Firefighters Let House Burn Because Owner Didn't Pay Fee

Dthief writes "From MSNBC: 'Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.'"

Comments

Well Duh

[SatanicPuppy]

Uhhh, yea. That's how it works.

Your city and county taxes pay for fire departments. If your county is too poor to pay for a fire department, you may have a volunteer fire department, or the nearest municipality may charge a fee to cover service. If you don't pay that fee, you don't get fire protection.

It ain't rocket science. Some bubba sets his own house on fire, and then whines because the people he didn't pay, didn't come to put it out. I've lived in Tennesee: they really don't like taxes there. That's fine, but there are consequences.

Re:Well Duh

[Bobfrankly1]

If your county is too poor to pay for their own fire department, they should be paying that nearest municipality. The guy is paying taxes, where is that money going?

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

In small towns, the taxes may barely be enough to pay for utilities, police, and roads. Some towns don't even have their own fire department and must pay fees to neighboring cities.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

Ironically, Tennessee is a state that steadfastly refuses to pass an income tax and in which any talk of raising taxes is met with crazy uproar. They had an actual riot back in 2001 when the state tried to introduce an small income tax.

This same guy who complained that the firefighters didn't save his house would probably be the first in line to scream like a girl if anyone dared propose a tax increase to pay for a fire station.

Once again, there is no free lunch, rednecks. If you want something, the money has to come from somewhere. If you want the government "off your back" then fine, but be prepared to fight your own damn fire.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is fucking incomprehensible to me. What is the military budget of your country? Hundreds of billions. Here's a crazy idea: maybe take a few percent out of that and use it on BASIC FUCKING AMENETIES!! The ignorance and sociopathic insanity of it all are staggering.

What a fucked up place. Just long-sighted enough to allow terrible things to happen for the greater good, yet short-sighted enough never to fix the systemic problems that cause them to be necessary. Disgusting and pathetic.

Re:Well Duh

[argStyopa]

A lot of people are whinging about this.

Look at it this way - let's say out of the goodness of their hearts, the firemen fight the fire. Oops! One got hurt or killed. Will the insurer (who bases his premiums certainly on the number of houses covered) pay for the injury/death? NOPE.

Look at it another: what if they're fighting this guy's fire and someone (who HAS paid) also has a fire? Whups, I'd expect the assive, slam-dunk lawsuit in about 0.0001 seconds.

Many of the articles state that the homeowner claims he 'forgot' to pay the $75. Really? Did he have a consistent history of paying it in previous years? It's ironic that this isn't mentioned, as far as I've seen.

If you think this seems 'heartless', you simply need to grow up. There are a finite amount of resources in the world, and a fire service costs MONEY to train / equip. As per the comment above - what if one of my fire guys gets injured and insurance won't pay because essentially we were doing work outside of what was covered? What if I spend the time fighting this doofus' fire, and someone else's house burns down that HAD paid?

It's very easy to be oh-so-touchy-feely if you aren't responsible for things. Basically this is one of the major things wrong I see with society today - stupid short-sighted decisions can have radically BAD consequences, but we (as a society) have decided that we have an obligation to protect people from the consequences of their decisions. I don't understand why.

Re:Well Duh

[xaxa]

Why not raise the taxes?

Next question: has it always been this way in Tennessee, or have taxes been cut in the last 10-20 years and firefighting service reduced?

Re:Well Duh

[Ecuador]

This can easily be avoided if you charge the service cost for people who have not chosen to be subscribers. Similar to how it is done in other places in the US where there are no subscriptions at all. So, if you haven't paid your $75, they can still come, having warned you that it will be $2000 for a vehicle with full crew.

Re:Well Duh

[alta]

Agreed, this is why people move into the county to avoid paying those taxes. I live in the county myself, sales tax there is 1%+4% state. Cross into the city, you pay 5% city +county +state... over time that adds up. Don't forget property tax is higher in the city as well. So what happens when you don't pay as much taxes? You don't get trash pickup, you only get county police, you don't get some utilities, you don't get a lot of things, and in a lot of cases you don't get a fire dept. I'm lucky, there's a volunteer FD that supports my area. I pay $25. It's a lot cheaper than living in the city, but on the other hand, their pumper is 25 years old. Their latter truck is 40 years old. They're run by bubba and jimbo that are thankfully on call and live less than a mile from the station (aka shed) and they take turns being the on-call person.

As you can imagine, you get what you pay for. And those that don't pay don't bother to call bubba and jimbo.

Re:Well Duh

[mikkelm]

Yep. If you want a service, you need to pay.

Incidentally, this does well to highlight the fact that firefighters aren't "heroes," as some people like to think. They're government employees, and if they aren't getting paid, they won't do anything. It's a job, not heroism.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

This is fucking incomprehensible to me.

County and city taxes pay for county and city services and infrastructure. Federal taxes pay for federal services, to which the military belongs. They are completely different taxes.

Now some cities and municipalities may qualify for grants and what-not from federal and state sources, but none of that changes that this idiot gambled and lost. Paying $75/hr for fire service is an easy, low IQ decision. Not to mention dirt cheap.

The real failure, IMOHO, is the fact the fee is not mandatory.

Re:Well Duh

[SatanicPuppy]

It's always been this way. Tennessee has very low taxes, and in many rural areas, they don't cover stuff like fire departments.

Re:Well Duh

[tverbeek]

No, to anyone capable of empathy, this is an example of how Sociopathic Libertarianism doesn't work.

Re:Well Duh

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The tricky part here is the externalities(as usual, externalities are a bitch). So, the Cranicks don't pay, they don't get service. Simple enough. There might be some ethical objections; but the economics line up just fine.

Similarly, letting them pay $75 at time of use is a no-go. Fighting a fire costs way more than $75. That's an insurance price, not a retail service price. If you allow people to buy insurance after they need it, you either go bankrupt or the cost of insurance ends up equaling the retail cost of service. You then lose the risk-pooling function of insurance. Now, for things as potentially valuable as houses and their contents, it would be sensible to have an actual retail price(set ahead of time, and publically known, to prevent extortion) that an uninsured person could pay to save a burning building, there are probably a fair few situations where the price of fighting the fire is lower than the cost of replacing the structure, so being able to pay a retail cost of approximately actual cost+service fee would be sensible for both householder and firefighting company.

However, here is where things get unpleasant: Because the Cranicks didn't pay, the firefighters allowed the fire to burn merrily, growing and spreading until it hit somebody who had paid. Now, since the paying householder's property is on fire, they likely suffered some thousands or 10s of thousands in direct combustion, smoke, and water damage. They paid, and they got shitty service. Had the firefighters used the Cranicks property to fight and stop the fire, they could have saved their customers from any damage, and done a much better job of serving them, the ones who actually paid.

Of course, if it becomes known that firefighters will fight fires around an insured property, the obvious strategy is for property owners to club together, buy insurance for 1 plot and get insurance for all for only $75/n. The fire department couldn't support itself on that. If they tried to offer two tiers, a $75 "Fires fought on your property only" and a more expensive "Fires that threaten your property fought", then this creates a perverse incentive: If I live next to a wealthy looking neighbor, I can get him to buy my fire insurance for me just by making my property more dangerous to his. Don't want to encourage that.

This is why firefighting, like certain public health measures, is very hard to elegantly force into a market model unless you are so far in the sticks that each man really is an island. Fires spread, just like diseases. Whether or not the firefighters come to my neighbor's aid matters to me(aside from any debatable moral stuff); because the raging inferno that is his burning house just needs the wind to shift for my house to be next. Even if I've paid my fee, having thousands in water damage from the firefighters, plus smoke and any combustion that occurs before they get there isn't really satisfying. I'd really rather have them fight the fire where it starts, and never have to suffer it myself, rather than insist that everyone pay, and let pockets of fire spread until they endanger me. Same way, even if I don't give a fuck about the life of the guy making my sandwich at the deli, and I don't care how poor he is, I sure do care about what immunizations he has, and whether he can take sick days; because his germs are getting into my food supply.

That is the real complexity of this story, in my opinion. There are some moral questions, but those are debatable, and there really should be a retail price set; but that is a bookkeeping matter; but if I were the insured householder I'd be absolutely livid about this. I paid my dues, and I get lousy service because they are trying to make a point? You could have completely protected my property; but chose to let a nearby building become a danger to it, when I pay you to protect my property? WTF?

Re:Well Duh

[BobMcD]

The real failure, IMOHO, is the fact the fee is not mandatory.

Except that would be tyranny, wouldn't it? The voters of the district want it the way it presently is, so who are we to override their democracy with our humble opinions? They owe no fealty to public opinion, and are free to set their laws as they would like them to be.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

I don't live in Tennessee but I do live in a small town. Our town is so small, we pool resources with two other towns. As a result of the combined tax base, we have a nice fire and police department (ignoring the fact the police depart is almost 2x larger than it should be and tickets are considered a source of revenue). Without this pooling of resources, we would likely be forced to depend on a volunteer fire department.

In states such as Tennessee, they are already fairly poor. They are also, typically, anti-government and anti-taxes. Many live in the country to avoid paying various taxes. Believe it or not, simply raising taxes for such an obvious service would likely raise ire and have many up in arms. As a result, the easiest, lowest cost in political terms, is to simply make it optional. As a result, some idiots like this guy are going to gamble and lose. By any measure, $75.00/yr is extremely cheap for the service - especially if you ever need it - especially if they are better equipped than many volunteer FDs.

Re:Well Duh

[jimicus]

According to TFA, he offered exactly that:

Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

Except that would be tyranny, wouldn't it?

I was assuming it would follow standard routes such as an election of vote by representatives, city counsel, etc - therefore, no, it would not be tyranny. Though that may not stop some from perceiving it as such - especially in some parts of Tennessee.

Re:Well Duh

[omnichad]

The country was founded on a principal of small central government. No matter how far that is from true, these are still things done at the county or city level with local taxes. The federal budget is entirely separate, despite the occasional subsidy here or there. Unless your suggesting that city or county budgets account for the military, then you're not making any sense at all.

Re:Well Duh

[anUnhandledException]

Always been this way. The county has NO fire dept. They have chosen (via taxation and voting) to NOT have a fire dept.

The town (which can't tax county residents) offers to use town fire dept to protect non-residents but they are expected to pay.

Town residents = covered & pay via taxes
Covered non-residents = covered & pay $75 fee
Non covered non-residents = not covered. They chose to not fund a county fire dept, and chose not to pay $75 fee.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

What taxes? Many rural areas in TN barely have any taxes at all. No taxes = no fire service.

Re:Well Duh

[melikamp]

Then it's a problem for the entire state of Tennessee: they should have put the fire out just to make sure that no humans were trapped inside, and that is just one example of a humanitarian disaster just waiting to happen. If what you are saying is true and the system is preventing them from putting out fires regardless of circumstances, then they may want to reconsider the system.

Re:Well Duh

[operagost]

Ironically, Tennessee is a state that steadfastly refuses to pass an income tax and in which any talk of raising taxes is met with crazy uproar. They had an actual riot back in 2001 when the state tried to introduce an small income tax.

That's because income taxes punish success. Besides, the state does not, and should not, pay for local police and fire departments. Therefore, this is not about state income tax.

Re:Well Duh

[Le Marteau]

> Why not raise the taxes?

Why not just pay the frickin' $75? What kind of jackass does not pay $75 for fire service?

That fire department should just tell people, "OK, if it makes you happy, PRETEND that this $75 is a tax. See, it's not a FEE, it's a TAX. There, are you happy now?"

Re:Well Duh

[Yer Mom]

I wouldn't call $75/hr dirt cheap. $75/year, maybe :)

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I knew the US was all about individualism but I thought Fire services were covered along with libraries, schools, police, military - maybe I'm wrong about those too? Come on; police, fire, health, education and defence are the default services any government should be providing. What do you pay your taxes for if not for those absolute basics?

Re:Well Duh

[sznupi]

They were already at the scene. The basic human decency calls for pointing their sprinklers at the house (they even might/should bill for it)

Re:Well Duh

[trentblase]

Ironically, however, by passing a progressive income tax, this guy might have ended up getting fire services subsidized by the more affluent folk in the neighboring city.

Re:Well Duh

[multipartmixed]

A little bit of legislation would go a long way here.

They need to grant the fire department the right to bill you -- by a placing a lien on your property -- for fighting a fire on your property if you didn't pay the fee.

To keep things fair, homeowners could be allowed to opt out of "save my home" protection and just go with "don't spread to others" protection.

Re:Well Duh

[drinkypoo]

I paid my dues, and I get lousy service because they are trying to make a point? You could have completely protected my property; but chose to let a nearby building become a danger to it, when I pay you to protect my property? WTF?

Let us not forget that most houses are built with a bunch of plywood or chipboard, and with loads of PVC; both release metric shitloads of dioxin when burned (way more than burning trees.)

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, Tennessee is a state that steadfastly refuses to pass an income tax and in which any talk of raising taxes is met with crazy uproar. They had an actual riot back in 2001 when the state tried to introduce an small income tax.

This same guy who complained that the firefighters didn't save his house would probably be the first in line to scream like a girl if anyone dared propose a tax increase to pay for a fire station.

Once again, there is no free lunch, rednecks. If you want something, the money has to come from somewhere. If you want the government "off your back" then fine, but be prepared to fight your own damn fire.

I think it would have been better had one of the family members been trapped inside and allowed to burn to death over $75. That sure would show the rest of the people too poor to pay $75 that their fucking LIFE isn't worth $75, let alone all of their Earthly possessions. Your government and society would rather you die than lose $75.

SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS.

Fucking cheap-ass firewatchers. I would have shot them for trespassing had they showed up to watch my fucking home burn to the ground instead of fighting the fire.

CAPTCHA: families

Re:Well Duh

[Shakrai]

I was assuming it would follow standard routes such as an election of vote by representatives, city counsel, etc - therefore, no, it would not be tyranny.

The tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.

Re:Well Duh

[ArsonSmith]

RTFA? I know it's slashdot but the charge was $75, he did not pay it, he did not get fire protection. It's simple. His neighbor paid it, the fire department was there to make sure it didn't spread to his house.

Re:Well Duh

[BobMcD]

Except that would be tyranny, wouldn't it?

I was assuming it would follow standard routes such as an election of vote by representatives, city counsel, etc - therefore, no, it would not be tyranny. Though that may not stop some from perceiving it as such - especially in some parts of Tennessee.

When you look into the story, though, you'll see that these routes were tried. They did not succeed. Fundamentally this is a city fire department we're talking about, that offers county services outside their jurisdiction. There was a political process that attempted to expand it to a county department, but it failed.

So, even in Tennessee, there eventually must be some level where we let them live their own lives. This is my definition of 'liberty'.

Re:Well Duh

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

Would you trust him? If he refused (he didn't forget, thats bullshit) to pay the $75, what makes you think he has however many thousands of dollars to pay for the fire crew?

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

People like you disgust me. It's like all common sense flew out the window never to return.

I get that he didn't pay the $75 fee for fire protection. Seriously, I get it. How about they put out the fire and then levy a very hefty fine or send him a bill covering the exact cost of their efforts?

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

It goes all the way down the line in TN, believe me. It's not like someone who is willing to riot in Nashville over an income tax is going to go back home and accept a big local or county tax bill either. Many areas of TN don't even have local or county taxes (all the city or county income comes from fines, business taxes, etc.).

Re:Well Duh

[Eponymous Coward]

This seems like a bad idea as well. It's an invitation to poorly funded fire departments to start fires in non-subscribers homes.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Those firefighters are disgusting, and so are you, you fucking inbred, redneck, heartless pig.

Re:Well Duh

[adrn01]

That county had a resolution to have their own fire department; it would have cost a few bucks more property taxes per person. The Republicans controlling the county decided it was much better to keep it privatized, and make everyone pay for firefighting services directly, one way or the other.

Re:Well Duh

[c6gunner]

Incidentally, this does well to highlight the fact that firefighters aren't "heroes," as some people like to think. They're government employees, and if they aren't getting paid, they won't do anything. It's a job, not heroism.

Bullshit. If a person had been trapped inside the house, there's no question that they would have gone in. There's a huge difference between risking your life in order to save people, and risking your life in order to save the property of a jackass who wasn't willing to pay you a measly $75.

Re:Well Duh

[ArsonSmith]

This is how choosing to risk your house burning down for a measly $75 a YEAR! Can come back to bite you.

Nice try, taking a stab at Libertarianism though. You probably convinced a few people.

Re:Well Duh

[c6gunner]

No, to anyone capable of empathy, this is an example of how Sociopathic Libertarianism doesn't work.

Not that I have any intention of defending libertarianism .... but when empathy replaces common sense, you've got a serious problem. You fail at games theory.

Re:Well Duh

[xaxa]

What kind of jackass does not pay $75 for fire service?

The guy's neighbour, who has suffered damage to his house (some articles say field) as a result. If I were that neighbour I'd be furious, and I'd definitely propose making this fee compulsory, and I'd consider suing the neighbour who's fire damaged my property.

That's why fire service is essential for everyone: because it doesn't respect the boundaries between properties. One man's "choice" to let his house burn endangers other people's lives (sometimes) and possessions.

Re:Well Duh

[lrsach01]

This was reported on our local news. I haven't read the original article, but the firefighters DID protect the neighbor's house. As you may have guessed, the neighbor had paid the fee.

Re:Well Duh

[anUnhandledException]

Obviously the guy is paying $75 LESS in taxes.

I mean govt spending isn't magic.

Guy $75 -> $75 more in county taxes -> $75 paid to town
Guy $75 -> $75 paid to town

What is the difference. The guy has representation for this taxes. At any point in last 20 years the residents of the county could have passed a law raising taxes and paying for coverage for whole county. They didn't? Why I don't know but the fact that the guy opted out of paying $75 says a lot. Maybe a significant % of the county thinks the same way.

Maybe they don't want "those ebil socialists forcing me to give the town $75, fires rarely happen and I know better how to spend my money than the govt does".

Re:Well Duh

[osgeek]

I like this method for two reasons:

1. You're explicitly paying for a service that's useful. When government takes your money in a lump sum, they tend to do all kinds of other crap with it. See the Social Security fund for a great example.
2. If you want fire protection you have to write a check. That's better than having it deducted from your taxes automatically. Once that happens, the amount creeps higher and higher without anyone noticing and without the government feeling like they need to reign in the price of the service.

Government a la carte would be a great way to increase the fiscal efficiency of our government.

Re:Well Duh

[floodo1]

Maybe success needs to be punished sometimes. And perhaps the state should have a hand in insuring that all people have fire coverage, whether they want it or not. Therefore this could be about state income tax.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

I think if I had a family, I would have paid my $75. Who exactly is the cheap-ass here?

If a family member dies after you had stopped paying their life insurance premium, do you think the insurance company is still going to pay out? Would you call them callous if they didn't?

Re:Well Duh

[morari]

Now if only the police could be brushed away by not paying a fee... :(

Re:Well Duh

[atrain728]

Emergency service is a little different from trash pickup. I understand what you are saying, but emergency services should never be optional.

Re:Well Duh

[osgeek]

Doesn't work for some idiot who made a really poor chain of decisions including not paying promptly for his protection and burning garbage near his house?

Sounds like it worked well for society. Lots of people are checking that they made their fire payments in that county today.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

In states such as Tennessee, they are already fairly poor. They are also, typically, anti-government and anti-taxes. Many live in the country to avoid paying various taxes. Believe it or not, simply raising taxes for such an obvious service would likely raise ire and have many up in arms...

Indeed. Kismet perhaps, but there's a reason the Tennessee state border looks like a torn-apart trailer home.

Re:Well Duh

[sorak]

If I live next to a wealthy looking neighbor, I can get him to buy my fire insurance for me just by making my property more dangerous to his. Don't want to encourage that.

Isn't this like saying "health insurance will just cause people to do more unhealthy things?" What I'm getting at is that, there is still a cost of having a fire, and that only the dumbest of the dumb would intentional create a fire hazard in exchange for free fire department service.

Re:Well Duh

[anUnhandledException]

Yeah the guy is such a financial genious.

He
a) didn't pay $75 fee
b) didn't have sufficient coverage on his home (likely to save another $50 a year)

however the fire dept should take a financial risk of 100x that to provide services that he opted out of. That he was aware he opted out of. That he has opted out of for years.

Sorry responsibilty starts somewhere. The guy had lots of options:
a) he could have paid $75
b) he could have lobbied to have count raise taxes and pay everyone's $75 "universal coverage"
c) he could have pushed for a county fire dept.
d) he could have had proper amount of insurance on his home. With a low deductible and 100% coverage this might even be cheaper.

He opted not to do any of that. He opted to be foolish with his monetary resources, then he expected to be protected anyways.

Sorry services aren't free. They have costs. Most people realize this some people will be the first to riot if you say we need to raise taxes and talk about "small govt" but will be first in line for free services they didn't pay.

Re:Well Duh

[hitmark]

Someone need to keep a close eye on the place, sounds like a libertarian social experiment in action.

Re:Well Duh

[shibashaba]

Theres paid firefighters, but most firefighters are volunteers and don't get paid at all.

Re:Well Duh

[iluvcapra]

The beautiful thing about believing strongly in something abstract, like I guess in this case "libertarianism" though even most libertarians (setting aside a few American cranks) believe in tax-funded fire services, is that you can convince yourself that doing something evil is in fact good and necessary, given certain unrealistic assumptions reality. You can imagine the talk the fire chief gave the volunteers afterwards:

Now I know guys it was tough to watch a man's house burn down, but it was really the right thing to do. You can feel proud that as the man pleaded with you to turn on the hoses, you resisted him, and in your resistance YOU TOO were fighting for individual liberty, you were the minuteman, the freedom fighter. Because, as awful as watching another man's life being destroyed can be, it is nothing compared to the horrible crime of using the coercive power of the state to force him to pay $75 a year.

That's really sortof the issue. If you don't make people pay the $75 and allow them to do it voluntarily, you're going to have situations where the fire brigade is forced to watch a person's life be destroyed, while possessing the means to stop it, which is plainly evil and wrong -- let's just call it what it is, huh? It makes men into monsters, much greater monsters than they would have been if they'd just bloody sent a bill every year to everyone.

Re:Well Duh

[interval1066]

Billing the man later simply wasn't an option? Some consequences. For $75? Sure, the guy should have paid, but the right thing would have been to put the fire out and send the guy a bill later. That's how its done with Ambulance services. Or does your county do things differently? Do the EMTs fish around a heart attack victim's pockets for loose change before loading him into the vehicle????

And ANOTHER THING; I first saw this story on MSNBC's web site, with Olbermann himself anchoring. The first phrase out of his stupid mouth was some crap about a world run by Republicans or something. THIS IS WHY I DON'T WATCH MSNBC. The stupid fucks.

Re:Well Duh

[chartreuse]

I take it the vote was unanimous. Or do people who disagree just not count?

You'd have no objections to communities in the US that operate under Sharia, I mean, Jewish law?

Re:Well Duh

[macson_g]

No even progressive. Even a simplest, linear income-based tax makes better folks on bigger income pay more.

Re:Well Duh

[sznupi]

...success which greatly relies on the general state of society at large, its basic infrastructure. I wonder what could be the way to finance those.

Re:Well Duh

[mikkelm]

Yes, and at the very most, they would've been doing what they were trained and equipped to do.

Re:Well Duh

[alta]

If the people were inside, then it's an emergency. But no one's life was in danger, so now we're talking about a Fireman risking HIS life to save someone's crap that's probably already insured anyway.

Actually, it was the chief's call. So when two fireman die on this call what's the chief going to tell the firemen's little girls?

We sent your daddies in to save the shit of someone who didn't think their home was worth paying the fire fee?

And BTW, if you just try putting the fire out from the outside where it's safe, the house is still going to burn from the outside in. You have to go INTO the house to put it out.

Re:Well Duh

[wholestrawpenny]

Around where I live, the volunteer fire company donation is also optional. They will always come to your house if you call 911 in need of help, however, if you didn't make the donation that year, you get charged at least four figures for their services. The donation is a bargain, and you'd be an idiot not to pay it. "South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire." It's almost like buying health insurance only when you get sick, how would the insurance (or fire) company survive?

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, Tennessee is a state that steadfastly refuses to pass an income tax and in which any talk of raising taxes is met with crazy uproar. They had an actual riot back in 2001 when the state tried to introduce an small income tax.

This same guy who complained that the firefighters didn't save his house would probably be the first in line to scream like a girl if anyone dared propose a tax increase to pay for a fire station.

Once again, there is no free lunch, rednecks. If you want something, the money has to come from somewhere. If you want the government "off your back" then fine, but be prepared to fight your own damn fire.

Or pay 75$ and not pay thousands in taxes?

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the county collect property taxes based on value of the home?

How much less money will the county collect next year, based on the assessed value of the home before and after the fire?

How many years of lost property tax difference would it take to outweigh the cost of putting out the fire?

Sometimes people go so overboard in the fight against "giving away free services" that they lose sight of the big picture.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they wouldn't have gone in. We wouldn't even show up. The only reason they came is because the neighbor's fence was on fire. Yeah, some heroes. They saved that fence!

Re:Well Duh

[dcollins]

And that's why the more affluent folk contribute lots of money to groups who do TV advertising to convince this guy otherwise. Net profit.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

The tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.

By that definition, all democratic or republic forms of governance are inherently tyrannical. I disagree but this is entering philosophical domains. Really, your definition is contrary to their very existence. The entire point of this form of governance exists such that the majority are served based on their wishes either directly (democratic) or indirectly (republic via electorate). That means some minority is always unhappy. In recent times, this has started to change, meaning some minority inflicts tyranny on the majority and that may be why your perceptions are as such.

Pragmatically, a well run democratic or republic society is the antithesis of tyranny.

Re:Well Duh

[hesaigo999ca]

I understand that this is the case for most situations, but if the person that called said something to the effect of..."i did pay you, there must be some mistake, I have a receipt here, can you send them anyways until we get this resolved, i would hate for them not show up and have you legally liable in case you ended up making a clerical error and my house burned down.

This would at least get them down there, and then later you could pay your backwards payments all the way till today, much cheaper then losing everything.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

I take it the vote was unanimous. Or do people who disagree just not count?

I encourage you to learn what democracy and republic forms of governance are all about. In either case, I'm not aware of any forms of these governments which require unanimous votes. Most are based on the principal of majority. The majority measure may vary from place to place, but unanimity is generally never a requirement. These forms of governance are about the majority. Their vote was counted - it just didn't win. That's a HUGE difference.

Re:Well Duh

[alta]

Seems to me this guy isn't really one of the rednecks (disclaimer. I'm in alabama, roll tide)

We rednecks don't want the government programs. We don't want to pay more taxes. We want to fend for ourselves. If our house burns down and WE didn't take the necessary steps to prevent/mitigate it, then WE take responsibility for it.

  This guy, is not representative of our views.

On the other hand, his fucking house burned down. He's pissed at himself for not paying the money. He's not going to be rational, he's just pissed and going to blame it at anyone and everyone.

Re:Well Duh

[Khyber]

The real failure is your inability to figure out that the Government is responsible for this entire fucking mess. Instead of giving out money to states and local municipalities that need it to fund BASIC CIVIL FUCKING SERVICES (another thing you apparently fail to understand,) they use it to line their own pockets.

The real tragedy is you'll sit on your ass and do nothing, in the meantime I spend a lot of time and energy actually doing some good by trying to make things better.

