Imagine you're in a highrise building and the floors below you are on fire [View all]

[Bucky]

Until help arrives, everyone needs to cooperate in fighting the fire. You scream at them: "Come help! We have to work together!" Otherwise, the fire will keep crawling up floor by floor, injury many and killing a few.

But there are some people in your floor who are... well, let's call them the Generally Obstinate People. And these people don't like being told what to do. "It's my right, my choice whether I go along with your bossy plan for what everybody has to do. Maybe I'll fight the fire in my own way. Maybe I'll just walk up to the top floor where the fire will never reach me."

Eventually enough people go along with this advice. Soon there's enough GOPs walking off and not fighting the fire, that the inferno is able to spread and grow and burn its way up another couple of floors. More people get hurt. A few more die. Your group working together to fight the danger pull back, but you have to keep on fighting. Maybe you learn a few new tricks on how to survive getting burned so that fewer people are dying now, but still, it's better not to let people get hurt, right? And many innocent people are getting hurt, no matter whether they pitched into the effort or not.

As you reach the top stories, finally, a couple of those GOPs reluctantly start helping out. A few. Most of them just grumble about personal responsibility and trusting in God and how it's better to die free than live on their knees.

How relevant is it to say, "Those idiot GOPs, refusing to cooperate in some common sense precautions. Let's just let the fire burn them and only save ourselves"?