As Los Angeles Burns, the Left Fiddles • History, Context, and Misplaced Priorities

The Summer of 64 AD was a hot one in ancient Rome, and the evening of July 18th was especially warm. The air was dry and harsh winds blew fiercely throughout the city.

Consequently, when a fire broke out that night in the Cirus Maximus district, weather conditions were perfect for a major conflagration to spread rapidly.

 And that’s exactly what happened. Flames raged in the city for a week and a half, and ancient sources estimate that over 70% of Rome was destroyed with at least 10,000 homes and other buildings burnt to the ground. 

It was a shocking disaster that most Romans at the time could barely process. They were angry, and many blamed their Emperor.  Nero had already been in power for about a decade by the time of Rome’s Great Fire in 64 AD, and at that point he had become extremely unpopular. Naturally, Nero came up with an excuse and blamed the fire and devastation on ‘the Christians.’

Today’s politicians have their own version of Nero’s pitiful excuse; but rather than blame Christians, governor Gavin Newsom says that “climate change” is the clear and obvious culprit.

Frankly, it’s genius. Saying the fires are a result of “climate change” is to simultaneously blame everyone yet no one at the same time. It seems to be lost on the masses that California leads the nation in crazy, poorly thought out, capitalism-killing climate policy;  but by Newsom’s logic, the big problem is that his single-party state hasn’t managed to pass enough climate legislation. Predictably, the mainstream media insists this “Climate Change” thesis is self-evident and  you either dutifully repeat it, or you are “excused from the conversation” (as Gavin Newsom told Donald Trump on X). 

Sorry, but none of this computes. Cities have burned for as long as human civilization has existed. Rome in 64 AD. London in 1666. New York City in 1835.  No one ever said “climate change” before. More often than not, in fact, the fires were due to bad management – failures to reduce risk, to anticipate problems, to make adequate preparations, and to appoint competent, experienced leadership.

Historian Gregory Daugherty, for example, concludes that the office of praefectus vigilus— sort of like the ancient Roman fire chief– was either completely vacant or held by an inept newcomer when the fire broke out in 64 AD.

And yes, much of the Twittersphere and Internet at large are themselves ablaze with outrage over the LA Fire Department’s perceived incompetent leadership. Commentators from the right claim that LAFD is led by “three lesbians named Kristin” who lack the experience to run the department. It’s true that the LA Fire Chief is a lesbian named Kristin, and that several other high-ranking officers within LAFD are also lesbian women, including the head of Diversity and Inclusion.

Additionally, four out of the five members of the Los Angeles Board of Fire Commissioners are women and former schoolteachers. Clearly in such a male-dominated field, so many lesbians and/or female senior leaders would be statistically impossible unless those hiring decisions were the result of an obsession about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion instead of being based solely upon talent, merit, and competence.

However,  before joining the chorus and blaming this tragedy in LA on diversity hire incompetence, watching archival footage of the LA Fire Commission Board Meetings is very revealing.  After hours and hours of listening to the Commissioners, the Fire Chief, and various deputies speak, despite being obvious DEI hires, these high-ranking female officers were also highly switched on to the risks, and to their core mission to prevent and fight fires. To say otherwise would be intellectually dishonest. Most of the meetings in fact are impassioned pleas to increase the Fire Department budget and appear to be desperate to be given the resources they need to do a better job for the public.

The LAFD right now is smaller than it was in 2005, and almost as small as it was in 1969. It is the smallest major fire department in the country, which has had its budget cut numerous times by politicians who would rather spend taxpayer money on illegals and homeless people, which are statistically the source of nearly half the arsons in major urban areas. (Editor’s Note: Vagrants sleeping in the historic Fordney Hotel in Old Town Saginaw were the reason fire took that structure down along with half the block back in 1991). So this problem of homelessness is not exclusive to L.A.

LA declared itself a “sanctuary city” for illegal migrants and has shelled out billions of dollars for their care and shelter between housing, school, medical costs, etc. As a result, the city’s financial controller said in September that Los Angeles “is going broke” and facing an enormous budget deficit. (Editor’s Note: And in the wake of these apocalyptic L.A. fires Gov. Gavin Newsom is also committing millions of dollars to fight deportation plans for illegal immigrants. Goldman analysts believe estimated insured losses could be between $10 and $30 billion, with the figure for uninsured losses north of $40 billion and rising.)

Californians (and especially Los Angeles residents) pay some of the highest taxes in the country. But their leadership would rather take care of illegals than fund the Fire Department (or Police Department for that matter). They’ve said it with their words. They’ve shown it with their actions. There is no gray area here: politicians’ mismanagement of taxpayer resources has killed people and destroyed lives.

They’ll never admit this, of course. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass are fiddling while their city symbolically burns one week before the dawn of a new administration, and hopefully a return to competency, common sense, and valuing rather than desecrating our irreplaceable natural and financial resources on cultural and global wars that undermine the very social contract that exists between government and its citizens.

In 1776 Founding Father Thomas Paine wrote back in his enlightening discourse Common Sense, which helped colonial era patriots to declare our country’s independence from Great Britain:

“Some writers have so confounded society with government as to leve little or no distinction between them; whereas they’re not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our want, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSTIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise.”

The Neo-Left has had its day and they failed miserably. Now they’re being punished by the public it is their duty to serve and protect.  Nero was punished too. After the Great Fire in 64 AD, he soon faced a full-blown revolt and was ousted from power. This was followed by a period of major upheaval, including the infamous Year of the Four Emperors in 69 AD.

But before long, Rome stabilized and entered a new Golden Age of peace and prosperity that would last for more than a century. So, if there’s any silver lining to this tragedy in California, it’s that this may be the final straw where even the most ardent Leftists finally reach their breaking point and realign their priorities to goals of competency and accountability.