What a worthless piece of scum you are.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, there is no free lunch, rednecks. If you want something, the money has to come from somewhere. If you want the government "off your back" then fine, but be prepared to fight your own damn fire.

The ironical thing is the the stink of bigotry rising up from the bowels of your comment is of the same ilk that defines the term "redneck". Which is it ? Is this man a redneck (not stated in the article), the people of Tennessee (whom in the minds of some redneck mentalities are all redneck), or conservatives (many of whom are definitely not redneck) ?

Having been on "a list" for police services when my house was broken into and having the police failed to respond when they couldn't find me on the list, I can say for sure that they do screw up. Even if they didn't in this case, is it worth letting the fire burn while they figure it out ? There's also a simple solution applied in all these cases - a huge fine if they are not current on their account. What if there had been people inside the house ? Did they go inside and check ? Can we assume that everyone who entered was informed they were not under the protection of a local fire department ?

Worse, they let the fire burn to the point they were fighting it at the neigbor's house. How stupid is that ?

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

He apparently knew the ropes, and decided not to pay the fee. I do live in Tennessee, and my opinion is that I am very sorry he lost what he lost, but for goodness sakes, pay the $75. In my community we do pay a tax for fire protection. In his, they do not. We don't all have to be the same.

"Once again, there is no free lunch, rednecks. "

Well you don't live in Tennessee, do you, "yankee?" So what value does your comment have?

Re:Well Duh

[operagost]

This could also be about leprechauns. Lucky Charms in every bowl! They're magically delicious!

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

A well thought out response. But you take the stance that the annual Fire fee entitles the property owner to complete protection from fire. That's not correct. That fee only guarantees that the fire company will respond to any fire reported on the property. Still leaves a property owner pissed that his property gets damaged at all, but there again that is also a danger in living in a rural setting next to a property owner who doesn't believe in paying for such services or cannot afford them. If he wants his property completely protected, then it's HIS responsibility to ensure that not only is his fee paid, but his neighbors as well. That applies to everything for a property owner wanting to protect his property, not just voluntary fire coverage.

Definitely agree that there should be a retail cost that a non-paying property owner could provide to get a fire response. But I don't think it needs to be a definitive dollar figure. Simply have a deductible of say, $5000 dollars that the owner must pay up front and sign a contract that obligates him for the balance of the service cost. Yes, I do mean $5000 paid up front by a credit card/cash/cashier's check. Can't just take their word, or even a signed contract, as proof the property owner will pay because if the property burns to the ground despite a fire response then it becomes highly unlikely the owner will ever be able or willing to repay the cost.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

Certainly an underrated and insightful post!

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

Income tax is an atrocity committed upon free people to deprive them of their liberties and freedoms. Unfortunately the people are apparently not as free in their minds as some would believe, otherwise the income tax would never have passed as an idea in any free society ever.

Income tax requires you to submit to a degrading interrogation by the state, you are supposed to tell the state everything you do, how and why, etc.

Income tax also deprives people of freedoms in another terrible way: it lets the government grow indefinitely, even to the point where over 99% of income is taken away (point in case is USSR).

--

The correct way to provide funding for a minimum government is of-course through a selective sales tax, that would not tax items that are necessary for basic survival (so no taxing the poor). This does the following:

1. Lets you keep your liberties.
2. Lets you control the size of gov't and spending by controlling your own spending on taxable items.

Re:Well Duh

[LinuxAndLube]

The 75 USD is basically an insurance fee. If you don't pay the fee, then you should have to pay the full cost of the service... to put the fire out. Which is what this guy (or his neighbor) offered to do.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in a very rural county in TN (thanks for the redneck compliment. Maybe that'll keep some of the tax-and-spend furriners and yankees out of the state) and used to be a volunteer fireman. We have a subscription fire department. It's one of the best deals going. Instead of having my dollars go through the local government as taxes with all that overhead, I pay directly to the fire department. What could be better than that?

This county is about 90% agricultural land. The county can't afford a fire department just like it can't afford other "needed" services. The only option would be to tax the farmers off their lands. When I was a VF, THE hardest thing we had to do was raise money to keep the service operating. We bought our own personal protective gear. We used second hand apparatus surplussed from big cities. Each year we sent a fund-raising letter/bill to every household in the county. In that letter it is plainly spelled out in bold print that if that household doesn't pay the subscription fee, it will not get protection. Period. The whiny bastard that is the subject of this discussion knew that and chose not to pay, perhaps thinking he could freeload and get protection anyway. Doesn't work that way.

As for rioting over the income tax, damn right we did. I closed my store and gave all my employees gas money to attend the rally. We're not going to give those bastards in Nashville one more cent of our money to waste if we have any control over it. TN is the second cheapest state in the union to live in and we want to keep it that way. Want lots of services and the taxes that go with them? That's fine. Move to another state.

Re:Well Duh

[TheCarp]

Too bad the police don't do this. "We would love to go to their house Mrs, but they havn't paid their fees, so we don't enforce ourr silly laws there"

I would so gladly not pay that fee. Tho... $75 for fire coverage? Id pay twice that or more!

-Steve

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

So, even in Tennessee, there eventually must be some level where we let them live their own lives. This is my definition of 'liberty'.

Agreed! But the story is ultimately about someone complaining they received their liberty - else there wouldn't be a story at all.

Re:Well Duh

[Eil]

It ain't rocket science. Some bubba sets his own house on fire, and then whines because the people he didn't pay, didn't come to put it out. I've lived in Tennesee: they really don't like taxes there. That's fine, but there are consequences.

It's fascinating how many people will read a news article and seek out that one fatal flaw, that one bad decision that was responsible for the whole mess and focus so intently on that one thing that they lose sight of the whole picture.

The fact is, there were two things that went wrong here:

1) The homeowner didn't pay their taxes

2) The fire department didn't respond appropriately to a potentially life-threatening situation

I'm not defending the homeowner here as they absolutely should have paid their taxes and should be punished for it. But not by having their home razed and their family pets killed.

Fire departments are not like car insurance. If you total your ride and didn't pay a premium, of course you aren't entitled to a claim in the event of an accident. All fires are potentially deadly and must be controlled at the earliest possible opportunity to prevent unnecessary loss of life and property. Letting any fire burn out of control regardless of the reason is gross negligence and the fire chief of this particular department ought to be facing jail time for his idiotic decisions.

Nobody seems to be asking: How will this affect the neighbor's trust in the fire department in the future? Now everyone within that deparment's jurisdiction has to worry about what will happen when they call in a fire. Did they forget to pay their fire-fighting taxes? If they did, will the department have a record of it?

Whether or not I had paid my taxes, if I lived in that city, I would move the hell out purely in the interest of my family's safety.

Re:Well Duh

[sabt-pestnu]

Tennessee has 7% sales tax, 6% on food and food ingredients. It has personal income tax only on stock dividends and interest from bonds, except for persons over 65 with incomes below a certain threshold. It also has Property taxes.

As a resident of another state that has two of three popular taxing measures (Oregon: Income, property), I can agree with Tennessee residents: You can vote in that third tax only if you utterly eliminate one of the other two.

Once you allow taxation on something, it nearly takes an act of god to stop. While I think Tennessee residents have chosen poorly (sales tax is regressive, thus not amenable to social change, IE adjusting burdens on the poor), I agree with their protests. As surely as a hammer will fall if I drop it, the politicians were proposing an income tax without dropping the sales tax.

Re:Well Duh

[sjames]

I can well understand why they might object to income tax, perhaps a sales tax on non-essential goods would be a better idea.

Re:Well Duh

[thetoadwarrior]

I was thinking the same. He's probably some tea bagger d-bag. He should enjoy this more capitalist approach to fire services.

Re:Well Duh

[dave420]

I'd hate to live in that part of the world. It sounds like the fucking wild west, only now people know better. What's the fucking excuse for such a shitty attitude towards life? Money? Awesome.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

The real failure is your inability to figure out that the Government is responsible for this entire fucking mess.

Why the hostility at me? I'm explaining to you how things work. That means I'm the messenger. Haven't you ever heard, don't shoot the messenger? We are the government. So you're very clearly pointing a finger at the very same people I did. Its a sad fact, but we get the very best government we deserve.

According to another poster, they tried to pass it as a tax. The population said no. That means the government did not fail them. Not in the least. They provided them exactly what they asked for. As I originally said, this idiot gambled and lost. To then point a finger elsewhere is delusional at best.

To quote one of my other posts, "...the story is ultimately about someone complaining they received their liberty."

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

The missed payment was an oversight. The home owner and the neighbor were reported offering to pay the fire department what ever it would take, not just the $75 subscription. A few $k would have been a bargain for the home owner and more then covered the cost. The fire department would not accept. How does this make ethical or economic sense? A lost home and pets are big losses.

Re:Well Duh

[Imrik]

While the fire was burning the firefighters had to sit at the house and watch it to ensure that it didn't spread and since they weren't putting it out, it would take longer to burn out. If someone else had a fire, they would take longer to respond as a result.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

One way to force it into a market model: if a fire starts in your house, and spreads to your neighbours (because you didn't pay for the fire department), you have to compensate your neighbours.

The reason this doesn't work: people don't have enough money to pay for the consequences of their actions. Instead of paying for their neighbours' repairs, they'd just go bankrupt. (This is the justification for compulsory car insurance, too.)

Re:Well Duh

[Shakrai]

Jim Crow was supported by the majority of the electorate when it was in place.....

Re:Well Duh

[Monchanger]

Government a la carte would be a great way to increase the fiscal efficiency of our government.

Of course. We'd spend a fraction of what we do currently.

But in our non-fairy-tale world it would also cause the fiscal collapse of governments, which would mean no large-scale projects would ever get done and existing infrastructure will finally crumble.

The answer isn't no government. The answer is better government oversight and less voter apathy.

Re:Well Duh

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Income tax is an atrocity committed upon free people to deprive them of their liberties and freedoms.

Income Tax is the way little people band together and claw back money stolen from them by Big Corporations and Big Businesses. Most of the people who mouth nonsense like "income tax is theft" are either shills for these big corporations or brainwashed by the big corporations.

Re:Well Duh

[v1]

If you don't pay that fee, you don't get fire protection.

I agree with their reasoning of "if we got a call from an uninsured person and they could just pay the $75 then, then everyone would only pay when they had a fire".

HOWEVER, the solution of letting your house burn when you call if you haven't paid, is the wrong way to solve that problem. There are several much more humane and equally acceptable approaches. Here's one good alternative:

Impose a FINE for calling the fire department if you have a fire and didn't pay your dues. Make it fairly large, something to make the firefighter's trip worthwhile. $2500 lets say. If you call, and you don't have coverage, you get fined $2500, and $75 of that goes toward that year's dues.

Problem solved. Most people will still pay upfront for "fire insurance" of the fire department, people that either forget or are too cheap to spring for it will still have service, and the city won't lose money in the deal.

The $2500 figure could be adjusted for whatever the city figures they're going to lose in people stopping their $75 dues, and factoring in the few additional calls they'll be going out on. I have no idea if that's a reasonable number, and it could vary a lot from place to place, I could be off quite a bit in either direction, but the idea is sound.

The fire department telling you they're not going to help is just plain not acceptable, no moreso than showing up at the emergency room and being sent home home because you don't have medical insurance.

Read some history on fire protection in years past. Independently-run fire departments competed for customers in a city. You'd nail the company's badge on your door to indicate you'd paid for protection. Trucks would be spread out around town all day/night and would respond to fires on sight. If they got there, they'd check your door for their badge. No badge, and they'd watch it burn, or take a one-time payment. Some people would subscribe to more than one group in town to cut response time. Sometimes one company would try to hinder another company from helping, if they got there first, didn't find their badge, and then another company showed up ready to help. That's the sillyness that got fire protection handed over to the cities. The behavior we are looking at here today is just as bad. You can't have profit being the top decision maker in emergency services. (btw, those door badges are very collectable nowadays)

Re:Well Duh

[orgelspieler]

Just because its legal doesn't make it moral. Why wouldn't they just show up, fight the fire, and then charge him the complete cost of fighting the fire? That's the way ambulances and hospitals work. I'm sure the insurance company would much rather pay that than the cost of building him a new home.

What's scary is that Glenn Beck thinks this is a good thing. I don't even think he realizes this event is a pretty damning example of what's wrong with Tea Party mentality (lower taxes, smaller government). Remember, this is what comes from smaller government. Some things that should be handled for the public good are reduced or even eliminated. And yes, fighting the "bubba" fire would have been in the public good. Had the firefighters stopped the blaze before it got out of hand, the neighbor's house would have remained untouched. Further, this man will have to get his replacement goods from somewhere, probably churches and charities. That will reduce the available resources the charities have to take care of other people. (If you'd like to argue that this is good for the economy, please don't)

Two questions, though: Why in the world would an insurance company even cover somebody who hadn't opted-in to fire protection? Can the neighbor sue the fire department for the damage to his house that could have been prevented but for their inaction?

Re:Well Duh

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Lives where lost.

You may not care that it was a few dogs and a cat but what if it had been a human. Next time something like this happens that may be the case. And to many their pets are as important to them, and as much a part of the family as any human. The loss of possessions is sad, but the loss of a loved one is traggic.

Burning to death is one of the most horrific ways to die, for any creature.

I am amazed that there isn't some policy in place where if you don't pay the fee you are libel for the cost of the response but to just do nothing is, at least to me, inconceivable. It goes against the basic drive of any firefighter, you don't let the Beast win.

Expect some changes to be made to the rules.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

Its actually part and parcel of living in the unincorporated country. Many country homes do not have fire or police services. Many don't have sewage or trash. In exchange, they has little or no taxes.

The fact that fire services were available at such a low annual fee was a blessing. The fact he didn't pay for it, makes him an idiot.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.federalgrantswire.com/assistance-to-firefighters-grant.html

Re:Well Duh

[blair1q]

So the tax is either $75 (pretty cheap) for the service, or the value of your house.

And if not everyone knows about this choice, and thinks the fire service is covered in the taxes they do pay, all you're doing is guaranteeing that this will happen.

So no, it's not fine that people really don't like taxes there. Because they're fucking their neighbors with their stupidity.

Re:Well Duh

[maxthemechanic]

I understand completely - Both sides. He was willing to pay the fee because his house was on fire. If they allowed this, the only people who would pay would be the people with houses on fire. It costs far more than $75 for firefighters to respond to a fire. This would be the same as me driving my car without insurance and then offering to pay for coverage only after I am in an accident. It does not work like that. When I owned a home in a flood plane, I was REQUIRED to carry flood insurance. How is it that his mortgage company did not include this in his fees. On the other side, If the fire fighters had to choose between responding to his house and a house on the list (of people who paid for coverage) and they responded to the other house, I don't believe that there would have been an issue. However since the other call came in for the house next to his, which put them there, he was upset that they wouldn't help him. Now people blame the firefighters. How is this different than my college roommate and his girlfriend on spring break. He had great insurance and she had none. At the scene of the accident, He was transported to the nearest hospital, while she waited for the same ambulance to come back and transport her to a county hospital an hour away. He was treated and released and got to her hospital before she was ever seen by a doctor. Neither one had life threatening injuries, but there was a definite difference in service. Free vs. paid. People got upset, but it is a business. If nobody pays the fee, there is not enough money for the fire department and everyone looses. A sign used to hang on the wall where I worked. "You can have it done fast, cheap, or right. Pick 2." If you want a good fire department, police department, hospital, etc. with fast response times, it costs money. If you don't care how fast the services is or how good it is, then you can save money. Simple.

Re:Well Duh

[cheekyjohnson]

What? So they just let innocent animals die for their own selfish reasons ($75)? What if it had been humans in that building? Would the result have been the same?

Re:Well Duh

[PinkyGigglebrain]

You do know that the Constitution of the US prohibits income tax except in times of war, right? And yes, I know this was a state/county tax/fee issue but it still should be considered.

Up till WW2 there was no general Federal income tax, or state income tax. IIRCC. The Government was supposed to get all their money from property tax, which this guy pays.

Funny thing just occurred to me. Since the house is destroyed the property has been de-valued, lowering the amount of property tax revenue generated by the land. I wonder if it will drop by more than $75.

Re:Well Duh

[BobMcD]

Yeppers. Which is why I'm not too disappointed in the outcome. 'Sucks to be him' is certainly valid here, but that's about as far as it goes for me. The alternative, that admittedly would have prevented this situation is not acceptable, because it would come only at the cost of such liberty.

People seem to think that dead soldiers buy us our freedom, and while that's somewhat true, today we're learning that burned-down houses do, too.

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

Income taxes is theft of liberties, I know you don't understand, you've been brainwashed by the gov't+corporations for way too long.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is wrong with putting out the fire, then sending them a bill and then pursuing it in the courts?

That's what's reasonable, civil people do. They don't stand around letting something burn down that a danger to all. The people called, asked for help, and that's contractual enough.

This is the firefighters being jackasses, nothing more.

What next, you don't pay your full county taxes, so you don't deserve police protection the next time you get robbed?

Unbelievable you're even arguing what you are.

Re:Well Duh

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

State income taxes are a horrible idea. Nevada doesn't have one either, and if they ever did try to pass one, a riot wouldn't be a surprise.

Some places have state and city taxes, and you still pay Federal taxes, and sales taxes, so 60% of what you earn is going to taxes. That's crazy.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing I find annoying is people claiming that the owner refused to pay. From everything I read the owner simply forgot to pay, an easy enough thing to do. This could have readily been verified by checking previous years. Does this guy pay regularly?

If the fire department can make information available to trucks on who pays the fee, then they can make information available on their payment history. Anyone who regularly pays but failed that year gets billed $1000 to put out the fire.

I would hate for my house to burn down because some mailman dumped a load of mail including my check instead of delivering it.

PS:

From what I understand there were several pets in the house that the firemen allowed to die.

Re:Well Duh

[Nethemas the Great]

No! Libertarians and other "f' everyone else but me, how dare they deduct "for the common good" expenses from my paycheck" types must have their cake and eat it too!

Some how these people get it into their mind that they shouldn't have to contribute to the good of others but "woe is me" if they don't receive the benefits of the things they did not contribute to. This is an example of why people really need to get past the deduction line on their pay stubs and realize that by providing for the well fare of others they are providing for themselves as well.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

Yes, it has an appeal. The problem is that this would make any larger "common good" projects impossible. Some services (like road building and maintenance, for example) don't lend themselves well to an opt-in approach. It's not like we can tell Jim the cheapskate, who opts out of everything, that he can't use the roads, or the parks, or the bridges. How do I deal with someone who wants to opt-out of paying his fair share of a prison, or a flooding project, or anything else that benefits everyone in the area? If I've got a project to reduce smog, and someone elects to not pay their fair share, do I tell them they can't breath the air?

Re:Well Duh

[argStyopa]

The beautiful thing about the internet is that you can cheerfully criticize people, making the most malign assertions based on your 'vision' of 'how things should be' all from the comfort of your easy chair in mom's basement.

In the internet world, resources are infinite, so you can wave your hand and have these guys put out that fire because it's "the right thing to do" regardless of the consequences of wear & tear on equipment, insurance coverage for the firemen, or any of those silly, petty mundane concerns.

Apparently in the internet world, you don't have to pay for fire trucks, repair them, train firefighters, or send them to RISK THEIR LIVES fighting a fire (that's real danger and real life, not just "I lose some xp and have to respawn" internet-life, by the way)?

You can simply declare these men - you know, these VOLUNTEER firefighters, who routinely risk their lives to save people who do all sorts of self-destructive things like drunk-driving, bungee jumping, drug use, etc. - are "evil" and "monsters" because they refused to exercise their blood, toil, tears, and sweat to save the PROPERTY of some dickwad that couldn't be bothered to write a $75 check.

Go ahead and call these men "evil" for not giving this guy a free ride. Claim anyone that defends them is some blind libertarian hewing to some sort of utopian ideal. In fact YOU'RE the one who's living in a fantasy, assuming that everything that "needs doing" will be done regardless of cost or consequence.

Let's play it your way: despite not paying the fee, this guy has a fire. Should the fire station be called out to put out his garage fire? What if there are kittens in there? How about his empty shed? Are they obligated to respond to ANY fire, or just the "serious" ones? Should the nearest town be obligated to provide police services free of charge as well? Snowplowing? Water? Sewer?

It's very, very simple - the county has limited resources. Their fire service is paid for by municipal taxes, but the widespread rural population (and probably low tax revenue from their properties) can't be covered. So rural people have a choice - $75 gets you fire coverage for a year. They didn't pay. They get no coverage. If they didn't like it, they could pay or, optionally, move closer to town where the coverage is available.

Nevertheless I wish my world were as simple as yours. Might get tough to navigate if everything's so black and white.

Re:Well Duh

[tmosley]

Texas doesn't have an income tax either, and we manage not to burn down.

The answer isn't always more government.

Re:Well Duh

[fyngyrz]

Come on. Think. This shouldn't be an income tax. It should be a property tax. The owner of the property - not a renter, or the kid who lives there and works a job, should be responsible for such a payment. If you're renting, you include the cost in the rent. If you can't afford your property taxes, the government takes your property. Problem solved, and fairly, too.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

How can that score a 5 as "Insightful"?? Are Slashdot posts scored out of 100 now?

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

At some point we decided as a society that taxing a billionaire and a homeless person at the same rate was unfair. After all, it's a helluva lot easier for a billionaire to make another billion than for someone who is poor to make their first billion. Taxing them both at an equal rate, with no regards for their relative earning potential and power is nigh delusional. A billionaire buying a gallon of milk and someone who is barely surviving buying a gallon of milk are two very different transactions. Basing all of our taxes solely on the assumption that a given purchase means exactly the same to both of these parties seems naive. A regressive income tax acknowledges that a wealthier person has a privileged position to earn money much more easily than a poorer person, especially above a certain threshold.

Don't feel bad though. If the U.S. were run by a real socialist (and not an imaginary one concocted by the tea partiers), income taxes above a certain threshold would be at 100%. Or even worse, wealth above a certain threshold would simply be nationalized. Many mainstream politicians have proposed this in the past. Go look at what Huey Long proposed for dealing with his era's recession (if you want to see what a *real* U.S. socialist looks like).

Re:Well Duh

[fyngyrz]

basic human decency

Ah. But it isn't basic human decency that controls; it is stupidity. This is because half the people are biologically stupid, and a good number of the remaining are fucntionally stupid as a consequence of not being possessed of critical thinking skills, adequate data, or a combination of both. That's why democracy is effectively a mechanism where any two idiots can outvote an expert, in an environment where experts are rare. It's doomed to make the wrong decisions in many cases, just as we see here. The obvious path here is to tax the property owners for fire services. But it's only obvious if you can think. That whole sticky mass of smegma about everyone being equal? Yeah, not so much.

Re:Well Duh

[weiserfireman]

However, here is where things get unpleasant: Because the Cranicks didn't pay, the firefighters allowed the fire to burn merrily, growing and spreading until it hit somebody who had paid. Now, since the paying householder's property is on fire, they likely suffered some thousands or 10s of thousands in direct combustion, smoke, and water damage. They paid, and they got shitty service. Had the firefighters used the Cranicks property to fight and stop the fire, they could have saved their customers from any damage, and done a much better job of serving them, the ones who actually paid.

Actually, in this case, the neighbors had a small grass fire that was put out. No damage to any building. The grass will grow back by next year. But your point is valid.

There is something analogous going on with wildland fires that start on Federal Land now. The Federal Government has decided they no longer have any legal responsibility to protect structures from wildfires that start on Federal Land. It is up to the local jurisdiction to pay for that protection. If you don't have any local fire protection, you are SOL. The Feds will help the locals request additional structure resources, but it is up to them to pay for it. My department has a contract through the State to supply structure protection equipment. The contract rate is $2700 per day, and you have to feed us.

I was on one structure protection assignment this year. The local Fire Chief was told when the fire started, that if it was declared a disaster area, he would get some Federal Help with the bills. After it was declared a disaster area, he was told that he wouldn't get any help unless his jurisdiction had over $100,000 in out of pocket costs. He was sitting at $65,000 that day. His whole budget is only about $200,000 per year. He didn't have $65,000 sitting around to pay for these resources.

If there is a forest fire coming, the Feds will put a dozer line in to provide a fire break. But when they get to private land, they will pick up the blade and not make a line until they get back to government owned land. Landowner is responsible for putting in his own fire break. Of course, if there is a local Fire Chief there, he excercise his authority to have the fire break made, but his agency will get the bill now too.

Re:Well Duh

[pkinetics]

From the article, the homeowners live outside the county's fire coverage area. The home owner has been paying the $75 coverage fee in the past. He just forgot to do it this year.

The sad part is that the one time he needed it, is the one time he forgot to pay.

The city makes a good point. If they let people pay on the spot, then only those who were burning down would pay for coverage, which means the cost is going to be much higher. Typical of an insurance program.

The stupid part of this is their grandson was burning trash near the home. That's the real problem.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

Is this man a redneck (not stated in the article)

You ever been to Fulton? Trust me, it's a pretty safe assumption. And as others have pointed out, the problem with a fine is that he could easily have just refused to pay it after-the-fact (the city has no authority to impose fines on county residents). This boils down to one of those personal responsibility issues. He chose to live in a county with no fire service. He chose not to pay a fee to get fire service. He got no fire service. It's not very complicated.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an argument that could be used by pedophiles.

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

As I said, people are giving up their liberties for exchange for something, they thought they'd get something worthy in return? They got a busted economy in return. Good choice, clear thinking.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone living in a "socialist" country, it's often socking to see how the US, the richest country in the world, is run.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't see this as a disaster... Look.. It's a business oportunity!!!

Look at how Crassus Wikipedia.org used it to become the richest man in Rome...

Quoting from the article:
"Most notorious was his acquisition of burning houses: when Crassus received word that a house was on fire, he would arrive and purchase the doomed property along with surrounding buildings for a modest sum, and then employ his army of 500 clients to put the fire out before much damage had been done. Crassus' clients employed the Roman method of firefighting—destroying the burning building to curtail the spread of the flames."

Just get enough votes to privatise the fire department!!!

Forget foreclosures, just bring on the private fire brigade...

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

Don't worry, this is nothing compared to the price we'll ultimately pay for leaving the gold standard, and all these decades of ever-increasing deficit spending. When all that money in your bank account and wallet turn to worthless dust, you won't have to worry about federal taxes anymore.

Re:Well Duh

[chartreuse]

In my country we have a thing called the Constitution that we use as a rulebook for the laws we pass. Does a majority passing a law that's unconstitutional (like the CDA) get a free pass because they're a majority, or should the law be struck down?

You'd be in favor of imposing Sharia law (or Halakhah, the Jewish religious law) if a city or county duly voted for it?

Proposition 8 was approved by a (small) majority of voters in California; does that mean you approve of taking away minority civil rights at the ballot box as well?

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

you are preaching to the choir, I don't have any USD anymore.

Re:Well Duh

[Darinbob]

How it should work I think is that step one they put out the fire, and step two they recover the expenses by charging the homeowner a very high amount, using a lawsuit if necessary, with most of the money ultimately coming from the homeowner's insurance. The amount would be based on the actual expenses of putting out the fire, plus an appropriate share of equipment maintenance costs, plus a small penalty. It's win-win; the homeowner keeps their house, and the fire department gets funded.

