly as cheap as outright owning people in another form of involuntary captivity.

> Private firefighters for the wealthy and slave labor fighting the fires for the rest of us.

Actually, your assertion is wrong. It's actually slave labor fighting the fires for everyone, but those who can afford actually have the means to do the firefighting themselves.

Let's put things in perspective: would you believe that there would be no problem if "the wealthy" could not afford or use private firefighters? Why?

> slave labor

Source? If you are referring to inmates who volunteer to fight fires, then you are just plain wrong.

I didn't say it was illegal slave labor. But it's absolutely slave labor. Under Federal law its defined as "the services of a person... by means of force, threats of force, physical restraint, or threats of physical restraint to that person or another person."[1] Imprisonment is a physical restraint. If you pull the entire statute you'll notice that consent isn't a defense. That's because consent and coercion are mutually exclusive.

The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime.

Make no mistake, those "volunteers" are modern day slaves. They may have the blessing of the Constitution, but they're slaves nonetheless. Colorado actually just officially outlawed it last week.[2] A few other sources:

- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/opinion/national-prison-s...

- https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/prison-strike-modern-da...

- https://eji.org/history-racial-injustice-prison-labor

[1] 18 U.S. Code § 1589

[2] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/6/18056408/c...

Federal, sure, but not all inmate firefighters are in federal prison, and some (most?) states have voted to remove the 'except as punishment for crime' bit.

Removing the language doesn't suddenly not make it slavery. When the states remove that language it means prison labor programs (such as the one in California) are unconstitutional. Why? Because those programs are slavery and when that language is removed those programs no longer have the exemption that made it constitutional.

Wat? Are you arguing that all imprisonment is 'slavery' since it entails physically constraining prisoners? With that definition any institution that 'physically constrains' people is slavery, including public schools which prohibit students from leaving during school hours. Those students are physically constrained from leaving the premises, for example. In many cases there's even a cop to enforce it.

You mentioned Colorado, and I implied Colorado and others that have followed suit, in my earlier comment which I assumed that you read before you wrote this reply.

Your #1 source does not mention the text you attributed to it. And it's an opinion piece. It mentions that the inmates who volunteer to work do so for low wages. Well, they could also choose not to work on those programs. What proof do you have that they were coerced (I'm actually not arguing against it, but looking to correct my opinion if necessary).

In any case, states do things that the federal government does not agree with all the time (legal weed, for one). It's a crucial feature of our system of government.

That's not at all what I'm saying. The important distinction you're missing is any labor that is performed without fair compensation (in the U.S., that would be minimum wage) while physically constrained. Mandatory schooling as well as the draft have been adjudicated under the Thirteenth Amendment and are not within the definition of slavery. Those cases helped shape the definition I provided you.

You also don't appear to understand the consequences of Colorado's Constitutional Amendment. By removing those words from the Colorado Constitution the "volunteer" prison labor programs are no longer permitted. These programs are, legally, slavery. They just so happen to be a legal form of slavery under the Federal Constitution because of those important words "except as punishment for a crime." When those words are removed from the Colorado Constitution that exception no longer exists for Colorado prison operators (because a State Constitution cannot contradict or limit an individual's rights under the Federal Constitution but it can provide individuals with additional rights). Because these "volunteer" programs are slavery, and because Colorado's Constitution now prohibits all slavery, no exceptions, these "volunteer" programs cannot operate.

Prisoners can't freely volunteer because their liberty is at stake. They get to choose between their life being in danger in prison or endangering their lives fighting forest fires and perhaps getting out of prison a bit earlier. This is evidenced by the very low wages. Would you go fight these forest fires in California for $1/hour? I highly doubt it. Why do they "volunteer" then? Because they want their freedom. Think about the lengths you would go to in order to regain your freedom and then think about how much autonomy you would have in arriving at your decision. It's Sophie's Choice.

Would it still be an issue if they weren't slaves but well-paid positions?

Labor is labor and it should be compensated at a market rate based on the value that labor adds. A non-prisoner firefighter earns about $17/hour compares to a prisoner firefighter's $1/hour. Does the non-prisoner fight the fires any better than the prisoner? How about $16/hour better?

Fuck Malibu residents and their blocking of beach access, fake signs and generally-selfish chicanery.

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