Backfiring

Let's say there are three big houses, and you hate these houses so much, believe they are such a blight on nature and such a waste of resources, that you burn them.

What you have accomplished — besides committing a felony, of course — is to basically ensure that instead of three big houses, there will be six.

In other words, you've doubled the very problem you think is so egregious as to render arson a reasonable solution.

Although we've posed this scenario as a hypothetical, it's not.

Last week someone set fires that destroyed three multi-million-dollar homes, and damaged a fourth, near Seattle.

Police had not, as of Monday afternoon, arrested any suspects in the arson fires.

Speculation is rampant, though, based on a banner found near the burned houses that includes the initials "ELF," that the criminals belong to the Earth Liberation Front.

The connection is hardly farfetched.

ELF members have amassed an impressive resum of felony convictions over the past decade, and they've proved that they're not in the least squeamish about employing flames to emphasize their stance on environmental matters.

But we don't much care whether or not the Seattle arsonists belong to ELF.

They're criminals. They must be caught, given a fair trial, and then punished severely. Their motivation is a secondary matter.

We are, nonetheless, intrigued by the possibilities.

We understand that for a tiny minority of extremists — very tiny, fortunately — destroying private property is not only justified, but necessary to protect the planet from the ravages inflicted on it by greedy and selfish humans.

What we don't understand is why anyone, no matter how desperate or committed to their cause, would believe that torching houses could in any way help them achieve their goals.

Did the arsonists truly believe that people who build $2 million homes would decide insurance was a luxury they could do without? That the homeowners would concede they had harmed the environment, then go live in a hovel?

Perhaps the arsonists rejoiced as they watched flames char the symbols of a society which they deem decadent and profligate. But even in their moment of glee did they not realize that new homes would almost certainly replace the ones they destroyed?

Did these self-appointed protectors of the Earth fail to recognize that they had just guaranteed that twice as many board-feet of lumber would be cut, and twice as many square yards of carpet manufactured?

Maybe these people did consider those factors. Maybe they decided that arson, even though it has yet to accomplish anything except to earn their cohorts prison sentences and produce clouds of toxic smoke, was the most influential arrow in their quiver.

If that's the case, then the Seattle firebugs are not merely criminals.

They're stupid, too.