Thios also gives a chance to go back over the records later and make sure of the facts; ie, was the fee paid but the records wrong, was the fee just in the fail, was this someone who never paid the fee, and so on. It lets the fire trucks roll immediately without waiting for some bureaucrat to figure out if the address is fully paid up or not.

Re:Well Duh

[OffTheBeatenPath]

If you allow people to buy insurance after they need it, you either go bankrupt or the cost of insurance ends up equaling the retail cost of service. You then lose the risk-pooling function of insurance.

Huh, sounds kinda' like ObamaCare to me!

Re:Well Duh

[BatGnat]

The Firefighters should be arrested for animal cruelty. They deliberately let the fire burn.
Insurance company should sue the town.

Uhhh, yea. That's how it works.

Re:Well Duh

[Monchanger]

Income tax is an atrocity committed upon free people to deprive them of their liberties and freedoms.

Tell me, please, learned sir, the difference between "Freedoms" and "Liberties". Also tell me how exactly these are wrenched from my not-quite cold, nor dead hands. If we've been brainwashed, why are you complicit in hiding the "truth" from us? Oh, you just like feeling superior? And here I thought those liberals were the "elitists".

Income tax requires you to submit to a degrading interrogation by the state, you are supposed to tell the state everything you do, how and why, etc.

Oh, yes, terribly degrading. With its dastardly 1040 (and bazillion worksheets!), the feds put a virtual knife to my throat when I almost fearfully reported yet again that I was in violation of God's own law in my current choice to have neither wife nor children. Then it proceeded the "humiliation" by demanding to know things I'm hardly embarrassed to tell my mother- my profession, who I work for and what they pay me. The demand was scary to the point where I twice came nowhere near braking down crying complying with the Stalinist line 7. To the two required 10-page depositions titled "Why I go to Work" and "Why I'm Not Selfish Enough to Keep My Hard Earned Money to Myself" which I wasn't required to write to justify the above, it didn't respond with a Slashdotesque petty demand that I redo my taxes for the past four years because of a minor grammar error. It then went on to not invade my freedom by datamining this information, with which it neither bombarded me with big-government propaganda, nor sent even one measly federal agent to my home to harass me just for shits and giggles. Then (as if the IRS hadn't been invasive enough!), I was even compelled to feel completely free to tell them I donated money to several organizations when I requested a tax deduction! If I was just infinitely more outraged I would have vomited!

You guys are so right! Hyperbole sure is fun!

An income tax may not be the right way to go about collecting government revenue, but it's hardly the bane of freedom and end of the world that Ron Paul fanboys keep claiming. Paul's a smart guy and I respect him, but he's a too much of an idealist- he wouldn't have been able to bring many of his ideas to fruition if he had been elected president.

Your theory sounds great (almost as good as communism does in theory, as long as we're talking the USSR, which of course wasn't so much influenced by communist as by it being a corrupt dictatorship, but that's just a minor detail we can ignore for the sake of convenience). But it's lacking in all the important details, much of which are the very minor details important to actually passing such a massive reform. (Oh, you'll disclose those after the election, [insert your Republican candidate here]? No problem, I trust you this time.)

For example, who will taxes actually come from, at what levels, and most important to those in power who we need to vote on this: what kind of controls would they have, such as those government currently does with a very large number of tax breaks and state controls? If you think they'll give up that power any time soon you're no realist.

Re:Well Duh

[osgeek]

Some services (like road building and maintenance, for example) don't lend themselves well to an opt-in approach.

Toll booths are gold mines. They always go in as a "temporary measure" but then end up being in place forever because politicians see all that money and get greedy. They're a great example of pay as you go infrastructure. The one problem is that the revenues are subverted for other purposes besides the infrastructure excuse that created them. If you want to opt out by not using them then that's your right.

Look, I'm not saying that EVERYTHING should be voted upon by actually paying for it, but the pendulum could swing pretty far back in that direction before some libertarian utopia would come into being.

We could use some good citizen awareness, agreement, and participation in the spending of public money. Right now government is just a big opaque money vacuum that sucks in so many ways.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

In my country we have a thing called the Constitution that we use as a rulebook for the laws we pass.

The US has a rather well known Constitution. Unfortunately, in recent years, even many judges seem extremely confused at how to read and understand what many seven to ten years olds can easy accomplish. Its become somewhat in vogue to create law from the bench. These are called activist judges.

Beyond that, many (most?) representatives don't feel the Constitution actually applies to them. This is in part, by design. Nothing really stops anyone from create any law they like. The flip side is, the Judicial branch is there is strike down these laws as being unconstitutional. In theory, this would prevent all but idiots from creating unconstitutional laws. In practice, it no longer seems to have a chilling effect and its abused, waiting for it to be struck down.

This all stems from the fact the US legal system is completely broken. It can take years and millions and millions of dollars to strike down even plainly obviously unconstitutional laws.

For example, in my own state, the state's gun laws are clearly and plainly unconstitutional (and contrary to the original author's well documented reasons and intent) at both the state (state also has a constitution too) and federal level (US Constitution). It doesn't change the fact that many, many people's lives have been completely ruined by these completely unconstitutional laws. And my state is far from alone. Looks at states like California and New York, and you'll get a good taste of what it means to be run by absolute fucking idiots who wipe their ass with the US Constitution. Washington DC was also a recent example - where corrupt, anti-gun, unconstitutional guns laws were recently struck down. That required a trip all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Sadly, the US has become badly corrupted. Our education system is in the toilet. Most people don't even understand how badly things are because they've never been educated on the way things were designed to be. Lawyers, and by extension, lobbyists, now more or less run the US. No joke.

If things continue as they are, I do fully expect there will be revolution in the US within the next one or two hundred years. But these things also tend to be cyclic in nature so chances are, the pendulum to eventually start to swing the other way before that happens. Time will tell.

Re:Well Duh

[osgeek]

The answer isn't no government. The answer is better government oversight and less voter apathy.

Having people specify what the government spends money on is a pretty good means of oversight. Having people write checks for their services would decrease apathy. It's painful, but awareness provoking.

I'm not proposing it as a cure-all, but like with health care, the further removed patients are from making financially-based decisions about their health care the less they pay attention to where their dollars are going and the less efficient the system is.

Re:Well Duh

[shutdown -p now]

Would you prefer a "libertarian dictatorship"?

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for the lucidity. Man, some of the crap I've read about this otherwhere.

Re:Well Duh

[nomadic]

Income tax requires you to submit to a degrading interrogation by the state, you are supposed to tell the state everything you do, how and why, etc.

That's completely false. I tell the state how much I make. They tax that revenue. I don't have to tell them anything else.

Re:Well Duh

[c6gunner]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Re:Well Duh

[mikkelm]

Oh, you're /that/ kind of person.

Re:Well Duh

[Monchanger]

State income taxes are a horrible idea. Nevada doesn't have one...

Neither does New Hampshire, but we don't have your state's reputation either. ;)

Re:Well Duh

[shutdown -p now]

The scary part here is that places like that actually exist in a country which is classified as First World. We do have some general expectations about civilized countries, and one of them is that emergency services are immediately available to anyone in populated areas. It may well be that you'll have to pay a hefty compensation afterwards if you're a foreigner and don't pay into local taxes, and that makes sense. But still, help is rendered first, no questions asked, and the bill comes later.

There are many places in the world where it doesn't hold - you know, like Somalia, or Afghanistan, or other such things. It just boggles the mind that Tennessee is, apparently, also on that list.

I wonder how that $75/house arrangement works when something that's not a privately owned house (or not a house at all) is burning. Say, an auto crash that results in a fire. By the logic displayed in TFA, it would seem that the firemen won't even show up!

Also, I think the big deal about this is due to circumstances of this case. If they didn't respond to the call at all, one could argue about TANSTAAFL etc. But as it is, they did respond, and did come - to ensure the neighbors' houses won't burn. They actually had the fire engine and the team at the scene, and operated it. It wouldn't cost them anything to also spray his house with water while they were at it. Indeed, TFA points out that they were very careful to not spray anywhere on his property, which probably takes special effort! Given that, it sure sounds like they didn't have any direct economic incentive not to help in this particular case, and the sole reason why they didn't do so is to punish the guy for not paying, and as a warning to anyone else. Which is truly fucked up.

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

yeah, wait for an audit.

Re:Well Duh

[nomadic]

Then I show them my W2 form, and they say, oh, ok. The only people who should be terrified of audits are the people who are getting all complicated with their tax returns.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

TANSTOFL applies to real civilized city folk too. Whats the relevance to calling someone a redneck? But I bet it made you feel superior at least momentarily...

Re:Well Duh

[thewb005]

I wonder if his home owner's insurance will pay up even though he refused fire protection.

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

Yeah yeah, only people who should be worried about authority asking them anything are those people who have nothing to hide and to worry about, sure sure.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at it this way - let's say he had paid his $75 and the firefighters were not available or couldn't save his house. Will they build a new one? NOPE. What would he be paying for?

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

The man offered to pay on the spot, they were already there to keep the fire from spreading to a neighbor's property. But these asshats refused and stood by while the man's home and possessions burnt and his pets were killed.

That's just cold blooded bullshit in my book, I don't care who you are or where you live. It's not right and we should be better than this.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that when someone has a gun to your head in the back alley and I don't help you... because you didn't pay me before when I said to.

Re:Well Duh

[AK Marc]

That's government by charity. You only "donate" to the causes you like, and nothing else. Charity has never been able to cover the scale governments have, so I assert that your idea sounds good, but could never work.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why firefighting, like certain public health measures, is very hard to elegantly force into a market model unless you are so far in the sticks that each man really is an island.

I grew up in a rural area in Australia, here's how it works (as far as I knew and remember, I was just a kid). Everyone, bar none, joins the rural fire brigade. It is implicitly understood that you have an obligation to help others in order to qualify for help when you need it. Fire spreads, you do not leave them unattended. We were properly trained and had firefighting equipment that would be kept in a ready state all summer. I was never personally involved in putting out a fire that needed more resources that the neighbours for a few miles around could provide, but given a serious enough fire emergency services will come even from other states. I'm not sure what the funding situation is for this but nobody complains about it. There is a high level of volunteer participation, there is no such thing as being and island to yourself when you are surrounded by miles of ripening wheat, dry grass, etc.

Re:Well Duh

[AK Marc]

I'm from Texas. You may have a greater percentage of rednecks, but by sheer numbers, we have you beat. And you don't reflect the views of rednecks. They claim personal responsibility. Then whine like children when someone doesn't step in and save them for free. He sounds exactly like a good redneck, and I don't see the consistency of argument you assert when I deal with rednecks.

Re:Well Duh

[nomadic]

So what are you going to do about it? I've seen a lot of your posts, you always have a lot of opinion as to how authoritarian the government is, do you have any options other than just do what you're told?

Re:Well Duh

[AK Marc]

Doesn't matter if you are in the US. Being the sole nutjob in your area with a stash of gold under your mattress will not buy you anything when the dollar is worthless. The "fix" is to leave the US so that when the collapse happens, you'll only face the secondary collapse, not the primary one.

Re:Well Duh

[interkin3tic]

Your city and county taxes pay for fire departments. If your county is too poor to pay for a fire department, you may have a volunteer fire department, or the nearest municipality may charge a fee to cover service. If you don't pay that fee, you don't get fire protection.

The house was burning for hours. The owner offered to pay the fee, which was refused, while the house was still burning. The fire department came out when a neighbors house caught fire too, put out the neighbor's house, and the fire department left. You can't tell me that's how it's supposed to work. Paying the fee -afterwards- or maybe even the full cost of the fire department services, sure. Letting the house and pets burn, when they were there already, and refusing to accept payment from a desperate victim? What type of fucked up fire department does that? I'd almost expect better from the RIAA.

And what about you? Why are you so quick to call someone who just lost their house "stupid." That's callous even by slashdot standards.

Re:Well Duh

[Shakrai]

What I would and would not prefer is irrelevant. I was responding to this post that claimed you can't have tyranny in a democracy. That's patently false, as any observer of history knows.

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

I am doing what I must do, first of all living in a place that collects no income tax, imagine that for a change.

Re:Well Duh

[shutdown -p now]

I really don't understand why you - and a lot of other commenters - gloss over the ethical issues in this case as if they're of little significance. They're debatable? Well, sure, morality always has been. Doesn't make it any less prominent in this case.

I mean, come on. If you set aside the who-paid-what thing, what you have is a bunch of people trained, equipped, and fully prepared to prevent emergencies (they did work on his neighbor's house, after all!) just standing there and watching it happen. The only immediate motivation I can see for it is to "teach a lesson" to both the guy, and anyone else who did not pay. That is evil.

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

Why the hell did you decide I am in US? I am somewhere where there are not even federal income taxes.

Re:Well Duh

[NiteShaed]

Living under a bridge, scaring children and posting on Slashdot?

Re:Well Duh

[hollywood818]

Reply to “Uhhh, yea That’s how it works.” There is NO excuse for what these men did. Like it or not there are consequences to letting someone’s animals burn to death in a house fire. Furthermore, allowing someone’s lively hood to perish while you bitch about a $75 fee. There were other alternatives to this situation. Period. However, seeing as your lack the compassion or common sense of the average human being, or Bubba, as you so adequately put it. Here is a tip for you from Tennessee ‘Satanic Puppy’, I hope Karma finds you a situation that requires help from your fellow Americans and may Bubba be so kind to you besides “it ain’t rocket science” to practice common decency.

Re:Well Duh

[nomadic]

Or, alternately, a third world hellhole.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no. I don't care how logical you try and make it sound, this was wrong. What about forgetting to pay $75 for police protection, then having someone get raped/mugged/murdered, would that be alright? No, you know, I know, everyone knows it.

Re:Well Duh

[Fieryphoenix]

Fires have a way of spreading. In fact, in this particular fire the fire spread to a neighbor's house who DID pay the fee. The fire department came out to handle it, but if they had handled the original fire the paying neighbor would never have had fire in the first place. Really works great, huh?

Re:Well Duh

[Monchanger]

Having people write checks for their services would decrease apathy

Oh God no. I really don't want to have to write out checks for every thing the government does: fire, police, schools, road/bridge repair, library, city administration, lighting, parks, DMV, trash collection, courts, jails, beaches, and on and on and on...
What a terrible hassle. I'd must rather just pay my real estate taxes and review the yearly breakdown per $1000 to see that I'm perfectly content that my city isn't terribly inefficient or spending on the wrong things.

That's not the apathy I was talking about- I'm talking about politicians who are obviously lying/ idiots but get voted in anyway election after election because they've got a (D) or (R) after their name and that party keeps winning with that incumbent advantage. The number of voters I talk to who don't understand the issues they vote on is staggering; most people just don't even bother to figure out what they want, let alone which politicians claim those opinions.

And would you really choose to quibble with the fire department of all things?

Re:Well Duh

[cthubik]

To all the morons repeating this logic: Insurance companies.... -->don't save people's lives--. Fire departments: uh, yeah, that's why they fucking exist.

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

Nah, but the currency is funky colors with heads of people on it.

Re:Well Duh

[mr100percent]

Then the system is extremely broken. I'm a volunteer EMT, and despite being in the Red financially, our department is paid a small amount by the town to help the collective residents. Heck, you don't even have to be a resident, just get injured within the town limits.

Ben Franklin started one of the first Fire Brigades; you paid the fee, they put a plaque on your home, if the plaque was present then the firefighters would put the fire out.
I don't like the idea that we didn't advance a lot further than then.

Re:Well Duh

[blueg3]

I find it strange that people say that progressive income taxes punish success. As far as I can tell from the tax code, if I have a higher pre-tax income, I have a higher post-tax income. They're not necessarily linearly related, but they are monotonic. That's an odd definition of punishment.

Re:Well Duh

[fiannaFailMan]

And what if there was a human trapped in the house that could only be rescued by a fire crew? Could the Fire Department be charged with murder in the event of a death?

Re:Well Duh

[AK Marc]

Then why are you talking about USD like it's something you'd have to take some action to not have? Nearly everyone deals with only their local currency. And you are trying to wear it like a badge that you didn't have USD. Wow, so you are no different than 90% of your countrymen. Yes, that makes you special. I assumed you were there because of the massive effort you apparently made in divesting yourself of USD and bragging about it. Not to mention your comments on the internal workings of the US would be grossly egotistical for a foreigner to be bragging about.

Or should I assume you to be an American citizen living abroad? Better yet, rather than leaving me guessing and just declaring me wrong, why don't you state your nationality and location, then there will be no confusion.

Re:Well Duh

[NiteShaed]

the currency is funky colors with heads of people on it.

Severed heads are really hard to fit into a wallet...I suppose it's a fairly effective form of population control though.

Re:Well Duh

[bonch]

Unfortunately, the left-wing sites are having a field day with this story and using it as an example of "conservative government" and "Ayn Rand conservativism," completely ignoring that the subscription fee is essentially a voluntary tax and that it's actually an example of a government monopoly on fire protection.

Re:Well Duh

[iluvcapra]

I guess if you need him to be a "dickwad" too maybe that'll help you objectify the victim and somehow render moral judgement on him. But keep in mind that's all you're doing, and it's a crass, glib thing to do.

It's very, very simple - the county has limited resources.

They have limited resources because they're government is a bunch of anti-tax cranks who would rather pat themselves on the back for their defense of "individual responsibility" though their neighbors' houses burn. The issue of limited resources is a red herring; they'd have all the resources they'd need to behave like moral beings if they sent everyone a bill for $75. But no, it appears we must sacrifice love of thy neighbor and human brotherhood on the altar of "negative externalities" and "free rider problems" and all of the rationalistic claptrap people deploy to assuage their guilt when their inwardness, self-regard and selfishness creates suffering.

I assure you your approach, if made general law, would only amplify human suffering. All you really have to offer is angry defense of why the victim's misery is just and righteous. Unfortunately, in the real world, when men have the means to help a another in need and refuse, it's never just or righteous, period. It's really not the firemen's fault, they simply work for a local government that regards their citizens as mere customers, and not as brothers who should never be forced to watch their house burn. To not tax and provide for mandatory fire service, in the first world in the twenty-first-fucking century, is uncivilized, and it is a capitulation of social order and the general welfare to the whim of the avarice and the brain-dead ideology used to absolve it.

So yeah, you're wrong.

Re:Well Duh

[roman_mir]

I had to make a massive effort to get rid of most currencies, not just the USD, but too much USD had to be converted to something else and I recognize that all fiat currencies are being inflated and some are probably being hyper inflated, thus move to commodities. I was born in the USSR, moved around many countries, lived in North America for 15 years and am living in a European country right now with no federal income tax, it's easy to figure out.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Similarly, letting them pay $75 at time of use is a no-go. Fighting a fire costs way more than $75. That's an insurance price, not a retail service price. If you allow people to buy insurance after they need it, you either go bankrupt or the cost of insurance ends up equaling the retail cost of service.

So make them pay all their back fees at time of use. Easy fix.

Re:Well Duh

[huckamania]

Experts disagree with each other. You are an idiot and believe me, I'm an expert at spotting them.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point is void, because the fire department DID make sure the fire did not spread to neighbors who DID pay the fee. This is a rural area, the neighboring houses are not just a couple feet away. If you RTFM you would see they also would have made sure there was nobody trapped inside the building before they let it burn.

"Same way, even if I don't give a fuck about the life of the guy making my sandwich at the deli, and I don't care how poor he is, I sure do care about what immunizations he has, and whether he can take sick days; because his germs are getting into my food supply."
          He probably can't take sick days you know. I mean, they won't can him for taking off sick but he won't be paid. Low-paying jobs are like that.

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

I was responding to this post that claimed you can't have tyranny in a democracy. That's patently false, as any observer of history knows.

I said, "Pragmatically, a well run democratic or republic society is the antithesis of tyranny." I never made your claim which you are now supposedly refuting. Basically, the only false statement here is yours - at every turn. The only statement you are refuting is your own.

You made a generalized statement that this was the tyranny of the many; to paraphrase. There is no such proof to support such a statement and lots, according to statements by others, that your statement, within this context, it completely fabricated. You then go on to refute a correct statement by additional fabrication.

It doesn't sound like there's a problem here, save only for your contributions to it.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, and out there you al-a-carte pay for the services. Maybe he should have though to add this option. Problem with TAXes is most of it is wasted on people in government that don't provide any service. They are called politicians.

Re:Well Duh

[Cederic]

what's the chief going to tell the firemen's little girls?

Something along the lines of, "Hi there Sweetie, want to see my puppies? That nasty man's let his burn so you can't see his. By the way, don't worry about the cost of burying Daddy, he's been cremated already.."

Fuck the fireman's little girls. The firemen are more likely to die from the relatives of this bloke exacting their revenge than from the fire so stop playing the little girl card, it doesn't work here.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Texas has a quite a bit of oil tax revenue to help boost its government spending without imposing an income tax, so your argument has a few missing links.

Re:Well Duh

[chartreuse]

I take it you found my questions too difficult to answer, since you ignored them while contradicting yourself -- unless those gun laws were voted in by a minority. Was that it, or are you just up in arms because you're a minority yourself wrt the Second Amendment? Are you in a well-regulated militia?

A pretty poor showing for somebody who thinks other people are too dumb to know what democracy is if they disagree with you. Plus your little disquisition on how the country is actually run by lawyers means you don't think this is really a democracy at all, so your sneering disregard (complete with Wikipedia links) was pointless, too.

Come back when you can assemble your prejudices into a coherent form and actually defend them with logic instead of what appears to be a head full of snot.

Re:Well Duh

[Shakrai]

Yawn

Re:Well Duh

[SpaceCadets]

Tell that to the CFA (Country Fire Authority, Victoria, Austrlia). They're volunteers.

Re:Well Duh

[AK Marc]

You are a fucktard if you say "fiat currency" as there is no non-fiat currency in use. Adding in the "fiat" means you are implying there is some other option, and that's a lie. So everyone that uses the word "fiat" comes across like a lying fucktard. If you'd like to prove me wrong, show me a country that uses non-fiat currency (and no, pumping out a $20 gold piece that sells for $2000 doesn't count as currency).

Oh, and I didn't find a country with no income tax. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_of_Europe And I'd assume you to have a Russian citizenship living in Bosnia based on your comments, but then again, you could be from any of the former Soviet republics and I didn't find what you describe on Wikipedia.

Re:Well Duh

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I was a bit unclear there: As with health insurance, nobody(excluding a statistically insignificant number of people who are mentally questionable) will increase their direct risk of fire for that purpose. Even with firefighters, and full insurance, a house fire is a huge pain in the ass and a potential for loss of life.

However, increasing your property's risk of fire spread is a much more reasonable strategy. A few minor landscaping changes, a shrub here, a woodpile there, can control whether your yard is a firebreak or a fuel source, and in what directions. It would be dickish; but not necessarily illogical, to arrange your yard such that people with more to lose feel the need to pay for protection that also includes you.

To make a salient health analogy: in a great many contexts, STD treatment and prophilaxis are heavily subsidized or free, because these diseases are highly contagious and the threat encourages public support for taxpayer funded measures that reduce the ambient threat. By contrast, treatment for noncontagious conditions is, if subsidized at all, done indirectly as some insurance scheme, or on humanitarian grounds.

People don't get to chose the contagiousness of the disease that they have; but the net result is that people with contagious diseases do, in fact, motivate the population around them to subsidize treatment(or, in less humanitarian cases, involuntary confinement on public health grounds). People with less contagious, or noncontagious, diseases do not attract subsidies to the same level. Nobody wants to be sick; but contagious sick people get better subsidies than noncontagious ones do.

Re:Well Duh

[argStyopa]

"they're (sic) government is a bunch of anti-tax cranks" - frankly, I don't disagree with you.

However, quick quiz: who put that government in power?

I really would like the world to work the way that you claim it should work. I do. But at what point is the individual responsible for his choices? You claim that this is a 'broken system'...ok sure. It's broken. What if THAT GUY WHOSE HOUSE BURNED was the deciding vote in FAVOR of that system? Would it be his own fault then? What if he was the one who proposed such a system in the first place to save the county money?

I'll let you in on a secret: I don't care about human suffering when it's self-inflicted by allegedly self-aware adults. When I do something stupid myself, I don't look for someone else to blame, or assert that simple human decency requires that someone else compensate for my failures.

For what it's worth, I'd DIRECTLY dispute your case about the general amplification of human suffering. It's very simple to prove: what has Western food aid to the perennially drought-stricken regions of Africa done, except allow the poor bastards living there to breed and increase the population in an area that couldn't support their ORIGINAL numbers? I'd argue that in this case, your kind of kindness has directly increased the number of people in dire misery. Ethiopia's population during the 1980's famines was 39 million. Now it's 80 million. Congratulations?

Even a child can understand this on their own scale. If the kid sitting next to her in school needs a pencil, there's nothing wrong with lending him one if she has a spare. If he needs one again tomorrow, sure, loan him another one if you have a spare. But by the third day, if he once again doesn't have a pencil, even a first-grader would figure out that she's just "enabling" him to never bother to remember a pencil.

It seems like your system would teach people that they don't need to plan, don't need forethought, or to provide or care for themselves, because there will always be some poor sucker nearby whom you would castigate as "a monster" if he fails to mitigate their "human suffering".

It's a brilliant plan, as long as there's always an Ant nearby you can mooch off of; but what happens when all the Ants decide to act like Grasshoppers?

So yeah, you're wrong. I wish you weren't, but you are. The world doesn't give a shit if you're naive.
Sorry about that.

Re:Well Duh

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I glossed over them not because they are insignificant, I find ethics to be both extremely important in practice and quite interesting as a branch of philosophy; but because I didn't want to focus on them in this context.

Ethical/moral debates in large online fora are generally an exercise in pain and virtual shouting. All smoke, no light, extremely frustrating. I also felt that I had nothing novel or interesting to contribute to the ethical side, which had already settled down into more or less two-position shouting by the time I got here today.

By contrast, I thought that the problem of externalities had not been adequately considered, so I focused on that without letting some half-baked attempt at rehashing a moral position cloud the point. Now, personally, I find the unempathic behavior and ideology that extreme market orientation can reward as "rational" to be rather creepy, and actually not even as efficient as it alleges itself to be(the literature, both theoretical and empirical, on the value of high levels of social trust is fascinating stuff) and I would have much preferred to see the firefighters save the guy's house(with the proviso that I would also expect the guy to act similarly "irrationally" in helping others out if they needed it...)

Reciprocal altruism is both pleasant and surprisingly efficient, as long as levels of value-rational parasitism don't get too high, at which point things can get ugly.

Re:Well Duh

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If everyone had one fire per property per occupancy, that would work just fine. As it is, the rate is far lower, so you'd need to recover much more than back fees(since the probability of a fire during an individual's occupancy of the property is less than 1, their total back fees will, if the insurance is priced properly, be a fraction of the cost of fighting a fire, corresponding to approximately to the fraction representing their risk). You would essentially have to collect a retail price, since the probability of a fire is 1 when the house is on fire.

Re:Well Duh

[iluvcapra]

You can't hold people responsible for the acts of their government in that way. People bear the responsibility for their government in a lot of ways, but whenever in history a people have been forced to suffer for the acts of their government, like Germans did after World War I, it only breeds iniquity and retribution. I'm sure there's some way of arguing that when the city drives the fire truck out to your house to merely watch it burn, that isn't necessarily the government forcing you to destroy your house, but as far as I'm concerened that's little more than a controlled demolition. It doesn't matter that they didn't start the fire, they have the means to stop it and they refuse through inaction; the lack of $75 doesn't absolve anyone.

I think you focus to much on the free rider issue, as if you don't have to argue the point that compelling people to pay for the fire department is really the only moral solution. Or maybe you are really nuts, and you think that public funding of fire departments CAUSES fires because of misaligned incentives. I really don't see how any of your analogies are comparable to this situation -- you're just trying to prove the hoary old canard that good intentions never go unpunished, so when you do bad or selfish things you can do so with a clear conscience. You might think this is playing the sucker to a mooch, but I do think this is the minimum required, if the Earth is to be considered fit for human habitation.

Neither one of us is winning the mods over, maybe it's a dumb argument.

Re:Well Duh

[BoberFett]

You said it yourself. Populated areas. Sounds like this county is pretty sparsely populated.

If I choose to build a house 100 miles from the nearest town, are you going to pay to put a fire department right next to my house? Why not? Aren't you civilized?

Re:Well Duh

[GooberToo]

I take it you found my questions too difficult to answer

???

since you ignored them while contradicting yourself

Not even once. No idea what you're talking about. Just trolling?

unless those gun laws were voted in by a minority

You completely missed the part where the highest law of the land says those laws created by the majority are completely illegal and unenforceable. And yet - they do get enforced. That's entirely the point of the plainly stated post which seems to have gone clear over your head.

A pretty poor showing for somebody who thinks other people are too dumb to know what democracy is if they disagree with you.

Wow! You're a real fucking idiot!

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why socialism is the only reasonable solution. Too bad Americans have an irrational fear of it.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, there is no free lunch, rednecks.

Can we mod this one down for being racist?

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

Tennessee doesn't have oil. Alaska is more analogous to TX, and they don't even need a income *or* sales tax.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

No, fire departments exist because someone puts up the money to pay firefighters, buy them a truck, build them a station, and buy them equipment. No money = no firefighting. This guy was from a county that elected not to put up the money, so he gets no firefighting.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

If rednecks are a race, I bet it's a NASCAR race.

Re:Well Duh

[Sean0michael]

An excellent post, but I think you neglect some salient points about the retail price. Since it would have to consider the funds not contributed, it would have to be a substantial sum. Let's spitball and say $2,000 as the retail price (a little under $75 times 30 years in the home). That's a fairly large sum for a lot of families, and many may not be able to pay that. The firefighters have no way to assess their ability to pay the sum on the spot, so they'd have to take their word that they can afford the retail price.

So if the retail price is too high, then the firefighters may lose money since they may never collect the retail price for the service. So let's lower the price to something more generally affordable. Let's say $300 (that'd be 4 years of coverage). That's a lot more affordable price, but then there's a lot less incentive to ever pay. If the retail price is too low compared to the insurance price, people will just pay retail when they need it and never pay the insurance price. Again, the firefighters don't get paid.

I think the solution may be something like putting a lien on the house for the retail price to ensure repayment, but I don't know how lien's work or what the legal costs would be for collecting on liens.

Re:Well Duh

[tmosley]

We don't have THAT much oil. Not exactly Saudi Arabia here.

And besides, even if that were the case, then why haven't Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington State, and Wyoming burned down yet?

You ARE the missing link.

Re:Well Duh

[elrous0]

You really want a laugh? The U.S. pays more for its health care per citizen than any other country in the world. And yet 40 million of those citizens don't have any insurance or consistent way to get any health care at all.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

All of those points are good.
Learning from history, when fire departments were private there was also a large problem with "Youse has a nice house there, it would be a shame if something happened to it..." and subsequent mysterious fires at people's places if they didn't pay their protection money.. er I mean buy a badge for the front of their house from a fire dept.
After that there was the problem of rival fire departments burning down the houses of competitor's clients.
There are VERY good reasons that fire departments are something that should NEVER be privatized.
For those who are thinking that arson is much easier to detect these days, ask yourself "What career would know how to make arson look natural or like an accident?"... Probably the same one that would investigate the fire.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to find a more dignified way to indicate your unconditional surrender than that.

Re:Well Duh

[gfreeman]

So if I own my apartment, and the guy in the apartment below me doesn't pay his $75 ...

Re:Well Duh

[gfreeman]

May I suggest in this case a very large tax on hoses?

Re:Well Duh

[gfreeman]

You do know that the Constitution of the US prohibits income tax except in times of war, right? And yes, I know this was a state/county tax/fee issue but it still should be considered.

Maybe you haven't been watching the news, but the US government is claiming to be at war on a number of fronts at the moment.

Re:Well Duh

[gfreeman]

Some places have state and city taxes, and you still pay Federal taxes, and sales taxes, so 60% of what you earn is going to taxes. That's crazy.

And yet not quite as crazy as firefighters standing around watching someone's home burn to the ground.

Re:Well Duh

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Only problem with the "breaking news" is that, according to the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war. They have not done so in this case, the last real War was WW2. Rather than take responsibility Congress just passed, again in violation of the Cont., some resolution or other BS giving the President authorization to "deal with it". So legally the US is not at war with anyone.

Anyway it is a moot point. The US government has been ignoring or circumventing the Constitution since shortly after it was written. Income tax and presidential declarations of war are only the more recent and noticeable moves against it.

Re:Well Duh

[cthubik]

All of which they had stationed outside the burning house. But you're right, money is the most important thing. Fuck common decency, there's money to be had.

Re:Well Duh

[Kral_Blbec]

Actually it sounded more as if they contained it at the property line and there isn't anything i saw to support your claim that the neighbor had any damage. It is in effect a strawman.

Re:Well Duh

[chartreuse]

A pretty poor showing for somebody who thinks other people are too dumb to know what democracy is if they disagree with you.

Wow! You're a real fucking idiot!

Ah, I see. If people disagree with you they're idiots. That's entirely different, isn't it?

I may be a fucking idiot, but I hope you're not, as it's probably best for all of us if you don't reproduce. (I can explain that for you if we've exceeded your attention span again. Don't hesitate to ask!)

Re:Well Duh

[ModernGeek]

I know that in some states, it is illegal for a membership department to offer to take money after the fact. So even if the home owner said, "I'll pay you anything!" it would be illegal to proceed. I'm sure that if he expressed financial difficulties when collecting the dues, they may have helped. I've heard stories of membership based departments "going anyway", and they were quickly unable to put fuel in their trucks shortly thereafter. It's expensive to run a fire department, even volunteer.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is simple: Put out the fire. Fires are dangerous. Bill him for the cost. If he refuses or cannot pay, file a lawsuit, let the court confiscate property or income. Any amount that cannot possibly be paid (unlikely) should then be written off. No danger of people failing to pay their firefighter tax en masse.

Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Drakkenmensch]

You have to pay your taxes if you want municipal services. If you wave it away claiming you don't want government interference in your life, then the firefighters will not interfere with fire burning down your house. The guy sadly got exactly what he argued for in the first place when he turned the city down.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Godai]

Well, if you RTFA, you'd hear that he didn't not pay his taxes, he forgot to pay an annual fee. He didn't say anything about not wanting "government interference". Granted, he might be lying, but either way this seems like a pretty stupid thing to let happen. Over $75 you let a house burn down that does how many tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars in damage? He's got insurance too, which kind of supports the idea that he wasn't trying to weasel out of paying for anything (if he's willing to pay insurance premiums, presumably he can afford an annual fee of $75) -- and the insurance is going to fork out a fair bit of money too. The net gain for everyone on this is probably minus$100k. Thank God they stuck it to him for the $75.

The bottom though is that this just demonstrates how stupid is it to have 'opt-out' on these kinds of things. What if his wife or son had been trapped inside? Would people still say the firefighters were right to stand around and watch them burn to death? The county has options on the table that include things like adding $3 a month to the electric bill (note that's less than $75 a year!) -- though I was unclear on whether it was on everyone in the county or just on the people outside the city limits (those are the only people required to pay this fee). At any rate, some things should just be part of your taxes and you should be able to expect them; having firefighters or cops or EMTs checking a list to decide who should get help is not only stupid & inhuman, and its downright counter-productive. I suspect most of the firefighters on the scene would agree with that (it sounds like several of them went home and were physically sick from having to refrain from helping).

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Drakkenmensch]

I work tech support. Everyone who ever refused to pay for accidental damage coverage will always claim that their smashed screen "was like that when they got it", "was never dropped", "I meant to buy that coverage" and "it's the sales agents fault because I asked for it." So take claims of 'forgetting to pay' with a grain of salt the size of a cattle salt lick.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Godai]

I agree that's a possibility, but I feel that's contradicted (at least somewhat) by the fact that he does pay for house insurance. It's pretty odd to pay a monthly (yearly?) premium to protect your house from disaster, but not pay a (pretty cheap) yearly premium to protect your house from disaster. Still, it's entirely possible he said "Screw it, what are the chances I'll need the Fire Department?". Either way, I still maintain opt-out on these kinds of thing is dumb, for all concerned.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[phoebus1553]

I would guess, being October, that he also 'forgot' several reminders and a sternly worded note about his house burning down w/o coverage.

That being said, this is a nasty intersection of insurance style payments and municipal services. No, you shouldn't be allowed to opt out of those services, for the public good, but read the first modded up post, and you see the anti-tax culture that prevails in the 'south'.

Here's an alternative: Since this is an outreach coverage, the fire dept is guaranteed to be 'staffed' by the city, even though they don't get to opt out. After dousing his house, they should have presented him an clinic style bill... if you walk into the hospital uninsured, assuming they'll treat you, you pay the list cost. He probably would have paid less than the gap in his coverage, and it would have been a good 'memory jog' for everyone else that 'forgot'. Of course this only works if you have a group (the city residents) paying the upkeep for the deadbeat arsonists in the country.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[weiserfireman]

There is a lot more information about this out there from other sources

According to the Mayor of the Town involved

1. The policy is if there is human life at risk, the department responds and rescues, but only fights the fire enough to effect the rescue
2. This person did not "forget" to pay. The fire department called him in August to tell him that they had not received his payment and he would not receive fire protection until he did
3. In an earlier interview, the guy said "I knew I didn't pay, but I thought they would come anyway". Now in interviews he says he forgot
4. Fire Service should be tax based, but in Tennessee, to put a new tax in place, like a fire protection district, requires a positive vote in favor of the tax. For 20 years, this County has regularly voted against such a tax.
5. The Community of South Fulton, who's fire department responded, is located in Kentucky. So not only do you have a city fire department responding out of their protection area, they are responding into another STATE.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Drakkenmensch]

Either way, I still maintain opt-out on these kinds of thing is dumb, for all concerned.

That's when you get people starting to blame politicians for "interfering in their lives" and "the government controlling too much" until they NEED the government funded rescue teams to show up. They don't scream so loud for freedom when their life or property is in danger.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The unpleasant complicating factor is that his neighbor, who did pay, got inferior service because the firefighters let the fire grow and spread, rather than suppressing it. Now the guy who did pay the fee gets property damage. You can make moral arguments, if you wish, about saving the guy who didn't pay up; but the guy who did pay up has solid monetary reasons to be upset.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Godai]

I would guess, being October, that he also 'forgot' several reminders and a sternly worded note about his house burning down w/o coverage.

You might be surprised. I just found out I haven't paid my property taxes in six months. I would have bet money I'd mailed in my cheques, but since they say I didn't & my bank records back them up, I have to believe them :P I have no idea how hard they try and remind you in his county but it took the city of Toronto several months to get around to letting me know I was delinquent.

And like I said, I absolutely agree he might be lying. I still think its a terrible idea to let the house burn down. I hope to God someone on the 911 call at least asked if there was anyone in the house before deciding to let it burn.

Also, its easy to assume this is some kind of 'anti-tax culture' but until we hear that this guy has often been heard to brag about this or how anyone paying the Fire Department fee is an idiot, its a bit unfair to him -- and, frankly, the South -- to proclaim its some kind of anti-Big Brother reactionary move. Stupid crap does happen. Hell, he just might be cheap ;)

Here's an alternative: Since this is an outreach coverage, the fire dept is guaranteed to be 'staffed' by the city, even though they don't get to opt out. After dousing his house, they should have presented him an clinic style bill... if you walk into the hospital uninsured, assuming they'll treat you, you pay the list cost. He probably would have paid less than the gap in his coverage, and it would have been a good 'memory jog' for everyone else that 'forgot'. Of course this only works if you have a group (the city residents) paying the upkeep for the deadbeat arsonists in the country.

Yeah, I wondered about something like this. I suspect he'd rather have had this than the burned down house and it would have pretty fair.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Godai]

That's when you get people starting to blame politicians for "interfering in their lives" and "the government controlling too much" until they NEED the government funded rescue teams to show up. They don't scream so loud for freedom when their life or property is in danger.

Sure, and I don't agree with those folks anyways, but I don't know that I've ever heard anyone say they resent paying for the fire department. Maybe there are people saying that, but I've never seen any sign of it. The policy in this county sounds like it kind of evolved over time into its current state than intentionally trying to setup some kind of 'opt-out' system for fire fighting. In fact, they've apparently had a proposal on the table for a while now to change the system to one that doesn't require the FD to check if someone is on their list.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[elrous0]

That's why these anti-government tea party types always crack me up. They want to abolish all taxes and get the government off their backs. But are they prepared to fight their own fires, police their own criminals, repair their own roads, etc.? Usually they don't even think about that. All they can think about is that slightly bigger paycheck, or not having to pay that modest tax bill each year.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Godai]

I appreciate the information -- as you say, none of this was in the linked articles (or even the linked ones from there that I followed)

1. The policy is if there is human life at risk, the department responds and rescues, but only fights the fire enough to effect the rescue

Well that's good to know. It would be pretty irresponsible if that wasn't the case, but you never know. Still, its another level of classification the 911 operator has to go through before dispatching what should just be an essential service.

2. This person did not "forget" to pay. The fire department called him in August to tell him that they had not received his payment and he would not receive fire protection until he did
3. In an earlier interview, the guy said "I knew I didn't pay, but I thought they would come anyway". Now in interviews he says he forgot

Handy to know. It was also mentioned that they had in fact waived the fee in other cases. Not sure what the circumstances in those other times were though.

At any rate, that at least rules out the "maybe he wasn't lying" aspect. Frankly, I'd rather talk about the broader angles, which are more interesting. I mostly defended him because I hadn't seen anything that damned him and it seemed unfair to jump to conclusions.

4. Fire Service should be tax based, but in Tennessee, to put a new tax in place, like a fire protection district, requires a positive vote in favor of the tax. For 20 years, this County has regularly voted against such a tax.

Yeah, this I know. It was in other links, or at least that they've had a policy to fix the problem. That said, its a pretty dumb system, since this only affects people outside the city limits. Presumably there are less of them than people inside, so getting a vote in favour of a (very small) tax hike to cover Not-Mes is unlikely to happen. A great example of places democracy kind of falls down a little.

5. The Community of South Fulton, who's fire department responded, is located in Kentucky. So not only do you have a city fire department responding out of their protection area, they are responding into another STATE.

This is an artificial problem created by arbitrary lines on a map. The problems are real and have to be dealt with, but not really an excuse in this matter.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[saider]

This wasn't an Opt-Out, He failed to Opt-In. His choice. His consequences.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[saider]

House insurance is probably required because he has a mortgage.

What is going to happen is that the insurance companies are going to wise up an either raise rates or require you to purchase fire services if they are available.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Infiniti2000]

Sure, and I don't agree with those folks anyways, but I don't know that I've ever heard anyone say they resent paying for the fire department. Maybe there are people saying that, but I've never seen any sign of it.

The fact that there's even an opt-out policy in place proves that a majority of the citizens resent paying for the fire department. If that was true, there wouldn't be such a policy because the cost of supporting the fire department for all residents would be enforced (not optional). The loss this family is enduring is terrible, make no mistake, but the blame cannot be levied on the city.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Artifakt]

Actually, Tennessee has a Good Samaritan law that would protect the fire fighters if they went in to save a life, such as your hypothetical wife or son. The way those fire fighters are insured for health and injury, the state requires a contract where they would be covered for injuries resulting if they were attempting to actually save a human life. The law also protects them from being sued individually in such cases.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

There isn't an 'opt-out' policy. The city CANNOT make the people out of their jurisdiction pay. This is strictly opt-in

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[anUnhandledException]

By his own admission he
a) didn't have sufficient home owners insurance (insurance was less than house value)
b) knew he didn't pay and thought the fire fighters would still put out the fire.

The town has no taxing authority for non-residents.
The county (via voters in the county like the person you are defending) has chosen for 20 years NOT to raise taxes for a fire dept.

Thus the town fire dept has no mechanism to cover cost of services for non-residents other than
a) prepaid annual fee
b) postpaid attempt to collect tens of thousands of dollars from someone too stupid/cheap to pay $75.

Which method do you think is more likely to work long term. The town fire dept use to respond to uncovered homes and bill residents. They (not a shocker) found the overwhelming majority of residents simply never paid the bill. Thus to cut default losses they went to a strict prepayment coverage method for non-residents.

At any time if the residents of the county don't like this they could vote to raise taxes and either
a) fund their own fire dept
b) pay a "universal fee" to the town to cover all county residents.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[demonlapin]

If he has a mortgage, his bank almost certainly requires him to hold homeowner's insurance.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[anUnhandledException]

Per the idiots own words:

"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick

http://www.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/tennessee-firefighters-let?commentId=889755:Comment:4873745

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[VGPowerlord]

5. The Community of South Fulton, who's fire department responded, is located in Kentucky. So not only do you have a city fire department responding out of their protection area, they are responding into another STATE.

This is an artificial problem created by arbitrary lines on a map. The problems are real and have to be dealt with, but not really an excuse in this matter.

This "lines on a map" thing affects government on 3 levels: local, county, and state.

Although they still have the same Federal government, and said government is more cohesive than the EU, it would still be similar to the guy living in Viana de Castelo, Portugal and the fire department being in Galicia, Spain.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Anonymous Coward]

South Fulton is in Tennesssee. Fulton is in Kentucky.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[kidcharles]

1. The policy is if there is human life at risk, the department responds and rescues, but only fights the fire enough to effect the rescue

How long before they let a house burn down that they were so sure didn't have anyone in it but then oops! they find a child's blackened skeleton in the rubble. And let's not forget that in your drier areas of the country a nice uncontrolled house fire could very easily start a region-wide wildfire. Forget the Four Horsemen, this kind of thing is one more sign of a dying empire.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Grizzley9]

House insurance is required in many places and likely just lumped in to his monthly bill to be put in escrow until paid. So paying for insurance on his house in no way points to this being a forgotten bill.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[blair1q]

3. When the fire started, he remembered, so then he knew he hadn't paid but thought they'd come anyway.

5. Fuck imaginary lines. They do way more harm than good. Just ask this guy.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Godai]

What I meant was: since the fire department was there, putting out the fire on his neighbour's house, clearly 'lines on a map' aren't super relevant to this instance.

And while I appreciate the problem of jurisdiction, its still one that should be solved in a larger sense: you either work something out with the neighbouring county/state/whatever (which they have in this case, but sort of badly) or you put a redundant fire department on the other side of the arbitrary line.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Godai]

Actually, Tennessee has a Good Samaritan law that would protect the fire fighters if they went in to save a life, such as your hypothetical wife or son. The way those fire fighters are insured for health and injury, the state requires a contract where they would be covered for injuries resulting if they were attempting to actually save a human life. The law also protects them from being sued individually in such cases.

I actually wasn't suggesting the firefighters would be legally responsible for going in, I was just wondering if they bothered to consider someone's life before saying "Don't answer the call". Another poster indicated though that they do in fact ask that before they say 'no service'.

Interesting to know about the GS law though, I know that's come up in other cases.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Godai]

I think its not quite that simple. Granted, this is somewhat guesswork, but it looks like the problem is you've go something like a city that has a fire department paid by taxes. Then you've got 'outside the city limits' (where this fellow was) which is not covered. So they pay a fee to finance the FD from the city servicing the outskirts. Someone else indicated that this is further complicated by the 'outskirts' being in a different state (and I assume a long way from any other city that might service them instead in-state).

So I'm not sure this is a case of people wanting to 'opt out' so much as they probably tacked them on helpfully 20 years ago, used the fee to make it work and then didn't bother to fix the (admittedly smaller) problem. Or rather, when they do they run into the problem of state lines and levying a (small) unpopular tax to pay for a group people on the other side of a border.

Frankly, the whole thing just gets weirder, but the whole 'they watched it burn' makes it surreal.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Anonymous Coward]

The town of FULTON is in the jurisdiction of Kentucky.

The town of SOUTH FULTON is in the jurisdiction of Tennessee.

One municipal conglomeration, two separate legal jurisdictions.

This story is why, when I buy a piece of property out in the hinterlands on which to build my dream home, I've always planned to install sprinklers inside and out, even though they're not required by any code. And yes, I would fight off a fire creeping from my neighbor's property onto my own if the county firefighters did not respond. And no, I would not up for this subscription service either, neither would I lie and say I forgot to pay.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong on #5 - I live in Fulton, KY. We are separated from South Fulton, TN by State Line Road, also known as KY-116. The Fulton FD and SFFD do have agreements in place to assist each other in fighting major fires, but in this case this incident is all happening with TN folks.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[kenrblan]

Point of clarity here: South Fulton is in Tennessee, thus in the same state. If the responding fire department were from Fulton, the interstate issue would be valid. For those not familiar with the geography, The town is essentially split on the state border and the laws on either side can be vastly different and create some interesting economic realities. On the Kentucky side of town (Fulton), liquor by the drink in restaurants has been legal for many years, there is no sales tax on unprepared food items in grocery stores, and packaged liquor can be purchased. On the Tennessee side of town, liquor is unavailable by drink at a restaurant or by package and the sales tax on food is about 9.75%. The result is practically no restaurants or grocery stores can survive on the Tennessee side (South Fulton). Until about eight years ago, nearby towns in Martin and Union City did not offer liquor by the drink. This made Fulton, Kentucky a popular destination for dining. The sales tax on food situation still has an impact on grocery stores in those towns as well. Since Kentucky has an income tax, many people choose to live in the northern Tennessee counties but do all of their grocery shopping in Kentucky.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[publiclurker]

Are you actually trying to claim that the homeowner was so dense that he wouldn't know if there was a child left in the building? Some of these arguments are really getting sophomoric to the extreme. It's really amazing how some people will attempt to justify personal irresponsibility

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[kidcharles]

I wasn't referring to this particular incident, where the homeowner happened to be home and was able to escape the house. Is it really beyond your imagination to envision a situation in which someone could be trapped or unconscious inside a burning building, unknown to rescuers? Or that there could be a paperwork error and someone's $75 payment didn't get recorded and it doesn't get sorted out until your house, all your possessions, family photos, etc. are in a smoldering pile. In this incident, three dogs and a cat were burned to ash while firefighters stood watching. This is sociopathic dystopian libertarian government policy befitting the third-world, not the United States of America.

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[taco8982]

With regard to #5, I'm not sure where that information came from. South Fulton, TN and Fulton, KY are essentially the same city, split it two by the state line. Everything I've seen relating to this has indicated they were located in South Fulton, which would be in Tennessee (though, obviously I can't speak to where the firehouse is actually located).

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Anonymous Coward]

Replying to a fire call out of state has huge insurance implications on most fire departments. In MN where most cities are self insured, fire departments are not allowed to go out of state. Something to do with the cap on liabilities. There was a mutual aid agreement between some MN department and WI departments but the agreements had to be changed because of the insurance issues.

MN Firefighter

captcha = faithful

Re:Gambling with your home is a bad bet

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a lot more information about this out there from other sources

According to the Mayor of the Town involved

1. The policy is if there is human life at risk, the department responds and rescues, but only fights the fire enough to effect the rescue
2. This person did not "forget" to pay. The fire department called him in August to tell him that they had not received his payment and he would not receive fire protection until he did
3. In an earlier interview, the guy said "I knew I didn't pay, but I thought they would come anyway". Now in interviews he says he forgot
4. Fire Service should be tax based, but in Tennessee, to put a new tax in place, like a fire protection district, requires a positive vote in favor of the tax. For 20 years, this County has regularly voted against such a tax.
5. The Community of South Fulton, who's fire department responded, is located in Kentucky. So not only do you have a city fire department responding out of their protection area, they are responding into another STATE.

So can they guy cry out loud and stay in the house to "enforce" the policy (1)? well, guess he don't have the guts for it?

You're kidding, right?

[Karunamon]

That's a load of sh*t and you know it. Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75? Having them show up but refuse to put water to flame is just plain mean on a level I don't quite have the words to describe. And they *did* have to show up - to make sure the neighbor's houses didn't burn down. I'd say the FD should be on the hook for the cost of the house, reckless endangerment, and cruelty to animals.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[SatanicPuppy]

Wouldn't work. Look, it's not like there are fire hydrants out there. That fire department depends on those fees to get tank trucks and other stuff you have to have to fight rural fires. If you could just pay as you go, then no one would ever pay, and the fire department wouldn't be able to afford the equipment.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would set a terrible precedent. Everyone would see that the $75 was not required and opt out. The FD would only be able to collect from people that had fires. I doubt that would be anywhere NEAR enough money to keep them operating unless they drastically increased the fee. Defeats the purpose of the shared resource if you get socked with a $50,000 bill when you had a house fire...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jrguthrie]

Because no one would pay the fee unless their house was on fire. It costs far more than $75 to put out the fire. This person does not live in the coverage area for this fire department. The department is nice enough to extend service to these people outside their area if they choose to "subscribe". This person didn't subscribe so they don't get the service. It's a simple concept.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a load of sh*t and you know it. Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?

That's in the article, too, if common sense couldn't tell you: then instead of paying an annual fee, people would only pay if and when their house is on fire. And since that's pretty rare, the fee would have to be raised to a ridiculous amount to cover the costs of the fire department.

I think the best solution for essential services like these is to make paying for them mandatory, i.e. by including the costs in taxes.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[SoTerrified]

That's a load of sh*t and you know it. Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?

You're kidding, right? Maybe you don't get how this whole thing works, but it's like insurance. It's $75 per person because you assume that for many, their house will not burn down. But if you change it so "When you get a fire, call us and we'll charge you there", well, then the actual price would be up in the thousands.

But that doesn't work either! Because a fire department has to budget, pay salaries, get equipment, have storage facilities, etc. This takes money UP FRONT. You can't just spend it out of your own pocket, then HOPE someone has a fire.

Sorry Karunamon, you claim the way it works as a "load of sh*t", yet it works. None of your suggestions work at all.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

Really?

Kinda like taking out a life insurance policy after you die?
Or getting healthcare insurance after the triple bypass surgery?
Or getting homeowners insurance after your house is on fire?

Obviously the $75 cost isn't per incident. It is per protected home and a small (1%) number of those homes catches fire each year.

No firedept could operate collecting only $75 per incident. The $75 from the 99 out of 100 homes which don't burn subsidizes the cost of operation for the 1 in 100 which does burn.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

You _do_ realise, of course, that the operation costs far more than $75?
$75 is the insurrance cost, and the system works if everyone pays to spread the cost for the few interventions needed.
If you do not want to pay, the minimum bill should be the full cost (and preferably twice that, since you're playing the lottery with your house and life). Plus the reckless endangerment of your neighbours.

Solidarity only works if you invest in it even when you do not need it right now.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like socialism to me!!!!

Re:You're kidding, right?

[IndustrialComplex]

Charge them the cost of putting out the fire plus 10%

This means that it is still better to pay the 75$, the fire company doesn't lose any money, the local government earns property taxes from the still existant house, the people still live there and don't go on welfare since they wouldn't be homeless.

Or we could just say 'RULES ARE RULES' and put on the blinders.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy solution: Put out the fire, then hit him with a massive fine. Say 10x the actual cost of fighting the fire.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[darkwing_bmf]

The service obviously wasn't "essential." The home owners are still alive. If they thought their home was worth more than $75 they would have paid the bill.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[KDN]

If they let the home owner pay the $75 when his home was on fire then no one would pay it until their house was on fire and they would go out of business. What would have been reasonable would be if the owner could sign a contract on the spot to pay for the entire cost of the incident, which is probably in the thousands of dollars. In that way the owner has the choice, and the responsibility: (a)Pay the fee as an insurance, (b)Don't pay the fee and take your chances (c)Don't pay the fee and pay through the nose if you actually get hit.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Will2k_is_here]

What about the danger to the fire fighters?

You'd suggest if I refuse to pay for car insurance, Geico should pay me for a new car after I smash mine up because I begged them to.

The article didn't seem to indicate there was any risk to life here, just property. But IF there were people trapped inside, I would suggest accepting the risk to save a life and billing him after the fact much like a call for an ambulance would.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[kalirion]

No, they should've made him sign an agreement to pay the true cost of showing up and putting out the fire.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree that if it was left to "pay as you use," there'd be a lot less money coming (much like insurance - how many people pay in to their house/car/medical insurance and never use it?).

Still, the FD came out, and only did what was necessary to protect the neighbors house. THEY WERE RIGHT THERE! That's just seems mean to me!

You'd think they'd have a contingency, where they could charge $75 preventive fees, or - something like $500 or $750 for on-the-spot coverage. Not sure if that would cover for those who would no longer pay the preventative fee, however. But at least that higher amount would have at least saved the guy's house.

They were right there at the property. If a person was inside the building, would they have saved the person? They didn't save the pets, but could they be required to?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[roman_mir]

NO, the correct thing was done. The guy didn't pay the $75 for that year, he set his house on fire and the fire department didn't put it out, so the correct incentive is now in place: you want the fire department to help you, pay the freaking $75 and stop bitching.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[hypergreatthing]

Because no one would pay the fee unless their house was on fire. It costs far more than $75 to put out the fire. This person does not live in the coverage area for this fire department. The department is nice enough to extend service to these people outside their area if they choose to "subscribe". This person didn't subscribe so they don't get the service. It's a simple concept.

Fire dept and police department services are NOT optional. This isn't a cell phone subscription or some opt in bullshit. These are required services needed to live.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

The City of South Fulton doesn't have the authority to issue fines to people who don't live in their town.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[iamhassi]

"Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?"

I was thinking he should get a fine, like parking meters, it's only 50 cents an hour to park YMMV and no one's watching too closely and you could park and not pay, but if you're caught it's a $50+ fine.

I say put out the fire and bill him $7500+. If he don't pay put a lien on the house and take the house.

But to just stand there and watch it burn? That should be criminal, what if people died? I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

When the guy can't pay the fine what then?

How about you start a private fire dept which offers post-paid coverage?

How quickly do you think you would go out of business relying on no upfront money and collecting tens of thousands of dollars from people who's home's caught fire?

There already is an easier solution. It is called pay the $75 and be covered.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[operagost]

This is why the health care plan will still fail. There's a fine associated with not getting health insurance, which besides being an infringement of natural rights doesn't keep anyone from simply buying health insurance when they need it because the fine is less than the cost of health insurance, and now you can't be turned down for preexisting conditions.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[1shooter]

That's a load of sh*t and you know it. Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75? Having them show up but refuse to put water to flame is just plain mean on a level I don't quite have the words to describe.

And they *did* have to show up - to make sure the neighbor's houses didn't burn down. I'd say the FD should be on the hook for the cost of the house, reckless endangerment, and cruelty to animals.

It's not mean is just practical. The $75 is more like an insurance policy payment not the cost of fighting a fire. You would probably expect to be able to buy collision insurance after you wrecked the car and have them pay for the repairs if you just pay the premium. They showed up for the neighbors because they paid. The guy took a stupid chance and lost. It is a harsh lesson but that is the way it should be. In this rural 2 person + volunteers fire department, there is virtually no money to work with. If the FD was on the hook for the home then it would either have to disband and nobody would have fire protection or raise the fee of those that did to cover the dead beats.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Tangential]

The City of South Fulton doesn't have the authority to issue fines to people who don't live in their town.

Exactly.

I think the system they have set up seems like the most appropriate way to handle it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[BobMcD]

Fire dept and police department services are NOT optional. This isn't a cell phone subscription or some opt in bullshit. These are required services needed to live.

If the voters in that district agreed with you, they would have approved the tax.

Thankfully this is America, where democracy still holds some kind of value, and the actual residents of the county get to decide what their laws say.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

Then the county should raise taxes and get a fire dept.

This is the TOWN fire dept. The county (where man lives, and votes, and pays taxes) has NO firedept.
The town can't legally collect taxes from non-residents. There is nothing stopping the county from collecting taxes, getting their own fire dept, or simply paying for all residents (o be covered by city fire dept).

Town residents pay taxes for the fire dept. So what is the solution?
a) town fire dept NEVER responds to calls outside the town - his house burns
b) town fire dept offers $75 service to people outside the town - which he had the option to pay
c) town fire dept protects everyone outside the town at no cost - which means costs are paid by city residents.

I think the town fire dept providing coverage to people OUTSIDE THE TOWN for a modest $75 fee is a good compromise. Why should city residents (via taxes) pay to cover non-city residents? The town could simply never respond to calls outside their town but that isn't optimal either.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[omnichad]

Well that's the fault of the county. They didn't administer this themselves like they should. It's certainly not something a neighboring city or county should have to pay the bill for. Now I agree that if 911 was called and they are the ones dispatched, they shouldn't be checking a list. But that's a personal responsibility and not a responsibility of they county. They should charge a pretty large bill for this service.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

Uh, sure they do. It's just a different 'fee'.

Preventative fire fee: $75.

Urgent right now fire fee: $10000.

Case closed.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[omnichad]

Except it's $75 per year. It's far cheaper to pay it once when you're having a fire at even double or triple that rate. But $75 should be added to everyone's property taxes, and the county should administer paying this outside service. If the county is too poor to have their own, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be organized at all.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

When the guy can't pay the fine what then?

How about when the fee is due, i.e. *before* the fire, the person unable to pay actually contacts the city and works out some sort of agreement. Rather than waiting for the emergency to deal with it?

What makes this worse is this guys own son had the exact same situation happen and they cut the son some slack. Yet he claims he *forgot* about the fee? Not buying that explanation. It speaks of willful denial to not pay a fee until you actually need the protection; which doesn't work for 'insurance' types of services. They need constant payments so they are able to react when an emergency happens. It can't be retroactive unless it's a massive 'right now emergency' fee situation; like 1000x the normal fee.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

South Fulton used to send out bills of $500 to non-payers for fire response. Less than 50% of the people paid that bill.

They realized that they would have to get a court order to collect the rest.

Subscription districts suck.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

One of the reasons that, historically, certain private fire departments were suppressed, and replaced by tax-funded universal ones was that they were, shall we say, doing a little more than hoping that somebody would have a fire in order to justify their investment...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[SuricouRaven]

The first fire services were something like that, actually - fully private companies. You paid your fee, you got to put a company logo on your building. If they were called out to a building without the logo on display, they wouldn't put it out - though they would let you join on the 'emergency' fee, which was just as high as you could afford and then a little more.

This approach did not make the fire companies popular - espicially the incidents in which they would sit outside a burning building with a family trapped inside burning alive, trying to negociate payment and refusing to rescue anyone until the money was assured. The first public, tax-funded fire service (In Britain, anyway) was in response to the public outcry about these practices of dubious ethics.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[DJRumpy]

Why does this remind me of the health care argument? People claiming that this sort of things is optional and they shouldn't have to pay, knowing in their minds that it's only a matter of time before they DO need to rely on that service. I have no sympathy for this family. They should have been responsible citizens and paid their dues just like everyone else, instead of assuming they could freeload off the system in an emergency.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jlf278]

Just to spell out how this approach fails, imagine if disability insurance worked this way. Say I stop paying the $1,000 annual premium for my $50k /yr benefit of disability insurance. Then 5 years later I become disabled. Should I be able to pay $1k, $5k, $10k or even $100k to now collect the $50k/ yr benefit? Obviously not. Insurance companies would no longer exist if this were the case. Just as with insurance, the $75 fee was mandated to cover a very unlikely event (unlikely enough for the homeowner not to feel protection was needed). The firefighters need 100 people to pay $75 to cover the cost of putting out the 1/100 homes that catch fire.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Maxo-Texas]

Then life IN THE CITY where the services are provided.

Unless there are enough people in an area, there are not enough taxes to cover fire service.

the company that makes fire engines won't send you a free fire engine even if you complain to them that fire services are NOT optional.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jbeach]

Or, just charge everyone in the town a tax for basic town services. (ahem)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Sarius64]

Because no one would pay the fee unless their house was on fire. It costs far more than $75 to put out the fire. This person does not live in the coverage area for this fire department. The department is nice enough to extend service to these people outside their area if they choose to "subscribe". This person didn't subscribe so they don't get the service. It's a simple concept.

Fire dept and police department services are NOT optional. This isn't a cell phone subscription or some opt in bullshit. These are required services needed to live.

But cases like DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services have established that police and fireman have no duty to protect the citizens from which they extort money called taxes. So your subscription theory is invalid as the government has stated it can take your money and allow you to be murdered with no responsibility for either action.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Garrett Fox]

That's true, this is like the health care debate. In this case, someone chose not to buy the service, and the public outcry will be, "That's terrible! No one should have that choice!" Also, note that the fire victim was surprised that the FD wouldn't take his $75 while the fire was in progress. If it were health care he needed, he'd complain that his house being currently on fire is a "pre-existing condition" and that an insurer should be legally forced to insure him the moment he feels like paying.

The comparison to national health care doesn't quite fit though, because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things. It definitely does not, if the Constitution is still a meaningful limit on federal power.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

"Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?"

But to just stand there and watch it burn? That should be criminal, what if people died? I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.

When did the firefighters of South Fulton Kentucky ever swear to serve and protect the people of Obion County Kentucky? They have no legal responsibility to protect anyone outside of their jurisdiction. The subscription fee puts them in their jurisdiction. No subscription fee, no jurisdiction.

And honestly, 90% of the Volunteer Fire Departments in my area of the country don't take any kind of Oath. I didn't take one when I was an EMT either.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a person was inside the building, would they have saved the person?

I don't know. You'd probably have to ask them, as - insofar as that fire was concerned - they weren't "firefighters", they were unpaid volunteers who happened to have some firefighting equipment and experience.

They were free to risk their lives to save any human lives in that property, and might have chosen to do so, just 'cuz it was the cool thing to do. (They were free to risk their lives to save any pets in that property, and chose not to do so, because even if they were paid firefighters, they're not suicidal.)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ceejayoz]

My credit card company can't fine me, either, but they sure as hell can sic a collections agency on me and ruin my credit if I don't pay.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[theIsovist]

Flaw in your easy solution- 1. set up massive fines for post-fire payment 2. set up fires at houses where people haven't pre-paid the service 3. profit

Re:You're kidding, right?

[iamhassi]

"should've made him sign an agreement to pay the true cost of showing up and putting out the fire."

Doesn't work either, because if they show up to find a small fire the homeowner already put out then what's the cost?

I think there should be a huge minimum just to arrive to discourage people from not paying, something in the neighborhood of 20 years worth of fire service payments, that way even if they only have a fire every 10 years the fire department is still coming out on top.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

But you have a contract with them in advance.

Without the contract, they have to go to Court to prove the bill is legitimate.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[alta]

signing a contract on the spot sounds good, but it would be waayyyy too easy to go bankrupt or have discharged. There are laws about signing a contract in duress, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the fireman putting you in duress. Your house burning down puts you in duress, ANYONE is going to sign it without thinking, and it's not going to hold up in court.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[demonlapin]

They're not in the town.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymusing]

I think the system they have set up seems like the most appropriate way to handle it.

And they've had this system for 20+ years. It's not news.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[redbeard55]

Good luck collecting the money . . .

Re:You're kidding, right?

[redbeard55]

yes and the larger the bill the less likely you will be to get the money.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[digitig]

That would set a terrible precedent. Everyone would see that the $75 was not required and opt out. The FD would only be able to collect from people that had fires. I doubt that would be anywhere NEAR enough money to keep them operating unless they drastically increased the fee.

Does the FD not have matches?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[RobDude]

People don't understand how insurance works. And, in this context, we're essentially talking about Fire Insurance.

For $75 dollars you can 'opt-in'. A *LOT* of people are going to opt-in and pay the $75 dollars. And that's important because it costs a LOT more than $75 dollars to put out a fire. This works because, while a LOT of people will pay $75 dollars, only a very few will actually need the firemen to come and put out a fire. The actual cost in keeping firemen on call, having a firetruck, etc, etc, per fire, might easily be many thousands of dollars.

It only works because people are willing to pay $75 dollars on the small chance their house will catch fire.

What these people did was say, 'Hey - we don't want to pay your stupid $75 dollars. We don't need you. Our house won't catch on fire'. And then....it did. So they called up the same department they didn't want to support and begged them to come and put out the fire.

You can't just say 'Well, charge them $75 now, and put out the fire'. If that happened, NOBODY would pay until their house caught on fire. And instead of $75 dollars, you'd have to charge them $20k. Because that's how much it costs to keep a fire department running. And you'd have lots and lots of people who don't have 20k to pay you.

It only works when you have lots and lots and lots of people paying in and only a few people needing the service.

This is like getting health insurance AFTER you find out you have cancer. They only way insurance works is when you get insurance when you AREN'T sick.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[DJRumpy]

An interesting sub-topic to be sure. Do you think he had the right to expect those services to be available to him knowing that he refused to pay into the system? I wasn't referring to the larger question of the legality of Health Care and I don't want to get too side tracked from the topic at hand with such. I was more interested in the fact that he refused to pay for the service and then expected them to provide such services for the original fee after it became an emergency.

I see that as very similar to folks who refuse to pay for health insurance, and then expect to be able to go to the emergency room for treatment. It just struck me as a little too close in general situation to the health care debate.

Apologies if I didn't make that clear.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Wonko the Sane]

That happens with the government-run ones as well.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ceejayoz]

Simple to fix. "Hi, we're here to put out your fire. Please sign this contract and we'll get started."

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is for service for areas outside of town. The town's service is paid by taxes. The county failed to address fire protection and let homeowners fend for themselves.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jonfr]

I am sure that you are going to say this when your house burns to the ground and the fire department doesn't respond because you didn't pay some fee to them. When they start to charge you one fee, they sure can start to charge you with a new one at any time for any reason.

In Europe this is public service, for everyone benefits. The neo-con republican major in this town can really go and burn in hell for his stupidity and greed.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[CaptSlaq]

Most insightful comment in the thread. Thank you sir.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Altus]

But emergency rooms are still required to treat the grievously injured, insured or not. What if there had been a life on the line, someone trapped inside the building. Does some kid have to die because his dad was to cheep or too stupid to pay a fee?

I understand why this happened this way but I don't see why it couldnt be structured differently. If wilderness rescue can charge a lost hiker for finding them without that hiker having to pay a $75 fee ahead of time just in case they get lost, why cant the fire department charge someone who didn't pay the fee up front. Obviously the fee for putting out the fire should be a lot more than what the person would pay if they just paid in advance but it should be an option.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[geekoid]

The bill the county, the county fines the homeowner.
Or they bill the homeowner directly.

Note:Bill not Fine.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

The difference here is that these areas aren't covered under the city's charter. They are simply providing a service to people who otherwise have *no* fire protection. If people don't want to pay it, that's fine, but they get what happened here.

As I mentioned in my other post on this thread, this guy's own son had a fire and hadn't paid the free. That time they cut the son some slack and put out the fire.

If, after your own son's house catches fire, you *forget* to pay your fire service fee - sorry, Darwin is working closely here.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Lythrdskynrd]

I think the idea of a "100 year" bill is on the right track ($7500).

But in the back of my head, it doesn't sound like it's enough.

Fire Department Budget / Number of Fires per year = Cost per fire.
Looking here: http://www.ci.bloomington.mn.us/cityhall/dept/fire/budget/budget.htm

They've got about 1200 fires a year and a $3M budget

Which actually works out to $2500 per fire.

So actually, a charge of $2500 to put out the fire and a $5000 penalty does sound about "right" (maybe just $5000)

Maybe they can put a process in place whereby "next time" something like this comes up, they can offer the "you didn't have insurance" rate to someone. Allowing three dogs and a cat to die for $2500 doesn't site right with me. In fact it feels downright evil.

Hopefully hindsight will fix this for the future.

Compared to the actual cost of the fire, the actual numbers paid out by the insurance company, and the actual losses, even $10K would be a deal.
(what's the price of life?)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Artifakt]

1. Then he argues that the agreement is invalid as it was signed under duress, and refuses to pay/sues. Tennessee law gives two working days to change your mind after signing any contract, so the state law would have to have an exception added for this case.
2. To represent the city in negotiating an agreement, one of your fire fighters has to be a city legal agent, with the additional training, and the costs of getting the person recognised as a legal agent. I'm currently recognised as a legal agent for two banks. It's not cheap, either in cash or in the time I put in updating that agency status every year. A city government might be able to do it without thinking they need to renew the record every single year, but that depends in large part on what the city's insurance contract says. However often they have additional costs, to make agency work, the city has to have enough fire fighters or other first responders trained to be sure there's always going to be one on each team, or send the city's lawyer along on every county fire call even at 2 a.m., or something like that. The fire fighters aren't particularly trained to ask the sort of questions that would better let them judge the risk, and there's not a lot of time to fiddle with them while the home burns, but if they are going to be signing contracts, there's an insurance company somewhere that expects them to be exceptionally well trained as it's such a high financial risk situation. (and I'll explain why there's such a high financial risk below).
3. If the home owner was still paying off a mortgage, the typical contract says he had to have fire service. Statistically, there are a lot more people with mortgages outstanding than completely own their homes and it's actually more likely than not that if he has a mortgage, this home owner has either let coverage lapse without telling the bank (which he is required to do), or managed to get a local bank to take him on trust without showing the proof he ever had fire service. You're talking about signing a contract, where the odds are probably above 50% that the home owner has already at least technically cheated on an existing contract. So, these contracts will end up in court a whole lot - which is cost, fuss and bother to the city, for people who aren't citizens, and chose to live under a county government that is cheaper because it's not having to meet those costs.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the city doesn't have authority to issue a fine, they could surely have billed the guy for services rendered to stop his house from burning down.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[DJRumpy]

You don't pay taxes in Europe? You pay for it whether you realize it or not. In this case, this individual is in a separate county, so his taxes did not pay for that service. He is frankly no eligible to receive those services if he didn't pay for them.

As for me, I would never be so stupid as to refuse to pay a $75 dollar fee for fire service.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[RobDude]

Yeah - because the people who didn't pay $75 to be protected by the fire department and (presumably) the same people who don't have insurance to protect themselves financially in the event - are probably the types that make great financial decisions and have a lot of money.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[RobDude]

They aren't in the town. The town let's people outside of it's jurisdiction opt-in.

People in the town are forced to opt-in via their taxes (property taxes I'm guessing)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

But now the contract is signed under Duress which can get it invalidated in court.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

"Practical" would be quickly offering to the guy an option of firmly declaring, with his signature, that he will cover the costs of firefighting action. Somebody distressed with a house fire might really appreciate such suggestion. One which firefighters apparently didn't make; very much mean, I'd say.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[demonlapin]

Presumably the town doesn't offer it to the entire county, only to those who live just outside the city limits. I mean, if you can't swing $75 a year for fire insurance, how the hell are you supposed to pay $75 a year in extra property tax?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

And homeowner to cheap to pay $75 fee is going to pay $10,000 fee.

What happens when $10,000 fee is not paid? The responsible tax paying town residents should pay that cost because some jack wagon want to "save" $75 a year.

The TOWN HAS NO TAXING AUTHORITY for non-residents. Pretty simply concept. They can't compel non-residents to pay anything either BEFORE or AFTER a fire. As such logically the best collection method for no-residents is a PREPAYMENT.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[osgeek]

When they start to charge you one fee, they sure can start to charge you with a new one at any time for any reason.

What, you think that government doesn't do this ALL THE TIME? It's the slippery slope of taxation. At least in this case, the homeowner could not pay the fee but keep a water cistern on his property to battle his own fires. Or maybe he could have NOT started the garbage fire himself. He had options.

Once government decides to tax you for something, you have no choice but to pay for it. They are the ultimate brute force thugs who will come into your home, abduct you, and throw you into prison for not paying their fees that you have extraordinarily little control over.

I'd prefer the freedom to make my own mistakes and good decisions, thank you.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[TheLink]

What makes this worse is this guys own son had the exact same situation happen

Really? First his son's house catches fire, now his house?

That's amazing. Are their family a bunch of pyromaniacs or arsonists?

Maybe they really do deserve to have their houses burn down.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ArmyOfFun]

Standard IANAL disclosure blah blah. It seems to me like there could be some legal responsibility here in the case of loss of life. If you have the means, the opportunity and the training to prevent loss of life without substantial personal risk but willfully do nothing, I'd think, at the very least, you'd be liable for criminal negligence if not manslaughter.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[osgeek]

Every fire truck should have a credit card reader.

Case closed.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[mikael_j]

The difference here is that these areas aren't covered under the city's charter. They are simply providing a service to people who otherwise have *no* fire protection.

Speaking as someone living in the "socialist hell" of Sweden I have to say that this absolutely baffles me, I've always seen neo-liberals ranting about how the world would be perfect if we all had to pay private police and fire departments for "protection" as the crazy ramblings of people so obsessed with their pet ideology that they shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone sane, and now it seems this is actually the status quo in some parts of the US.

I'm sorry but that's just scary, around here the (horrible horrible tax-funded) fire department will at least make an effort, even if you live out in the middle of nowhere...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Yes, we get it, we all get it, the whole of Europe gets it. We KNOW that public services are paid for with taxes, we don't think they magically exist for free. The other thing is that we tend to pay our taxes up to the top, and then the top ensures that stuff like firefighting are paid-for nationwide. That also means that there isn't a jobsworth being employed to check whether homes currently being burnt down are covered. Frankly, this situation is stupid even for all the people who DO pay because time is wasted checking to see if they're on the list (and faffing around resolving mis-spellings, no-doubt) when the firefighters SHOULD be going to put out the fire immediately.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[xSauronx]

Not gonna happen, as has been addressed. I will say that here in NC generally they will show up if you didnt pay or donate, but theyll only keep the fire from spreading to other nearby houses and such. They wont save your place from burning or take any unnecessary risks.

These are people who volunteer....they barely get paid and put themselves at risk for very little to help people. Support them if youre in their service area, and they will support you.

Also.,..dont start a fire if youre an unprepared fucknut and cant manage it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

You don't put out the fire until the owner *signs* a document stating that they will pay.

When they don't pay, you take them to court and sue them for it.

Actually the *best* way to ensure payment of the prepayment is education that the 'postpayment' will be ridiculously high.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

Yeah and a significant portion of that is NEVER collected hence the reason why credit card rates are 10%-36%.
They collect more from the paying to offset the default losses.

So the comparison to fire dept is those who are responsible should pay MORE in order to offset default losses from those who are to cheap to pay $75?

Doesn't sound equitable to me.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dimethylxanthine]

Sounds like a good candidate for next year's Failed States Index. (chuckles)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[SatanicPuppy]

Well, they've been forcing us to buy roads, tanks, buildings, lands, art, etc, etc, etc for centuries.

Though frankly I think it was a mistake not to offer a public option. Pretty much pointless without that. Still no real competition among insurance companies.

Why is it that, if I buy car insurance, it's just about me but if I buy health insurance it's completely contingent on my workplace? Buying health insurance for just me should be cheap, and yet it's not, and I have no alternative but to take the crap that's available to my workplace.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

The contract can be void if it's signed under duress.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[rhsanborn]

But people get health insurance for more than just emergency events. So, enough people have health insurance that we can, theoretically, cover these costs. This doesn't work with fighting fires. In general, either your house is on fire, or it isn't. If every fire station had to respond to fires as a matter of law, then there would be no incentive to pay these fire fees and, therefore, no money to cover the cost of fighting these fires.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Raul654]

Then don't call it a fine -- call it the standard rate for putting out the fires of non-subscribers.

In other words, if the fire department shows up at your house and puts out a fire there, they will charge you $0 if you paid your yearly $75 subscription fee. If you didn't, they will charge you a lot more. (Enough to cover the cost so that they don't go overbudget for non-subscribers) This is perfectly legal and would lead to the best outcome for all concerned.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Brain-Fu]

I say put out the fire and bill him $7500+. If he don't pay put a lien on the house and take the house.

So then he can sue them claiming that since he didn't sign a contract for their help, they shouldn't have helped, and therefore can't charge him for help, and therefore can't take his house. Further, if they made him sign a contract on the spot, he can try to get it invalidated by saying he wasn't of sound mind and body when he signed it (since his house was on fire).

I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.

They didn't swear to serve and protect the public. They get paid to protect the people who pay them. They have no obligation to work for free, any more than you have an obligation to do your job for free.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Remus Shepherd]

Everyone in the county or state, then.

This isn't rocket science. Lots of communities charge a tax in order to provide fire services to everyone. This one place in rural Tennessee chose low taxes instead of basic safety. Sucks to be them, but this is what they chose.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Smidge204]

The TOWN HAS NO TAXING AUTHORITY for non-residents. Pretty simply concept. They can't compel non-residents to pay anything either BEFORE or AFTER a fire.

Yet if that town has a police force I'd likely still have to pay fines levied by them even though I live outside their jurisdiction.

Granted the fire district thing is a slightly different scenario, but to say the town can't compel payment after the fact seems a little spurious. There are ways...
=Smidge=

Re:You're kidding, right?

[CodingHero]

Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?

As stated in TFA, if people only paid the fee when services were needed, then no one would pay. Then there's no money to maintain the trucks, equipment, etc. for when a fire DOES occur.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Khyber]

You must be a Republican to want people to pay for a service the government is contractually and constitutionally bound to provide. Go look up the phrase "Provide for the common defense" (of which firefighters are an essential defensive team for a city) and 'general welfare' (which includes emotional health,) and try taking this out of context so idiotically again.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

OSHA considers a house fire to be "Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health"

All my personal protective equipment comes with warning labels that even when wearing the equipment properly, I can still be killed in a fire that the equipment will survive.

Every time I enter a building that is on fire it counts as "substantial personal risk". I am definitely at less risk than someone without the training or equipment, but I am still at risk.

If I am injured on a fire that my department has no legal responsibility to respond to, the Workman Comp Insurance provider can deny my claims.

Unless there is a pre-written agreement between the County and my Community, responding to a non-subscribers house fire is an out of jurisdiction response. The Subscription fee is what gives my fire department jurisdiction.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

So in one example only homes bearing a given plaque were covered, in the current example only homes within certain geographical limits are covered. It's not a difference which really affects GPs point.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[AtomicOrange]

That sounds reasonable to me, if they have the authority to do it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jshackney]

I say put out the fire and bill him $7500+. If he don't pay put a lien on the house and take the house.

Just noting from your link. I'm not sure a fire could be considered an improvement to the property.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

What happens when he doesn't pay?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

Trust me, I'm much closer to your system than the one we have here ;-)

In your case, everybody pays in for universal coverage and so everyone is covered.

To put it in your perspective, should a Swedish fire company cross the border and put out a Finnish house fire? Unless there is an agreement between Sweden and Finland for such action, isn't that outside the responsibility (legal, not ethically) of the Swedish fire company?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

If the County and the City have a pre-arranged agreement (Memorandum of Agreement or Contract), this can be effective.

But those fees, and the authority to collect them, have to be in the Agreement. The Agreement also gives the Fire Department the legal authority to respond to emergencies in the area.

My understanding in this case, that County didn't have any MOA's with any of the City Fire Departments in the County. They now realize the stupidity of this, and are in the process of working out the MOA's and the jurisdictional boundaries.

They will probably continue to be subscription districts, but now the fire departments will have legal authority to act in them.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Khyber]

"They have no legal responsibility to protect anyone outside of their jurisdiction."

Actually, that is bullshit, and in several states you'd go to jail for failing to render aid as you witness an emergency.

And as a citizen in a government position, it's their civic duty to render aid to anyone in need.

The firefighters should be sued, and fired. That is it. If you can't do your job as required, you need to be fired. Fire Fighters are a civic service, not a fucking revenue service.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Thankyou. It's the county that's primarily at fault here for not having county-wide firefighting arrangements. (and the state for not mandating that all counties must have such arrangements)

Although there's still something very disturbing about firefighters, with the means to put out a fire, allowing someone's house to burn down so as to make a point about why they should pay upfront.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[roman_mir]

As a libertarian (atheist as well) I take offense at everything you said.

Federal gov't has absolutely nothing to do with local problems and services, such as a fire department for example. WTF do they know where and how many and how big fire departments are needed?

Also clearly in this case the property taxes did not include a fire department because the place is remote and very few people live there, so they can't afford to have one, so they outsource services from a neighboring county, who provide the services if the annual $75/year fee is paid, which is insurance, not a cost of a call.

I am actually against federal gov't doing anything and everything except justice system and minimum military and I find it unfortunate that there is no clear separation of Congress and economy.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[asylumx]

the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things

Well, the local government here forces me to pay for fire service. I wholeheartedly believe that paying for things like fire service and law enforcement should not be optional in this country, and likewise that *providing* fire and and law enforcement services should also not be optional.

Not only that, but this fire department refused to provide the service on any terms. It's not like they said "Ok, you pay all our expenses for this fire and we'll put it out." Nope, this guy's pets were killed by this fire, and if people had been trapped in that house, there is no indication that they would have been assisted either.

Same with health care. If a person goes into the hospital hemorrhaging from some kind of wound, the wound should be treated *first* and questions about money should come later.

In both cases we are talking about an emergency situation. Emergencies such as these should be handled before the topic of money is ever even mentioned.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[RobDude]

I'm moving to the middle of nowhere. I have 20 acres of land. There is no fire department.

Are you saying I shouldn't be able to live on my land? Or are you saying you want to donate your tax dollars to fund my fire department?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Khyber]

"If the voters in that district agreed with you, they would have approved the tax."

Actually, in this case, since it lies upon the government (by constitution) to provide these services by proxy of "Promote the common defense and general welfare" the voters have no say in the matter, as it lies upon Congress to levy taxes, and that power is specifically granted to Congress. The problem is Congress has failed to do their jobs, and as such, that tax money that would pay for essential civil services has gone into a war machine or their personal pocketbooks.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sirrunsalot]

You never know what the whole story is. If I were desperately trying to keep my head above water and avoid foreclosure, I might let this fee lapse, assuming the chance of losing my house to foreclosure is much greater than losing it to a fire. Now I have no idea whether that's the situation or not, but I would agree that it should follow health care rules, i.e. that an emergency room is obligated to help a patient and sort out the billing later.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[carlos92]

It doesn't have to be a fine. They can just charge for the service. The $75 fee is firefighter service insurance. If people don't pay, they could charge the homeowner whatever turns out to be the actual cost of the service (the annual cost of having the resources available divided by the average number of fires per year, plus a surcharge for "forgetting" to pay). It might be several thousand dollars, and it's up to the homeowner to decide whether his house is worth paying for the service or not.

Letting his house burn and refusing to take the $75 fee without offering an alternative is not the best course of action, even when they have good reason to be mad at him. Of course, they cannot decide the price of the service on the spot, it is something that they should have thought in advance.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully this is America, where idiocracy still holds some kind of value, and the actual residents of the county get to decide what their laws say.

FTFY.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

False dichotomy. The alternatives are not put out the fire and bill him or don't put out the fire; the alternatives are put out the fire and send a message to everybody that they don't have to pay thereby putting the fire department out of business and causing *nobody* to be able to get service, or don't put out the fire. Given the choice of engaging in actions that will result in you being unable to provide an important service to your paying customers, or not, which do you choose?

You're engaging in static analysis, completely ignoring that actions have consequences.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[AAWood]

As a Brit, yes, I pay taxes, and if my house was on fire, a fire engine would come to put it out. And if the house of my friend who has a part-time job and pays less taxes was on fire, a fire engine would come to put it out. And if the house of my other friend who is on benefits (which you'd call "welfare") because this wretched economy means they can't get an interview much less a job, and as such doesn't pay taxes in any meaningful sense was on fire, a fire engine would come and put it out. And if the house of my other other friend, who has a debilitating illness which means she couldn't work if she wanted to and gets just enough money from the government to pay for the food, rent and carers she needs was on fire, a fire engine would come and put it out.

We have this crazy idea over here that a person's right to emergency services shouldn't be based on how much money they're making, and shouldn't be removed through poor luck or illness. And yeah, a few lazy people abuse it; frankly, I'll accept that knowing that if anyone I care about is in need, no matter whether due to malice, bad luck or their own stupidity, they'll be helped, without needing to sign up for a series of different plans years beforehand.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[MarcQuadra]

I assume you don't insure your apartment, car, home, or health either?

If they billed per-fire, the cost would probably be more like $100K. It would also incentivize firefighters to become off-hours arsonists.

So if you go your whole life without paying a dime into insurance, and then you crash your car into mine, do you expect to be able to sign up for insurance on-the-spot, pay your $120 for the month, and then cancel the policy? That's hardly fair to me, the guy who's paid over $16K into car insurance and never made a claim.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

The Fire Department was operating under the policy implemented by their Mayor and City Council.

They can't be fired for doing what their Mayor and City Council told them to do. They could have been fired for failure to follow the policy.

It was their Job to protect their City. It wasn't their Job to protect people who had intentionally declined their services (failed to pay subscription fees)

There is no law in this country that requires anyone to take action to help save someone's property. Human lives yes, but property no. In this case, no lives were are risk, so what would the crime be?

I hate subscription districts. I hate rules about jurisdictional boundaries. But they exist.

I have personally watched the rural fire department in my area drive up to their boundary and stop their response to fires outside their jurisdiction. In one case, the fire ended up growing from 20 acres to 35,000 acres. Because the fire started on Federal Land, no local departments would respond until it crossed into their jurisdictions

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dr2chase]

Note that under the new health care law, once it is fully in force, insurance is mandatory. The insurance companies cannot turn you away, but you must purchase insurance, you cannot wait until you are sick. And, further, there are regulations in place to prevent the creation of cheap, useless, "health insurance for healthy people" that people switch away from the moment they get sick.

It's convoluted, but other countries (Germany and Switzerland) also do universal health care this way. (They spend less than we do, they live longer on average, and have lower infant mortality, so there is some reason to believe that even this Rube Goldbergian scheme will improve over what preceded it, once things settle down.)

There have been instances of non-mandatory, no-preconditions health insurance (I think there is a specialized insurance market in NY state that has/had this) and the end result is that only sick people buy insurance, and it is very expensive, because sick people are costly to insure.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[mayberry42]

it's not that subscription districts suck, they are providing a service like any other and expect to get paid just as well. the problem lies in the deadbeats who don't pay the bills.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Firethorn]

Think of it like insurance. $75 doesn't come anywhere NEAR what it costs to roll the trucks. If you let him get away with simply paying the $75 AFTER he got a fire, that's like not buying life insurance until you find out that you have a lethal disease.

Basically, you'd quickly end up broke as OTHER people in the county stopped paying the $75/year unless they had a fire.

Actual callout costs would be more like $7500, which, from what I learned at another forum, would be more than the reported value of his house(!?!?). Me, who just moved out of a $15k rural home, wonder just how bad it'd have to be to be valued for like $5k.

Federal law apparently limits the fire department to a $500 call charge, and they can't really enforce even that. Given that I estimate the cost of a callout at 'way more than that', their only option is to refuse service.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ceejayoz]

If they were responsible, they'd be paying the $75 fee.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's far more likely they only checked this because this individual was not in the same county.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[MoralHazard]

"Duress": I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Black's Law (quoted here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duress) defines duress as: "any unlawful threat or coercion used... to induce another to act [or not act] in a manner [they] otherwise would not [or would]".

In other words, I can induce you to sign a contract with any LEGAL threat that I so please, and the contract is still binding. But if my threats are inherently illegal (such as threatening to hurt you, hurt your family, destroy your property, blackmail you), then the concept of duress applies, and you have a defense against my breach of contract claims.

This definition makes a lot of practical sense, if you think about it. If duress were a broader concept that included me refusing to provide you with services if you don't sign a contract, then I wouldn't even legally be able to tell you the point of signing the contract, in the first place. Under that kind of twisted logic, if you asked "Why should I sign this contract agreeing to pay you $20 to mow my lawn", and I responded "Because I won't mow your lawn for free", then I'd be subjecting you to duress. Clearly, that's not conducive to basic business arrangements.

In this case, the firefighters would be threatening to withold a service (fighting the fire consuming the man's house), which doesn't seem to be an illegal threat, to me. Granted, the house represents a very serious economic and emotional loss to this man and his family. I don't want to belittle that. But it's not like the firefighters set the man's house on fire, in the first place.

Now, there are some situations where a society will legally or socially obligate an individual member to act on behalf of his fellow man in a time of need. Some jurisdictions even have laws requiring you to aid another human being in distress, as long as you're not putting yourself in harm's way (like in the Seinfeld finale). So everything I said, above, assumes that this little Tennessee burg isn't one of situations.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

The only Legal Authority the Fire Department had to respond to fires in the County was to people who had contracted, individually, with the City, via payment of subscriptions, for fire protection.

That Legal Authority is a big deal. Fire Departments, who respond out of their areas of authority, risk not being covered by their own insurance carries for damage to fire department equipment or firefighter injuries.

In this case, the County had never signed a Memorandum of Understanding giving the City of South Fulton the authority to respond into the County for fire protection. The only legal authority they had was the contracts with individual home owners.

My understanding is that Olbion County now realizes that mistake and is working with community fire departments in the area to draw up those MOAs and define jurisdictional boundaries. I am sure the homeowner's will sue. But they won't win.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Firethorn]

What if there had been a life on the line, someone trapped inside the building

The responses I've seen would have them committing to a rescue in that case. In this case there wasn't even any animals left in the house, so they just let it burn.

AFTER rescuing anybody in the home, they'd have let it burn.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I had no idea there was such a thing. Where I come from the FD puts out any fire they're called to, regardless of who called or where the fire is. As far as they're concerned, that's just their job. I could be in hot water for not paying property taxes and the like, and the dept would never know (and wouldn't care).

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

There is this thing called bankruptcy. Do you think someone too foolish/cheap to pay $75 would have any qualms about filing bankruptcy to avoid $10,000+ in service fees?

The second issue is that is a contract under durress. Entirely possible a lawyer could get it tossed.

Once again he had a simple and effective option. Pay the $75. He chose not to. The town sent him a letter warning him of lack of coverage. The town then called him asking him to pay for coverage. He declined both attempts to reestablish coverage.

He wasn't covered and his house burned.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[MarcQuadra]

Subscription districts suck

I don't know. I live in a very blue state with regular taxes. Our firefighting budget is $250/person/year. I could subscribe all three of my abutting neighbors for less than they hit each one of us for in property taxes.

Personally, I like the middle solution: You deliver average firefighting for average rates. I'll take the 1/2000 chance that I end up waiting an extra two minutes for you in an emergency, and I get to keep an extra $12,000 over my lifetime.

My favorite is when firefighters cry poor here: "My base pay is only $55K!", yeah. But you earned $75K on top of that in overtime last year. Forgot to mention that, eh?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[DJRumpy]

And that in turn is why people abuse the current system. They know the billing will be 'sorted out later' and then never pay it. The taxpayer picks up the tab, which I would imagine is what would happen if the fire service had put out this guy's house fire. At that point it already cost far more than $75 dollars.

You never know what the whole story is. If I were desperately trying to keep my head above water and avoid foreclosure, I might let this fee lapse, assuming the chance of losing my house to foreclosure is much greater than losing it to a fire. Now I have no idea whether that's the situation or not, but I would agree that it should follow health care rules, i.e. that an emergency room is obligated to help a patient and sort out the billing later.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[CarlosM7]

How about calling it "invoice" instead of "fine"?

As in the medical insurance example, you would pay the full medical bill instead of copay/coinsurance if you don't have medical insurance.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[WindBourne]

While I have an issue with the pets burning, I would say that the rest is immaterial.
First, it costs a GREAT DEAL MORE Than 75 to put out the fire. Had he offered up 1-5K I would put money on it that they would have put it out. But that did not happen.
Second, This guy just did not pay it. I will put money down that he had "forgotten" for multiple years. Just like the neo-cons that say that they should pay zero taxes, but then expect to have the same benefits.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Firethorn]

because time is wasted checking to see if they're on the list (and faffing around resolving mis-spellings, no-doubt) when the firefighters SHOULD be going to put out the fire immediately.

From other discussions, the fire department in question has very few homes that are on the list of 'didn't pay'.

Oh, and the estimates for the county setting up universal coverage is more like $120/home, not $75, so they're getting a deal.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

They used to charge $500 to respond to non-subscriber fires.

Less than 50% of the people paid. The City talked to their lawyers and found out they would have to go to court to collect from the non-payers.

When word got around about that, even fewer people paid the $500 fee.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gumbi west]

Uh, what do you think social security is? It is an insurance policy that you are forced to buy. This is settled law. The only difference is that health care has way more choices--you don't just have to go with the "public plan."

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Khyber]

"I take offense at everything you said."

The fact you let words offend you simply reinforces my belief of your Republican status.

"Federal gov't has absolutely nothing to do with local problems and services, such as a fire department for example."

This crossed state lines - this is interstate commerce between Kentucky and Tennessee, CLEARLY IN FEDERAL JURISDICTION.

"Also clearly in this case the property taxes did not include a fire department because the place is remote and very few people live there, so they can't afford to have one, so they outsource services from a neighboring county, who provide the services if the annual $75/year fee is paid, which is insurance, not a cost of a call."

No, they don't have one because they've consistently voted against a tax for it for 20 years. Typical Republican, not bothering to obtain the facts before tossing out hypotheticals.

"I am actually against federal gov't doing anything and everything except justice system and minimum military and I find it unfortunate that there is no clear separation of Congress and economy."

Jeeze, because everything would just so happen to be intrinsically linked so as to maintain interoperability between states.

Yep, typical Republican, can't understand how our system works.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Inda]

Um, dunno where you from, but in England the fire service is paid through your local council tax. It's not nationally paid for.

We can also go to prison for not paying. That's how you make sure everyone pays...

[you dumb fuckin' money-lovin' capitalist yanks. how can you let this sort of thing happen?]

Re:You're kidding, right?

[tompaulco]

I think he should have been able to purchase the services on a one-shot basis, which would clearly have to cover the entire cost of the operation of saving his house. $75 clearly wouldn't cut it. Probably would be at least $30,000. Then again, that is probably more than a house in the rural SE United States is worth..

Re:You're kidding, right?

[yakovlev]

I don't think you correctly read the parent poster. He said charge the cost of the benefit (putting out the fire) plus 10%.

This would be like your disability insurance company saying: "Okay, you want us to pay you 50k/yr, that's fine. Pay us 55k/yr and we'd be happy to pay you 50k/yr." The reason this doesn't work for something like disability insurance is that the benefit is in the form of pure cash.

Health care already works this way. You can pay $500/month for health insurance, or you can pay out-of-pocket for every procedure. There are increased billing costs, etc. from paying outright, as well as risks that the customer won't pay, but overall it mostly works.

Now, I doubt 10%, is a large enough overhead, it's probably more like double the cost of fighting the fire, but either way it theoretically works. The biggest potential problem here is that if the cost of fighting the fire is really in the $15,000 range then double that is likely to be more than the rural customer's land is worth, in which case the right thing for them to do fiscally is to let it burn. However, they won't be able to make that kind of rational decision while watching their house burn to the ground. If the cost of fighting the fire is more in the $3000-5000 range, then paying to have the fire fought would be the right thing to do.

Let's run some numbers:
about 2 million fires a year in US.
about 100 million households in US.

This means a fire occurs about 1 in every 50 household-years.

The fire department changes $75/household-year for rural coverage. So, the cost of a fire should be around $3750/fire. If they charged $7500/fire that should about offset their costs, including billing costs, unless the city is significantly subsidizing rural firefighting costs even with the $75/year fee. $7500/fire is low enough that many individuals should consider paying even on a per-fire basis.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[DJRumpy]

Here in the U.S., the population is rife with people who abuse social services to the tune of billions of dollars a year and then turn around and throw the 'big socialism' boogeyman on the cross when they need to win an election.

From TFA:

Cranick, who lives outside the city limits, admits he "forgot" to pay the annual $75 fee. The county does not have a county-wide firefighting service, but South Fulton offers fire coverage to rural residents for a fee.

This man deserved what he got. He isn't terminally ill. he isn't poor or on welfare. He as much as admits he's just stupid.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

From an administrative stand point, they are a pain-in-the butt to manage.

The fire department has to send out bills every year. They have to track who paid and who didn't. They have to follow up with the non-payers.

When your pay rate is variable, anticipating revenue in advance becomes difficult. Without a good subscription payment record, banks won't loan money to buy new equipment.

If you have the MOA's in place, so that you can respond to non-subscribers and bill them, now you have a billing and collection issue with those responses.

All and all, from a management standpoint, taxing districts are far easier to manager. That is part of my "subscription districts suck" comment.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dloose]

What happens when the guy who lives next door to you makes a poor choice and you suffer for it? Like, maybe he decides not to pay his fire extortion (whoops... protection) bill and the fire at his house that could have been put out spreads to your house as a result? Maybe your wife dies before the fire department arrives. Or maybe you're lucky and it's just your dog. Are you still happy that he had the freedom to not pay?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[marklark]

Contracts signed under duress are unenforceable... No?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Firethorn]

Yet if that town has a police force I'd likely still have to pay fines levied by them even though I live outside their jurisdiction.

Along the same lines, if your car caught fire in their town the fire department would put it out for you. Their property tax supported ambulance would take you to the hospital.

The problem here isn't the city. The town/city is being nice to provide fire protection outside of their jurisdiction, but that costs money, and the $75 fee is what they can do to cover their extra expenses.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[demonlapin]

The tax would be extremely high if you wanted to cover the whole county; it's 545 sq mi of land (per Wikipedia). I don't know for certain, but I imagine that the town only offers coverage to those areas that are just barely outside the city limits.

In a lot of rural areas, fire coverage is volunteer-only, because a professional, tax-funded department would be prohibitively expensive. Professional firefighting services only really work when the area to be covered is fairly densely populated.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Firethorn]

they could charge the homeowner whatever turns out to be the actual cost of the service (the annual cost of having the resources available divided by the average number of fires per year, plus a surcharge for "forgetting" to pay). It might be several thousand dollars, and it's up to the homeowner to decide whether his house is worth paying for the service or not.

All fine and dandy except for one niggling problem:

Federal law limits post-fire bills to $500. This isn't enough to keep people paying the $75, nor enough to cover actual expenses. So they let it burn.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[LinuxAndLube]

People could pay (cost + some profit) whenever there is a fire to put out. The thing would operate as a business, with some capital to invest upfront.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

There is a whole history of Common Law about billing for services at the scene of an emergency.

It goes back to Roman times when fire brigades were a private enterprise. One Roman would go to someone who's home was burning and offer to buy it. If the person sold the property, then this guy's fire brigade would go to work.

Under Maritime Law, if a ship is having an emergency and needs to be towed to save it, the Tug can't charge more than their usual rates.

The Duress in this situation is the Stress of "the house is on fire and losing value per minute". Note the 911 call from the homeowners wife offering to pay "whatever you want".

Contracts signed at the scene of a fire, run the risk of being thrown out of Court. The Court will evaluate the contract under the terms of "If the person's house wasn't on fire, would they have agreed to these terms".

Re:You're kidding, right?

[i_ate_god]

here here! I live in Canada. Same situation. High taxes, lots of free services, no worry. And our economy is good enough that it can all be paid for. Americans love to say "well well well, in Canada, there is long waits!!!". Well yes, that's true. But it's not a flaw of the system, it's a flaw of the government allocating funds in a stupid manner. Like, $1,000,000,000 for the G7/G20 summits, a MASSIVE amount of money that gave us nothing at all but riots and nonsense. Another problem with Canada is that welfare is too easy to abuse. I fully support welfare, but in 99.9% of cases, it should never be a no-strings-attached deal. Want welfare because your life turned to shit? Fine, you can get welfare, only if you demonstrably do something to get out of welfare. Right now that's not really the case.

However, while our health care system certainly isn't perfect, it's ALWAYS around. The firetrucks are ALWAYS around. The ambulances are ALWAYS around. And if a foreigner or other non-citizen or someone who hasn't filed the paperwork yet for medicare gets into an accident, the first people they will call are doctors and nurses, not accountants and lawyers.

There are a lot of things that are good with America, social services is not one of them, and the way americans perceive social services is something I can never understand.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[theStorminMormon]

the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things

Well, the local government here forces me to pay for fire service.

You and the OP are both being unnecessarily vague and inaccurate.

The question is whether the US federal government has the authority to tell one person to purchase something from another private entity.

The local government isn't forcing you to buy something. It's forcing you to pay taxes (which it can do) and then it's providing a service (which it also can do). Even though it looks similar, paying taxes + receiving a public benefit != purchasing a consumer good.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[tompaulco]

You should buy high deductible insurance. It is much cheaper than you can find at your workplace, and it is the way that all insurance should be anyway, ie, insurance. I have $5,000 deductible, only because that was the highest option they had available. I pay everything up to $5,000 a year, and they cover the rest. They still process the claim and lower the outrageous doctor's fees to a reasonable amount.
I would happily take insurance where I paid absolutely everything with no limit, just so long as I could use the insurance company's contracted rates. I imagine that would be even cheaper bu they don't offer that option.
My fear is that Obamacare will eliminate high deductible policies which is the only insurance policy that can truly call itself an insurance policy. Insurance is for when something happens that is more than you can afford. How come insurance pays out on $100 doctor's visits? If you can't afford that, then maybe you shouldn't be paying $800 a month for insurance, and should just be paying the doctor out of pocket.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

I agree that some career departments have outrageous budgets.

I am a Captain in a Volunteer (Paid on Call) department. I get paid $10 per hour per call. I might make $1000 this year.

Our department budget is $135,000 per year. We are a municipal department. The property tax hit is about $85 per $100,000 in home value. Pretty darn cheap if you ask me.

Oh, and we are an ISO Class 4 department, which less than 10% of the fire departments in the country obtain. The difference in property insurance rates for my community between ISO 4 and 5 is $250,000 per year (according to the agents who testified at the hearing when we had to replace our ladder truck)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[shipofgold]

The comparison to national health care doesn't quite fit though, because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things. It definitely does not, if the Constitution is still a meaningful limit on federal power.

The comparison to national health care is a perfect fit. There are certain services, in a civilized society, that require contribution from the entire population so that all may benefit equally when they need it. Fire, Police, Military and Health care should never be "opt-in" services...they are all equivalent in that they are services that you cannot predict when you will need them, and paying on the spot for service performed is ridiculous.

Social Security and Medicare are also not "opt-in" and history has shown that without them our society would be in worse shape. Where in the Constitution does it state that at age 65 you should be treated differently? Yet the some people who scream about health care are the ones whining about cuts to the Medicare Plus benefits....

I cannot for a reason think why any logical person would think society would be better if Fire services, or Health services should be "opt in"....

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

The City of South Fulton doesn't have the authority to issue fines to people who don't live in their town.

Erm, the poor guy whose house was burning was on the freaking scene, together with the firefighters.

He could have signed an obligation to pay ten times the fees he would have paid over 10 years or anything. He probably had a freaking credit card right there. No need to bill him. He'd probably have signed his favorite pet over to the firefighters if only they bothered to put out the fire and save the pets ...

You guys are really looking for excuses, while this conduct is inexcusable in a modern society. Letting a person's home burn over a $75 fee is cruel domestic terrorism of the first degree.

If this is how a 'free' Republican society looks like then I take comfort in the fact that you insensitive sociopaths are clustered in a safe distance from me, on the other side of the pond. Sheesh ...

(I'm posting this anonymously, in anticipation of the 'Protect America Act 2013' that the Palin administration will pass forcing all ISPs to retroactively divulge the identifies of all users suspected of unamerican thought-crime.)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Magic5Ball]

This discussion misses the social purpose and benefits of having fire departments in the first place.

If there's spare firefighting capacity from the neighboring urban municipality for them to be able to do contract work for a fee, then: a) fighting fires on non-subscribing properties does not impose a significant additional burden on the firefighters; b) the neighbouring municipality is allocating its public neighboring inefficiently; and/or c) the urban or rural municipality's taxpayers are subsidizing the other but some taxpayers are being denied access to public services on the basis of financial situation.

The rural municipality has failed to ensure that its residents' homes are protected; the risk to the neighboring subscribers' shows this. The rural municipality should either fund its own fire department, or compel its residents to subscribe to the urban municipality's fire services. The current policy has deprived the public far more good than if the subscription option were not available since it allows property values to be uncontrollably depressed and funds essential public services based on non-sustainable income.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[tompaulco]

Requiring insurance is just stupid. We don't have an insurance problem, we have a healthcare problem. By making insurance mandatory, we have a WORSE insurance problem. Look at how the rates went sky high on auto insurance when everyone was required to have it. The same thing will happen in healthcare.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[AvenNYC]

This is why I love slashdot. Of all the sites that posted this, and all the indignant comments on those sites - Slashdot's first comment, reply and response hit the nail on the head. Most commenters on other sites didn't even get that it was two different counties involved.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dgatwood]

The City of South Fulton doesn't have the authority to issue fines to people who don't live in their town.

Sure, they do. It's a fee for services rendered at the person's request. The guy did offer to pay for them to put out the fire.

And the argument that there weren't hydrants is complete crap. Out in the county in Tennessee, houses with swimming pools are required to have pipes set up so that the fire department can pump the pool dry to obtain extra water (and most of the trucks carry water tanks anyway). You're never too far from a source of water, and the fire protection depends on that.

Also, maybe you missed that the next door neighbor had paid the fee, and called for the fire department to protect his house, sothe fire trucks were ALREADY THERE keeping that house from burning and simply stood by and WATCHED THE OTHER HOUSE BURN. There was no extra truck roll; there was no significant extra cost involved to the fire department. They just followed the lead of a bunch of bureaucrats who decided to "show him" for not paying his protection money. That's just one step shy of the freaking mafia. If the fire department were to... accidentally... set a few fires, it would complete the analogy....

The real problem here is that Tennessee tries to rely on a sales tax for almost all of the state's revenue, and in times like this, they get massively screwed by that overreliance. The result is that they don't have a proper state response fire program. Fire protection costs should have been part of his property taxes to the state/county, and the state/county should have had an agreement in place to reimburse whatever fire department was closest and was able to respond first. The fact that this is not the case is an egregious sign of gross incompetence on the part of everyone involved in setting fire protection policies at the city, count, and state levels.

It's truly mind boggling that in this modern day and age, there are people who do not enjoy even the most basic public safety protections that our government can afford its citizens. For shame, Tennessee.

The saddest thing is that this is what many libertarian/tea party people seem to want. See how well non-socialist fire protection works? There's a reason we don't give people the choice of whether to pay for fire protection in most civilized parts of the world. It leads to horrific stories like this one.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[roman_mir]

The fact you let words offend you simply reinforces my belief of your Republican status.

- that's just stupid, I am not even a US resident.

This crossed state lines - this is interstate commerce between Kentucky and Tennessee, CLEARLY IN FEDERAL JURISDICTION.

- and that's where US Constitution has failed, there shouldn't be such a thing that allows the fed to do whatever they want to the economy in totality. Beside which, nobody actually FORCED the fire department of another state to provide this service, they simply agreed to it for some extra money.

No, they don't have one because they've consistently voted against a tax for it for 20 years. Typical Republican, not bothering to obtain the facts before tossing out hypotheticals.

- again, stupid assertion on my 'republican' status. Also how the hell do you know how much they'd have to actually pay yearly in taxes to own their fire department? It just might be multiple of hundreds of dollars per house. You do not have a point, it looks like for them it is MUCH MORE ECONOMICAL to outsource this service.

Jeeze, because everything would just so happen to be intrinsically linked so as to maintain interoperability between states.

- again, that's where the US Constitution founders have failed the country, by allowing this into the Constitution in the first place.

Yep, typical Republican, can't understand how our system works.

- one more time, stupid assertion.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[bberens]

I'm quite sure the fire department showed up for the sole purposes of making sure everyone was safe. Once it was determined there were no human lives on the line they said "Sorry about your luck." Which is the appropriate response imho.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jmpeax]

I know - reading American responses to this kind of thing is really baffling, isn't it? They call it socialism, I call it basic human compassion.

There was an excellent article that delved into this mindset recently in Rolling Stone. I think it's especially enlightening when read from a European perspective, particularly in terms of how the working class perspectives on these issues differ so much (non-sensically, in fact) in the US.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[h4rm0ny]

To put it in your perspective, should a Swedish fire company cross the border and put out a Finnish house fire?

In that case, the house would be covered by the Finnish fire services. The question would be why in America you have forsaken areas of No Man's Land where no local government will accept responsibility for provinding emergency services.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were health care he needed, he'd complain that his house being currently on fire is a "pre-existing condition" and that an insurer should be legally forced to insure him the moment he feels like paying.

Lolwat? Fire fighters aren't insurance any more than the doctor is insurance.

This is like a person discovering he has cancer and goes to get it cut out but the surgeon refuses his money and stands there and watches him die.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Obfuscant]

We have this crazy idea over here that a person's right to emergency services shouldn't be based on how much money they're making, and shouldn't be removed through poor luck or illness.

Mod -1 flamebait.

Over here, we have this crazy idea that PEOPLE run the government, not the other way around, and that they can CHOOSE not to have their government provide a certain service if they don't want their tax dollars being spent on it.

Fought a war over that one. Forgot who won. Do you remember?

By the way, that $75 as a tax would mean that failure to pay would result in loss of household in about three years anyway. As a voluntary fee, failure to pay might result in loss of household IF there is a fire. You choose you r poison, you takes your chances.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jbeach]

OK, so every homeowner in the county outside of a city is taxed this fee. And the state enforces the fee. Perhaps through a sales tax, or some other way if the state refuses to have an income tax.

The point is, situations of distributed protection like this are exactly what taxes are good for. The glibertarian fallacy of "only paying for government services they're going to use" results in exactly this kind of mess. That's why we don't have private free-market fire companies any more.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Flytrap]

That's a load of sh*t and you know it. Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75? Having them show up but refuse to put water to flame is just plain mean on a level I don't quite have the words to describe. And they *did* have to show up - to make sure the neighbor's houses didn't burn down. I'd say the FD should be on the hook for the cost of the house, reckless endangerment, and cruelty to animals.

Wow! I love this logic! I should try this with my motor insurance company... Tell them that I am not prepared to pay any of my monthly premiums... until I have an accident; then they must just fix my car and bill me later for a single months premium... I'll start paying once I have satisfied myself that I really need the insurance cover /s

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jbeach]

It wouldn't be that high if you charged per homeowner. Brush fires on state property will be put out and covered by the state anyway.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[bberens]

Think of all the new construction jobs created by having to rebuild the house. Why do you hate jobs creation?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

60% of my county has effectively no fire protection.

I live in Idaho, my county is almost the size of the State of Delaware. We have less than 12,000 people in the whole county.

Most of the land without fire protection is Federal land. The Federal Government has 1 wildland fire truck in the County.

The Feds asked us to respond to a fire in a Cabin near Federal land one time. It took our truck almost 1 hour to get to the scene over narrow, one lane gravel roads.

Idaho State Law states that if a fire protection district is set up, it requires approval of 2/3rd of the voters in the area. The people who live in the unprotected areas vote regularly to not be annexed into existing fire protection districts.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[bberens]

Actually the best way to ensure payment of the prepayment is education that the postpayment means your house has already burned down.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[JWSmythe]

You shouldn't be embarrassed by not knowing it. You should be embarrassed that you live in a country where such a thing would happen.

    Where I live (same country, different state), if there's an emergency, emergency response workers show up and do their job. If they are the closest available unit, they'll cross city and/or county boundaries to help people.

    After that's all done, if there is a fee, it's handled by financial people. It's possible his homeowner insurance may have paid the costs related to reducing their cost. A fire that damages one wall is a lot cheaper to replace than an entire house and the contained possessions. I know, TFA said that his coverage wouldn't cover everything in his house, but that wouldn't have really mattered since it wouldn't have been a total loss.

    Most emergency response workers don't care about the money. They are doing their job to help people. Who else would sign up to run into burning buildings, or any of the other stuff that they do?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Vancorps]

Of course their shortsightedness is now up front, loud and clear as they complain the fire department did nothing to help them. Democracy, especially representative democracy is supposed to be ruled by reason. A blind hatred of taxes comes at a price and no one wants to hear them complaining when they refused to pay into a system most people gladly pay into.

If you don't want to pay for government services then you get what you deserve. I feel sympathy for the family in losing their home as that is a big deal but they refused to pay and got what they paid for. Maybe now they will pay the fee and help improve their community through a better funded fire department. They clearly didn't understand the situation as they tried to pay the original fee on site which wouldn't have paid for the roll out. The $75 only works when a whole community is contributing, it costs several hundred to deploy the fire department which is why people have to pay for false alarms. It's the whole ounce of prevention mantra and it's clearly lost on this household as the neighbors did pay the fee and thus the fire department kept them safe from the spreading fire.

Principles are a pain in the ass sometimes.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[theycallmeB]

And without a specific, enabling law already in place authorizing and legitimizing those bills to either the county or the homeowner, what do think are the chances said bills would actually get paid? (hint: start at almost-zero and count downward)

If the people of rural Fulton County want to pass a law providing for enforced payment when fire services are provided (like how EMS works in most places: they have to show up when called, you have to pay the bill), they can do so. But they haven't.

Or they could charge everybody a $75 (or less) a year tax and pay the fee in bulk every year. But they don't. Its conservative democracy inaction.

And now they should not be surprised if everybody gets a letter amending their homeowners insurance policy to not cover fire damage on properties that have not paid the fire department service fee, as the fire protection rating for your area is a major component in calculating the insurance cost.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my friends was injured in while hiking through the mountains in Colorado and had to be taken out in a helicopter. Had he purchased a fishing license or "outdoor card" from the state, the rescue operation would have been covered under the terms of the license. Since he had not, the state will be sending him a bill. Seems the same model would work in other emergency situations such as this one.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dr2chase]

IF you have an insurance-based system, IF insurers are required to take all customers with no exclusions or preconditions, THEN insurance must be mandatory, OTHERWISE you get a market failure. I first read about this over 20 years ago in a microeconomics textbook (Kreps, my wife was taking a course from him) and it has been tested in the insurance market that I mentioned. We dodge that bullet in this country with group medical plans; private (single-customer) health insurance is expensive and has high deductibles.

This is true for "fire insurance" (house-on-fire = preexisting condition), this is true for medical insurance. If you are allowed to buy "fire insurance" after your house is on fire, then people will wait till their house is on fire, and then pay the fire department, and it will be very, very expensive. And if the fire department is an unregulated corporation, why, they may charge you quite a lot, because what choice do you have? (Yes, I know, in a free market, there will be many competing fire departments, bidding for your service -- so why didn't this happen in Tennessee? There's clearly a market opportunity for last-minute fire-fighting.)

There are several ways to get to universal health care; if you do it with insurance, this is how you do it. Yes, the insurance companies must be heavily regulated, there's no way around it. No, it's not the way I would have done it, but I am not king, and I cannot bribe senators as effectively as the medical and insurance industries can.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[fyngyrz]

if you can't swing $75 a year for fire insurance, how the hell are you supposed to pay $75 a year in extra property tax?

If you can't pay for fire protection, perhaps you are too poor to own a house. How about that? That's how we treat people who can't pay property taxes, and any number of other costs. We just take the house. And the land, for that matter.

I'm in the camp of those with the idea that the country should be collecting that $75 per person and channeling it to the FD, and the FD's job be limited to putting out fires, rather than deciding whose pets get to live or die, whose homes get no protection, who takes the risk of being an unknown person in a building when it burns.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

For starters, we're on the same side of this. The guy's a moron and deserved what happened.

To your points:

Bankruptcy is a factor in the 'business plan' of the service. You estimate how many you'll have that file for bankruptcy and price things accordingly; that's just standard business practice so nothing new or unexpected here.

Contract under duress is certainly a reasonable concern. The fact that the town warned him in writing and then actually called him about it would be pretty damning circumstances in a court of law. He willingly chose not to have a small preventative service and then when he needed it reneged on the contract he would have in theory signed under duress. That's a nuance that a decent lawyer would be able to argue as well.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[blair1q]

If the fire department wants to run like a business, it has to operate like a business.

Take out a loan, invest in equipment, and collect at the time of service.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[fyngyrz]

Insurance companies would no longer exist if this were the case.

They're a very bad idea anyway. That's why universal healthcare should be put into place.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[blair1q]

And if they didn't know that their property wasn't covered by the local fire department? Or didn't know that there was a fee for it?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[BobMcD]

That's not actually true, as it lies within the powers of the voters to define what constitutes the common good, as well as the degree to which it is promoted.

Any other interpretation of this clause opens the door to insanity.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[spamking]

The question would be why in America you have forsaken areas of No Man's Land where no local government will accept responsibility for provinding emergency services.

Some locations are just that "No Man's Land" and are very rural. Emergency services response times would be far to great to save some folks/structures.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Moryath]

You missed the point - he offered to pay WHATEVER IT TOOK.

Instead, these assholes let the house burn, killing the pets, and the "Mayor" defends this.

They should all be fired and then stand trial for animal cruelty. Period.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[blair1q]

And other residents of the county get to find out what happened at the ballot box by watching the firemen stand around while their house burns...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article. The guy knew. He says he just 'forgot' to pay it. It is an opt in system, much like insurance, and it's been in place for 20 years according to TFA.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[JesseMcDonald]

Does the FD not have matches?

Yeah, great idea. That way the FD can pay the full costs of fighting their fires out-of-pocket, plus full restitution for any property damage, while also losing any reasonable claim to legal protection from arson directed at their own property. If they get caught, of course—which will happen if they set enough fires to make a difference.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[slimjim8094]

They could, but it would probably be about $5000 and he wouldn't pay it anyway. If everybody did that, got the bill and didn't pay it, the FD wouldn't be able to operate.

It's a shame, but he knew the risks when he didn't pay for the service.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Bemopolis]

Fought a war over that one. Forgot who won. Do you remember?

Yes — it was people who owned other people, who somehow did not get any representation in government.

Of course, as someone who was born and raised in the South, I saw a lot of rebel flags. I used to enjoy saying to those dumbass rednecks "Fought a war over that one. Forgot who won. Do you remember?"

This particular form of enjoyment led to a lot of running.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

To put it in your perspective, should a Swedish fire company cross the border and put out a Finnish house fire?

that's just being pedantic. This is a thought experiment about covering people outside of your jurisdiction.

But to your point, what if the Finnish services couldn't get there? what should the Swedish system do?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Americano]

It's actually not as cut & dry as you seem to think, considering there are numerous conflicting opinions as to what powers the "General welfare" clause in the Constitution confers on the Federal government.

More to the point, even if everybody agreed that this *is* the purpose of the 'general welfare' clause, there'd also be a significant question of whether it's constitutional for the Federal government to say "people in Fulton TN must pay taxes to the state and county to support a state or county fire service."

I'm not sure how the state constitution of Tennessee reads, but I'd guess that there's probably similar conflicting interpretations there if any mention is made of "the general welfare."

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's great that all of you agree to that.

Here in the US the states are much more akin to separate countries in the EU (Or at least that's how it's SUPPOSED to work).

Would you want to pay your taxes "up to the top" if the EU was the top and they got to decide how to spend your money?

I think not.

In this specific county in the state of Tennessee in the United State, people care more about saving a few bucks than enacting proper fire safety legislation (at least IMHO). It's their right. They have the right to be morons. They do not have the right to complain about it later.

I also have the right to call them morons, because I live in New York, and while I may think we overtax most of the time (and give way too much of our money to NYC), I'm perfectly okay with the dollars that are going to my local fire department.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[AAWood]

OK, I'll bite.

"Over here, we have this crazy idea that PEOPLE run the government, not the other way around, and that they can CHOOSE not to have their government provide a certain service if they don't want their tax dollars being spent on it."

From my perspective, I don't care. I want the people around me to be safe from big-life changing (or ending) problems that might arise in or out of their control, and fire is pretty high on that list. I don't care if that is something decided by national government or local, and I don't care if that decision is made with or without input by the people. In most cases, the opinion of the people is routed through so many local officials and lobbyists, shaped through media and pressure groups, and interpreted by national officials and groups such that by the end, the actual will of the people is, if nothing else, impossible to accurately verify.

"Fought a war over that one. Forgot who won. Do you remember?"

I assume you mean the American civil war, and yes, America won. I'm rather sketchy on what that has to do with this topic though?

"By the way, that $75 as a tax would mean that failure to pay would result in loss of household in about three years anyway. As a voluntary fee, failure to pay might result in loss of household IF there is a fire. You choose you r poison, you takes your chances."

IF you can afford it. It's a big if for more people than you might think. Again, as I said above, I don't care about how a particular person gets help when they need it, and if they aren't paying the tax I don't care if it's because they're cheap, stupid, needy, ill, or unlucky. I don't want to worry that someone I know is going to get into a spiral of problems where their income drops, they aren't able to keep up with payments for things I'd consider basic or essential, and then the universe bites them in the ass. I just want to know they are safe. If you consider that opinion to be flamebait, so be it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the next town over, across the state line in KY, so allow me to expand on this a little.

The fire subscription fee has been in existence for 20 years for those living within a certain distance of South Fulton in Obion County. It has never gone up in 20 years. It is a meager fee for such service, yet a large portion of those eligible still gamble with it. Before 1990, the rural folks flat out didn't have fire service, period. South Fulton FD would not respond outside the city limits, so this is considered an expanded service for those outside the city limits, not a gov't paid and provided service like it is for those inside the city. And we use the term "city" liberally. South Fulton has a population of maybe 2500 people and falling as the old die off and the young leave for lack of employment opportunity.

Had there been a person in the home whose life was in danger, the firefighters would have been legally obligated to respond to save the person, but once the person is rescued, their duty ends for those without a fire subscription. Also, I don't understand why his pets died. From what I've been told, it took almost 2 hours for the fire to go from the burn barrels to his shed and ultimately to his house. He had lots of time to rescue his pets and his most important documents and possessions before the fire got to his house, but he instead assumed that the SFFD would come save his pets and property even though his fee was not paid. He expected something for nothing and got exactly what he put effort into - nothing.

As for the property next door, it was a harvested soybean field on fire, not another home. They have special tanker trucks with big spray booms to deal with such.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[natehoy]

Correct. Certain shared government services are, in fact, a form of socialism.

Fire departments are something that the majority feel are necessary. So, the majority gets together and determines (by and large) what they want a fire department to look like. Do we want to buy Hank a big dually truck with a 500-gallon tank attached and pay him $1000 a month to stay home all day so he's available if someone yells "fire!", or do we want to put up a building and buy actual pumper trucks and fancy suits and whatnot?

Then they figure out how much it costs, split the costs up using some formula most everyone can agree on, and send everyone a bill. Usually the amount is included in their property tax bill.

Each individual contributes to something that no one citizen could afford to pay for effectively, but that every citizen benefits from (or could potentially benefit from).

This is the same model that roads, sewer systems, police forces, and Social Security are all based on.

In the case of this specific small town, the majority of citizens apparently felt that firefighting was not something they could afford on their own, so they opted to allow a larger nearby town to offer it to their citizens as a subscription service. They could have made it mandatory by adding it to the property tax and forwarding the money for each citizen along to the larger town's fire department, but I guess they decided that they wanted to keep taxes low. So they just allowed each citizen to make their own decisions like adults.

That means that, if a citizen doesn't want to pay into the system, they don't have to. But if they don't pay into the system, then they don't get access to it.

In this case, the free market worked exactly as it should. This guy had a series of actions he could have taken to get fire coverage. One was to pay $75 a year to a fire service. One was to buy his own fire gear. He opted not to get fire coverage, and didn't have his own gear. Then he got a fire. And he hadn't made any arrangements for anyone to help him with it.

It's called "personal responsibility". You no wanna pay for a public good? Fine. Don't expect to benefit from it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Refused? Any evidence of that? For what it's worth, Cranick says he forgot.

Now, in a situation like that, the hardest core libertarian would agree with the idea of forming a contract on the spot to extinguish the fire in exchange for a price acceptable to the fire department.

"Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out."

In other words, not the $75 fee to get insurance for a pre-existing condition, but the actual cost.

Either he's lying or the fire department is actively vindictive.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

And only one family had to lose their home to prove this point...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jahudabudy]

I don't know this specific place in Tennessee, but sometimes the answer to your question is population density. Some areas of the country are just so sparsely populated, there is no way to support the overhead of a local government. And in this particular case, it sounded like the neighboring districts government was willing to provide emergency services, as long as the people that didn't pay them any taxes paid fees for the privilege. Imagine Finland didn't have any fire services; that is more analogous to this situation. THEN what happens in the hypothetical scenario put forth earlier?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[slimjim8094]

Nobody was in the house, and if there were I'm sure they would've intervened and (hopefully) recovered their costs.

First of all, firefighters swear no such oath.
Second of all, this wasn't their area of obligation - had there been a fire in the city, they damn sure should've been there as opposed to this backwater area
Third of all, fire departments are ridiculously expensive to run; that's why it should be a tax across everybody! They can't let this guy get away with not paying and getting service anyways, or everybody would do it and the FD just wouldn't be able show up at all out of town.
Fourth of all, the obligation they *did* have was to his neighbor who *did* pay the fee that year. They kept *his* house safe

This guy was burning his trash while refusing to pay for fire service. He was probably one of the ones refusing to pay a tax increase for county fire service. He doesn't exactly deserve any sympathy.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[natehoy]

In the US, firefighting is paid for using property taxes, not income taxes. If you own a house, you pay taxes on that house that help pay for local items like firefighting, police, road maintenance, schools, etc etc. Very little of that is handled by the federal government, or even generally the individual state governments.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pookie13]

To put it in your perspective, should a Swedish fire company cross the border and put out a Finnish house fire? Unless there is an agreement between Sweden and Finland for such action, isn't that outside the responsibility (legal, not ethically) of the Swedish fire company?

I tried searching the web for an official agreement between Finland and Sweden about helping each other. I found one magazine article about Tornio's agreement with Haaparanta in the 1990's about helping fire departments across border.
I also found out that Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland made an "agreement about co-operation across state borders in accidents that may harm or are harming people, property or environment." Finland has similar agreements with Estonia and Russia.

All rescue services are paid by taxes and I'm quite happy about it. And we have free universal health care also paid with taxation. And you can't forget our free education system. Tuitions are a thing we only know from movies. Studying in Finland is free even for foreigners.

Ok, enough bragging about my home country. We pay a lot of taxes. I think that only Sweden has higher taxation. But really I OK about paying high taxes for what's it worth. Progressive taxation is a fair system in my opinion. In a way.

Ok, now I'm going offtopic but I always find it amusing that everywhere in the world you teach your kids that "if you have two apples and your friend doesn't have any, you should give the other to your friend". When the kids grow up, they lock their apples in a safe and don't care s*it about people who don't have apples at all.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference here is he's complaining after getting hit. His choice, he should put up with it or fight the fire himself or offered to pay for the entire cost of fighting the fire.

The difference also is that with property, unlike your body sometimes, it's generally immovable at the time of the incident. When I get sick usually (not always, i.e. accident, emergency), I can go out of the country for my care, stay in the country, travel to a different state, etc.

In the health care debate as is now, people have to buy health care. I don't have health care, but I pay all my medical bills myself. So why should I buy it and support the insurance industry? I want to pay for my health care, not the insurance industry. I'm not sure why you are anyone always say people like me slide out of my bills when I've never done that ever in my life. Maybe you like to say false things in order to get your political point across, and pass more invasive laws instead of passing laws that are reasonable and logical to cover all situations in the minimal manner possible.

So I'm not sure why I should pay MORE for service I'm not using. My yearly health bills averaged out over the years is $1,500, including hospital stays, visits, and an emergency room visit or two. I pay these out of pocket. That would be 4 months under most plans. The point is to get health care costs down, and I do that since I shop around. Insurance companies, they don't; they collaborate and monopolize whole geographical regions and fix prices with contractual BS with hospitals and prices keep rising.

The fact is that the insurance industry is THE CAUSE for the runup in prices. Compare what you are billed under your insurance compared to what you are billed if you pay directly. You pay more under insurance; you just don't care since it's covered. That's why a damn MRI and a 15minute review by a radiologist is $1,500 and $800 where I am. It's why a $3,000 device is billed $75,000 in our country. It's why prescription drugs here are 20x what the same drug sells for in other 1st world western countries.

It's ridiculous. And people use this, the high prices, on why I should give up my rights? Because YOU cannot cost control?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 16th Amendment gives it the power to collect income taxes, and it would be legal to construct the tax code to penalize those who were deemed capable of paying for health insurance and did not.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[duguk]

As a Brit, yes, I pay taxes, and if my house was on fire, a fire engine would come to put it out. And if the house of my friend who has a part-time job and pays less taxes was on fire, a fire engine would come to put it out. And if the house of my other friend who is on benefits (which you'd call "welfare") because this wretched economy means they can't get an interview much less a job, and as such doesn't pay taxes in any meaningful sense was on fire, a fire engine would come and put it out. And if the house of my other other friend, who has a debilitating illness which means she couldn't work if she wanted to and gets just enough money from the government to pay for the food, rent and carers she needs was on fire, a fire engine would come and put it out.

We have this crazy idea over here that a person's right to emergency services shouldn't be based on how much money they're making, and shouldn't be removed through poor luck or illness. And yeah, a few lazy people abuse it; frankly, I'll accept that knowing that if anyone I care about is in need, no matter whether due to malice, bad luck or their own stupidity, they'll be helped, without needing to sign up for a series of different plans years beforehand.

I'm a Brit too. Just because a person is on "welfare" doesn't mean their tax isn't paid on their behalf. You go see how long you can get away with openly refusing to pay your taxes. That's presuming the firefighters aren't on strike again.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[treeves]

So the question would be: had this guy always paid on the past and truly just forgot to pay this time, or had he never paid before? I assume it's an annual fee and he's lived there for a while, so this should be answerable. If he's lived there more than a year and never paid before, it's clear the FD did the right thing. If he truly forgot to pay, or thought he had paid, I'd say he was treated unjustly.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

The other thing is that we tend to pay our taxes up to the top, and then the top ensures that stuff like firefighting are paid-for nationwide.

Not only this - but we also have some common respect for our neighbours. The GP's argument that he was in a separate county and therefore is not eligible for help is incredulous - even a die-hard anti-tax capitalist should see the benefit in providing an overlap at country boundaries, as I'm sure there would be areas where the neighboring county could provide them with the same in return.

I thought we Brits were the highest example of self-harming bureaucracy - but I see we are but pretenders.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[shutdown -p now]

That's true, this is like the health care debate. In this case, someone chose not to buy the service, and the public outcry will be, "That's terrible! No one should have that choice!" Also, note that the fire victim was surprised that the FD wouldn't take his $75 while the fire was in progress. If it were health care he needed, he'd complain that his house being currently on fire is a "pre-existing condition" and that an insurer should be legally forced to insure him the moment he feels like paying.

That's not what I got from TFA:

Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out.

So the more apt analogy would be of a person not having health insurance asking for medical assistance for their health problem, and claiming that they are ready to pay for it in full, but still being denied because they were not insured.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jshackney]

... and I have no alternative but to take the crap that's available to my workplace.

I can only speak for myself. In the U.S. (Michigan, specifically), I've had the opportunity to accept or decline health coverage from all of my employers since I was first employed with such benefits since 1994.

One employer gave us a fixed sum each year to pay for all benefits. If anything was left, it showed up in my paycheck. If I wanted better coverage costing more than I was provided, it was deducted from my paycheck. My current employer does not do it this way, which makes me very sad.

So, about two years ago, I researched going out on my own with health/dental/vision coverage. To get the same level of coverage would cost much more than my employer+myself were paying, so I stuck with my employer-sponsored plan. Going on your own means you lose two thing (to varying degrees):

• The tax incentive provided to employers only. (for a company it's a pre-tax deduction, for an individual, it's post-tax and may or may not be deductible depending on the percentage of health care costs vs. your income)
• Group rates.

You can shop around for individual policies, but premiums are generally higher than what you could get through your employer, and the part that I really hate, health insurance premiums vary outrageously based on the state in which you reside.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

    So tell me how lawful it is to say "Give us $75 per year, and we'll make sure your house doesn't burn down."

    Everybody knows, a home burning down is a pretty rare thing. In 30-some years, no home I've lived in burned down. If I were in that area, that would mean the fire department would have been paid over $2500 for not responding. Insurance is a huge racket. They collect money on the odds that they will never have to pay out.

    If you'd prefer it not be called duress, how about we call it extortion? How well would the RICO act apply to this?

    More likely, a good lawyer would hit the city and county for loss of life and/or property (namely property) through their inaction. I doubt he can afford a good lawyer now though.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Altus]

How do wilderness rescue bills get enforced? I have heard this about the bill a number of times but it seems like someone should be able to put the home owner into collections without too much trouble.

People don't pay their taxes all the time and when they are caught they are forced to pay, or get their wages garnished. It seems to me that the situation could be changed if anyone cared to change it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[RobDude]

People who read Slashdot tend to be in Urban/suburban areas and don't have a good understanding of rual populations.

A city like Phoenix, AZ has about 2700 people per square mile.
A county like Yavapi, AZ has about 20 people per square mile.

Let's say, for simplicity sake, a fire station cost 250k a year to keep up and running. Let's also say a fire station can cover 8 square miles.

In the city - 250k covers 21,600 people. That's $11 dollars, annually. Wow - that's cheap. In truth though, only some of those people pay taxes. Let's say 1 in 3 are part of the tax paying workforce. The others are children or not earning any money/retired. So, $33 dollars is what you'd pay to have your house covered per year. Good deal.

In a rural place though - that same fire station still costs 250k to run. And let's say it can cover 10 square miles because of less traffic. That's only 200 people. And only 67 or so are paying. That's $3,731 dollars!

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, just like no one pays for insurance because it's easier to pay as needed.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Sorry the comparison to the Health Care Coverage debaty is not a good one. If would hold water if instead of paying the bill it was the doctor, or hosptital that refused service. In that case the person is not denied the medical help he needs, he just has to pay for it. Hospitals I don't think can turn people away from the emergency room. (nor shoud they). The same should be true of Fire Departments, they should put out the fire and charge him. Then the models would match.

It is unconscionable that they would deny putting out the fire, while they were there on the scene, for a meer $75 fee. I have to say that the progressive and dare I say it Christian view would provide the service to your neighbor in time of need. Fire, police and health should be basic services provided to communities and supported by all. Insurance can be optional thats fine, but this is a good example of business thinking overriding morals and ethics. Here the only ethic is getting the money.

So many of us left Europe to get away from things like Debtor's prison. Another old and tired and morally bankrupt practice of jailing someone with at debt, this is very close to that same ethic. Haven't we evolved passed this?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[alta]

With car insurance, the company knows what the car is worth, how much it costs to fix it, replace it, how fast it can go (more expensive in cars that go 120mph)

With health insurance they know a lot less about you. Your body has many more variables than a car. Your car can be TOTALED and replaced with some other car. They can't TOTAL your body (though they may try.) They could feasibly pay a lot more if you ended up with cancer than they would if you totaled a vehicle.

As far companies, they're counting on most people being well most of the time. That way they have a steady income of money from that company and the plan is that income pays more than it costs to cover the few sick employees. Usually the more employees you have the better the deal you can negotiate. But if they can't plan on that (say your company deals with toxic/asbestos cleanup) you better believe it's still going to be expensive.

Personal health insurance is expensive because there no other payees to dilute the risk.

And incidentally many insurance companies DO offer discounted insurance if you buy it through your company plan, just like with health insurance.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be one hell of a fire to be able to spread from my neighbor's house across the road, over the drainage creek, past my front lawn and into my house. It's a good 1/4 mile between me and my neighbor. I think my wife might wake up before our house goes up.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[csartanis]

Actually the fire department would be able to afford their stuff, because it's base rate is already covered by the taxes of the city they're based in.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Council tax barely covers the rent on council buildings. Majority of funds are handed down to councils on a national level. Which is why they are now cutting staff like crazy, despite council tax levels staying stable.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[shutdown -p now]

The voters in that district are obviously free to dig a grave for themselves, and I'm glad that democracy is working out for them.

But the rest of the civilized world is still going to say "WTF?! Is this for real?". Because, frankly, the situation described in TFA is something that most of us thought could only be possible a century ago, and we've all learned better since then. Well, okay, apparently not everyone did...

It also reinforces a lot of old stereotypes about US. No, not of the "freedom and democracy" variety.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[HornWumpus]

It was a city funded fire department.

Does your city funded (garbage collection? I'm sure your city governments do something.) also perform their function in the rural area adjacent for free?

I think offering your neighbors fire service (at below cost per another post) is quite decent.

Can't blame them for not fighting fires for those that refuse to pay the fee.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Altus]

I re-read the article. I'm not sure his animals actually died. The sentence is a little unclear.

It's good to know that they are required to rescue people, that does seem like the bare minimum, but I do wonder if there isnt a better way to handle this. I own a house in a town and I have no idea what its like on unincorporated land. Do these people not have to pay property tax? What about water and sewer? I have to pay these to my town and it seems like they must be paying something to someone.

Honestly I'm surprised that his homeowners insurance doesn't require him to have fire support and just include it in the bill as escrow for the town. I have enough trouble getting insurance because my house has cast iron drain pipes (common for my area) it seems like having insurance against fire they would require there to be some kind of fire fighting service available.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[makomk]

It's not mean is just practical. The $75 is more like an insurance policy payment not the cost of fighting a fire. You would probably expect to be able to buy collision insurance after you wrecked the car and have them pay for the repairs if you just pay the premium.

Bad analogy. It'd be more like if you crashed your car without insurance, then found that no-one was willing to do the repairs even if you paid because all the repairers had done a deal with the insurance companies so you had to pay the insurance fees in order to have access to car repair services at all.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully this is America, where democracy still holds some kind of value, and the actual residents of the county get to decide what their laws say.

Not completely. In America there are lots of exceptions on who gets to vote and who doesn't get to vote. For example "criminals" in many jurisdictions are not allowed to vote, and neither are children or teenagers or the mentally incompetent. Clearly, the people in this rural district in the deep south of the United States are not competent to decide for themselves what type of government to vote in, so other more competent people in the North East should decide for them.

As a Canadian, I am just giving my two cents and telling you how your country SHOULD be run.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jbssm]

What is strange about you Americans is that you mind paying taxes if it's for paying your own access to healthcare and your fellow compatriots, looking at this example you even mind paying taxes to prevent your and your fellow countryman to have a fire at his house put down. But strangely, very strangely, you seem all very happy to pay taxes to buy tanks, ships, bombs, helicopters and a very big assortment of guns to kill people all over the world. Funny eh?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Darinbob]

But they do have the ability to sue the homeowner to recover expenses.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Straif]

And no court in the land would enforce such a contract signed under duress.

And a post-payment system used to be the norm but the people in the county refused to pay more than 50% of the time leaving the municipality who funds the FD with no legal recourse to recover anything.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Jawnn]

The answer is simple. You couldn't afford it. The vast majority of homeowners don't have liquid assets (cash in the checking account) that would pay for the cost of extinguishing a structure fire. Suggesting such a thing betrays a complete lack of understanding of the economics involved here.
It is far, far more cost effective for every potential "customer" to pay a small amount up front for a service that will work to both prevent and failing that, prepare for, fighting structure fires. Most communities figured this out well over a century ago and developed municipal fire departments. Alas, over the last 30 years or so, the "government is evil" mind-set has reached the point where these lessons have been lost on more and more people.
Bubba made his bed when he decided to "protest big government" by failing to contribute to a very important community resource. To fucking bad for Bubba.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Atlantis-Rising]

The comparison to national health care doesn't quite fit though, because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things. It definitely does not, if the Constitution is still a meaningful limit on federal power.

Er, according to whom? Why wouldn't the constitution give the federal government the right to demand specific performance?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[strack]

what do you mean by abuse? do you mean welfare fraud? or working while still collecting welfare? cause thats abuse. not just plain collecting welfare. and what do you expect the people who dont meet whatever convoluted conditions you set for "demonstrably do something to get out of welfare" to do if they fail your 'conditions'? thats the thing. people who have never been unemployed are all too ready to string the unemployed up as scapegoats, they are easy targets to score cheap political points on, come election time. they "attached strings" to the welfare system in australia back in the 90s, and it has proven a abject failure. turns out jerking unemployed people around like puppets, with no hope of a job at the end of it, didnt help. it didnt bring back the manufacturing jobs from china, or the call centre jobs from india. it didnt stop robots replacing people on assembly lines. it turns out that society has as much a obligation to provide opportunity and jobs, as people have to look for those jobs. and kicking people when there down does not help.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[TheThiefMaster]

Hear hear!

It's the same with our health service. Paid by taxes, so it doesn't cost me jack shit to go see a doctor if I need to, it's effectively already paid for.

Can you imagine if an ambulance wouldn't come because you hadn't paid your ambulance cover?

One of my friends' brothers has cancer. Would he be covered in the US? Would he be able to afford treatment if not?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Remus Shepherd]

So what's wrong with volunteer fire departments? I live in a rural area served by a volunteer fire department. They are funded by the state as a miniscule item in the budget, and they put out fires without asking people to pay them protection money first.

Tax-funded volunteer fire departments are a fine solution. They would have saved this guy's home.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We used to roar like lions for freedom, now we bleat like sheep for security." One of my favorite quotes. I would prefer choice over legislation, even if that choice means death to loved ones or self.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pgmrdlm]

this situation is stupid

If I get robbed, and I don't have insurance. I lost everything. What the fuck is the difference.

This is his fault. He wasn't responsible. He is paying the price. Tough fucking shit.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see... there are 3.5 million square miles and 307 million people in the US. We can squeeze 16 households into a given square mile, so that works out to almost 6 people per household. I wonder what costs more: relocating all of those people or putting out some fucking fires.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Obfuscant]

What is strange about you Americans is that you ...

Wow. What a vast over-generalization. Perhaps "you foreigners" aren't familiar with the concept of "local government", and that this story deals with one county (subdivision of a state) in one state (subdivision of the whole US) that has decided ("democracy" and "freedom") not to pay for fire services out of property tax revenues. That's hardly a representation of the entire US.

... you seem all very happy to pay taxes to buy tanks, ships, bombs, helicopters ...

Those items come out of the FEDERAL budget, not the budget of some small county in rural Tennessee, and are an expression of the Constitutional authority for the federal government to provide for the common defence. But yes, just as MOST of the counties in this country do pay for fire services out of tax monies, most of the people in this country believe buying guns and tanks is a worthwhile expenditure.

We also believe that local counties and the people therein have the right to govern themselves when it comes to the local issues like paying for fire departments and such. It is an unfortunate abberation that we've abandoned that concept when it comes to things like schools and healthcare, and many of us would rather the feds keep their noses out of our business.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things.

Huh? I believe that I'm "forced" to pay for Interstate Highways, Federal Police, the Military, and plenty of other things which are of only indirect benefit. If you don't like the health care proposal, do us all a favor and dislike it for a real reason, ok?

Right now I'm paying for people who don't have health insurance through higher hospital costs passed on to me due to all of the freeloaders who use the ER as their only doctor. I'd rather everyone pay less to keep them healthy and maybe employed, or at least employable, rather than pay more to have them sit around sick and on welfare. People losing their house is this manner is a direct analogy; too cheap to pay for their own fire service, they're even too cheap to pay $75 insurance for another town's fire service, they are now homeless and my taxes will go toward their welfare. Make the bastards pay a little so that we don't have to pay it all for them. Heck, the fire dept. was stupid too. It will cost us all a ton to help this family back onto their feet; if we'd just all be "forced" to pay in equally then this wouldn't happen. Or, give up, tell them to go homeless, and then pay more for police to arrest and house them (in prison) when they steal to eat.

Fact is, we all pay for everyone's stupidity. It's only a matter of how we pay, and how much. Your choice.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

Well I am glad you see that bankruptcy losses have a cost.

The bankruptcy loss rate for prepaid service ($75 annual fee in advance) is 0%. So by accepting postpaid service the fire department will incur additional costs.

Now the question becomes WHY should the fire department accept that cost and as a result pass that cost on to all their consumers?

By only accepting prepaid annual contracts the fire dept is able to keep their costs down. All those purchasing service (and those living in town paying taxes) benefit from this lower cost.

So once again why should 99%+ pay higher costs to protect this guy from himself?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

According to other posters, the man was contacted both in writing and by phone prior to the fire asking if he really truly didn't want coverage.

A court could see that as reasonable effort by the city to cover the man and when the situation occurred count them as mitigating circumstances of the 'duress'.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dgatwood]

IMHO, you should not be allowed to build a home outside a fire protection district in the first place unless you demonstrate that you can provide adequate fire protection yourself. It's reckless and irresponsible. That said, I can at least halfway accept it in Idaho, given the population density in many of those areas.

This isn't like that, though. We're not talking about somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. I grew up about ten minutes from there. It's within single-digit miles of three towns totaling about 30,000 people, give or take, including one of the University of Tennessee campuses. It's not city, mind you, but it certainly isn't out in the sticks. There's no place in that area that isn't within a few minutes from a town. Further, the firemen were already there responding to the next door neighbor, who had paid the protection fee, so no additional effort was required other than pointing the hose a different direction and staying there a little longer. The neighbor even volunteered to let them use his pool water, and the homeowner volunteered to pay the cost. No, this was just a case of spite, pure and simple. Obion County is one of the few counties in that region that lacks rural fire protection. There's really no excuse for it.

There's something truly ironic about residents in the volunteer state saying, "Sure, we'll volunteer, but only if you pay us." That's just messed up. Worse, this is the second time this has happened in South Fulton in just a couple of years. It would be nice if this is enough to light a fire under the a**es of the inept bureaucrats who let this happen, but I'm not holding my breath. I understand their fire chief was assaulted shortly thereafter over this, though, so maybe there's hope.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Palpatine_li]

parent is simply wrong. you get fires from time to time, and you need investment beforehand in any industry, and deals with fire insurance company is more than possible.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[GWBasic]

We have this crazy idea over here that a person's right to emergency services shouldn't be based on how much money they're making, and shouldn't be removed through poor luck or illness.

Americans believe that too, but no one wants to pay for it here. No one understands just how much our lifestyle depends on government services, and instead look at the typical American tax rate of 1/3rd as highway robbery.

It's like in the US, no one understands that taxes are like homework. Go gotta do your homework, and you gotta pay your taxes. If you don't do your homework, you end up uneducated, and if you don't pay your taxes, society falls apart.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

I understand from other sources that County Officials are finally negotiating Memorandums of Understanding with all those communities that will officially give the Cities fire protection assignments in the Rural areas around their communities.

While they will probably remain subscription areas for the time being, this gives those community fire departments legal authority to respond to all emergencies in their area of authority, not just to the subscribers. It will also give them authority for cost recovery from non-subscribers.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

uh, you price the 'not covered' fee according to the bankruptcy factor. It doesn't have to have anything to do with the normal prepaid fee.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for maintaining American values. It is what made this country so great and prosperous. If we move away from this model as Obama wants, we will inevitably lose our prosperity as well.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Achromatic1978]

Haha. My fire district (which /doesn't/ operate on this policy) services 6000 people, runs 800 EMS and maybe 50 fire calls a year, of which less than 5 are fully involved structure fires.

How many fire engines, ambulances and staff were you hoping to keep going on $375/yr, exactly? Because if people only had to pay the fee during or after an event, I can guarantee that they'd /only/ pay then.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

But to just stand there and watch it burn? That should be criminal, what if people died? I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.

Why should it be criminal? The only reason they were even out there is because the neighbor had payed his dues. I don't think anyone would be saying ANYTHING if his neighbor had not called and the fire department didn't come.
People would have simply said sucks to be that guy maybe he should have paid his bill.

Sorry for the post under anonymous but I can't remember my login

Re:You're kidding, right?

[i_ate_god]

What I mean by abuse is people who receive welfare, then do nothing to get off of it.

The government should pressure those on welfare who are capable of working to find a job by any means necessary. If this means relocation, or education, so be it. the government should offer to fund these initiatives and get people off of welfare ASAP. I'll be the first to say that in some extreme cases, someone may have to remain on welfare indefinitely, and I don't believe in time limits for welfare. But I get pissed when I see some lazy 20 year old squandering welfare money on booze and cable TV and does nothing to get himself off of welfare.

I feel the same way about Canada's healthcare system. I consider it abuse of the healthcare system when my tax money has to pay for search & rescue & medical treatment when a skier willingly and knowingly veers off a ski course onto dangerous areas of the mountain and gets sucked up by an avalanche. If that person manages to survive, they should be responsible for paying some if not all of the bills. Taking risks is fine, but if you do, you should be prepared to face the consequences of your actions, not me. I pay taxes into the social system so that me, my family, my friends, etc get worry free healthcare, have a security net to fall on during hard times, and various other "socialism" services. But when that tax money gets abused by a select few, I get upset.

So no, this isn't about kicking people when their down. This is about making sure we help those who want to help themselves. American individualism mixed with european socialism I think is a good mix.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anUnhandledException]

You really think that will work.

As the price rises the default rate also rises and this ends up creating a viscous cycle.

Say average response cost is $10,000. Now at $10,000 maybe you get on average $2,000 collected (some pay in full, some partially pay, a lot don't pay a dime). So simply you just increase the cost to $50,000 per response call right so on average you get $10,000 from each response (some will pay full $50K, some a fraction, and many none)?

I think you can see the problem with that. The repayment rate at $50,000 will be a tiny fraction of it at $10,000. Thus as your raise price the expected return doesn't rise linearly. Once you get to extreme prices the "benefit" to default begins rising rapidly and consumer behavior will respond. You stack the deck against the consumer enough and they will take the optimal option no matter how morally gray it is.

No business works where the cost of defaults is only borne by those who default.

If it did for example you would see 3% credit cards for people who have never defaulted. Risk free return is about 1% of short term interest however even among those with spotless lifetime long credit records they pay 7%, 8%, even 12% on balances.

Another example would be hospitals. The insured pay for the cost of the uninsured. Collections on uninsured as so pathetically low that to full collect the cost of treatment from them is impossible.

Medical debt often collects less than $0.01 on the dollar. To full collect the cost of procedures only from the uninsured the "cash" price would need to be 100x the actual cost. The problem with that is you give someone a bill for $1.8 million and most people will simply file bankruptcy. You can never collect enough to have the uninsured "pay their way".

The idea that you can pay for non covered customers only from non covered customers without the help of the pre-insured customers isn't based on any economic or pricing theory. In reality it is a good way for the fire dept to go bankrupt.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[john82]

No. They only addressed the fire when it threatened the home of someone who had paid the $75 annual fee.

I agree with the poster(s) who believe that Life & Death services should follow the ER model. ERs cannot refuse treatment based on a patients presumed ability (or lack thereof) to pay for the services required. Put out the fire, then bill the homeowner.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[KDN]

So if you try to do someone a favor, you could still end up getting screwed in the process? How sad.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[deKernel]

Actually it is not strange or funny. If you were to read our Constitution, you would notice that one of the few enumerated purposes of our federal government is to provide for national security. You can read all you want, but it does not say anything about national health care or anything even remotely related to such.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

it has more to do with these services being payed for and provided on the local level in the US (be it town, city, or county) then on the national level. His property is not in a town or city, and his county does not seem to provide these services, so he has to pay the nearby town for the services. Now in more sane states, the county would have an agreement with the towns to provide fire-fighting service to places near the towns in exchange for some county money, or the county or state would have a tax in place that would pay for all residences to have fire-fighting services. Since the government is not paying for him to have fire-fighting services, and he is not paying for fire-fighting services, it is up to him to provide fire-fighting services for himself.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ejasons]

But to your point, what if the Finnish services couldn't get there? what should the Swedish system do?

Actually, it's more like, what if the Finnish people decided that they wanted to save some tax money, and so dissolved their fire department(s). Would the Swedish fire department then come and fight their fires for them?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

And for that reason, your house is next.

Society can make some very very STUPID decisions especially when the ANTI-TAX mob mentality kicks in. The bottom line is the county is probably stuck cleaning up the mess (taxes), the owners have no home and will be lining up for COUNTY and City Services (even more taxes) and the County has lost ALL PROPERTY TAX INCOME on this parcel because nobody is going to pay the taxes on a lot with a burned out lot!

So there you go Mr BIG TIME ANTI TAX REPUBLICAN / LIBERTARIAN rocket scientist. Your so called "democracy" at work FOR YOU!

Enjoy writing a larger property tax check next year.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ArmyOfFun]

Aren't there actions a first responder could take that could be potentially life saving without putting the responder at risk? Something like helping a critically injured person that isn't in a burning building? Creating potential escape routes by dousing portions of a house with water? Extracting someone from a collapsed structure?

There's a difference in my mind between doing nothing at all, carrying out actions that have little to no personal risk, and running into a burning and/or smoke filled building.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[BobMcD]

Right, because the alternative (surrendering all control of government to those who know better) is SO much better than a single house burning down while the fire department watches.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[vrmlguy]

Refused? Any evidence of that? For what it's worth, Cranick says he forgot.

Here's some evidence, from http://www.nwtntoday.com/news.php?viewStory=46801:

Vowell said people always think they will never be in a situation where they will need rural fire protection, but he said City of South Fulton personnel actually go above and beyond in trying to offer the service. He said the city mails out notices to customers in the specified rural coverage area, with coverage running from July 1 of one year to July 1 the next year.
At the end of the enrollment month of July, the city goes a step further and makes phone calls to rural residents who have not responded to the mail-out.

“These folks were called and notified,” Vowell said. “I want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to get it and be aware it’s available. It’s been there for 20 years, but it’s very important to follow up.”

Mayor Crocker added, “It’s my understanding with talking with the firefighters that these folks had received their bill and they had also contacted them by phone.”

Re:You're kidding, right?

[demonlapin]

Nothing wrong with VFDs. A great solution, but apparently one they didn't want to try.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[cbhacking]

It's not a matter of "decide". The house in question isn't in the coverage area of the fire department (the city). They are under no obligation to drive out to the boonies and fight fires there. Conversely, they have no authority to issue fees or fines.

The program which the homeowner didn't participate in was effectively a voluntary private form of insurance. It's ridiculous to claim that an insurance company refusing to provide coverage to somebody who didn't pay their premiums would be "criminal" but that's exactly what you're doing.

The fact that the firefighters apparently didn't have a fallback offer of "we show up, you hand us a check for $10,000, and we'll put out the fire" is unfortunate for this guy. However, just as there's no obligation for them to offer service to people outside the city at all, there's no obligation for them to have an "on-the-spot" offer either.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[SmurfButcher Bob]

...or the check bounces.

Then what, reignite it?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dfenstrate]

"Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out."

If you believe someone without the foresight and financial wherewithal to pay a $75 dollar yearly fee has the capacity to pay tens of thousands for the actual call... well, do I really have to finish this joke?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[weiserfireman]

Sure, we can do somethings that don't put us at much risk

Helping a critically injured person that isn't in a burning building? Absolutely. But in this case there was no one injured. If there had been injuries, I am sure they would have helped.

Creating potential escape routes by dousing portions of a house with water? This is very tricky. Just the act of putting water on the fire changes where the smoke and hot gases are going inside the building. Unless you know where the person is, you might make the situation worse. But again, in this case, there was no one in the building. The Fire Department has stated several times, they would have attempted a rescue, if one had been needed.

Collapsed structure? what kind of structure, what materials were used, what construction methods. Is it stable or unstable? How collapsed is it? Why did it collapse? Does the hazard still exist? Building collapse is a specialty technical rescue situation. How much if any training does the department have? If they have no collapse training, then they are the same as anyone else on the scene.

My preference is for this county to step up, have the voters approve fire protection taxing districts as fast as possible.

In the short term, the County is finally working on the paperwork that gives the City fire departments operating in the County areas the legal authority to be there and the responsibility to handle all emergencies. This authority wasn't there before.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Oligonicella]

Pets cost more than $75 a year. The guy gambled and lost.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone seems to ignore the obvious solution to this.

If the firefighters show up to a house where the guy didn't pay the $75, then the firefighters do the following:

1. Put out the fire
2. Bill customer for actual costs of fighting fire
3. Place a property tax lien on the property in the amount of the bill from 2.
4. Give customer a reasonable time to collect insurance money (if any) to pay bill
5. In case of failure to pay, property is seized.

Obviously small wrinkles can be smoothed out like:
1. If the homeowner refuses fire fighting service, the property can be left to burn unless it poses a danger
2. If the value of the land is less than some threshold, firefighters would not put out the fire.

There's also the question of why fire fighters did absolutely nothing. They certainly could have attempted to rescue the pets (assuming the situation was safe enough for them to do so)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jythie]

Actually, they only showed up when a neighbor's house was in danger. They let the animals in the house die.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean "decide not to". It's their job. Would you go into your workplace and work for free? I know I sure as hell don't. When I go to work, I damn well get paid for it.

Honestly, I'm on the side of the firefighters even if someone died. Sure, it's a shitty situation, but not all situations are sunshine and roses. The family CHOSE not to pay. Specifically. They deliberately thought about it, and decided that they do not want this insurance. They decided that their money would be better spent elsewhere than covering them in case of a fire. They outright KNEW by the sheer definition of that $75 payment that if their house were to start on fire, they'd damn well better be putting it out themselves.

So no... if living things died in the fire... it's shitty, but the firefighters are in the clear in my mind. The owner however should not get to sue for criminal neglegence (since the home owner would be the neglegent one if anyone). He list everything... and he chose that option beforehand.

It's like gambling all of your life savings on NOT rolling a zero in roulette. He just rolled a zero. The casino isn't going to be all like "oh hey man, that's not good. Tell ya what, we'll pretend that last roll didn't happen".

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jythie]

Those plans only make sense if someone has lots of liquid assets in the first place, which is why they tend to be so popular among the upper middle class. I know plenty of people who only make about 15k per year..... so a multi thousand deductible might as well be no insurance at all.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

But I get pissed when I see some lazy 20 year old squandering welfare money on booze and cable TV and does nothing to get himself off of welfare.

Ha ha ha. And the lazy 20 year old views you as a sucker. Why work? Honestly. Why work when you can get paid to sit on your ass? Give me one good reason.

There is a collusion between the government and big business to strip the majority of the citizens in the U.S. of their rights and liberties. The cost of living keeps going up. Our land is being sold out from under us, and our jobs are being shipped over seas or across the southern border. Medical care is becoming a luxury for the rich. For those "lucky" enough to have a job that pays a decent wage, they typically sacrifice having any kind of a life outside of work. Increasingly, even shit-pay jobs require you to travel, be away from home all the time, or be on-call. It's more, more, more work, and less, less, less leisure time and benefits.

Fuck it. The smart people have figured out to game the system to their advantage by not working, just like the capitalists have figured out how to game the system to their advantage by buying laws.

That leaves the majority ... the people like you ... the suckers.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jythie]

Auto insurance rates might have been lower before, but the social costs were much higher. I know a few people who were injured by other drivers before the mandatory insurance requirement... meaning no one was backing the driver and the effect they had on others, so the victims were left with perminate injuries and no way to pay for treatment.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Government busybodies and thugs? Being vindictive? Well, I never!

Re:You're kidding, right?

[SmurfButcher Bob]

In a training weekend last year, I met a girl who'd come down from Alaska to participate. Her "district", if they took a left turn out of the firehouse, was 45 minutes to the nearest district border. A right turn would be up to 93 minutes to the border.

Note that the word used was "border". NOT "next firehouse".

Yes, I did ask the obvious question - "Are there many houses out that far?" "Oh yes, quite a few. But mostly it's car wrecks."

Clearly, no reasonable person would consider that situation to be compatible with "since it lies upon the government ... the voters have no say in the matter", in any way, shape or form. Any good-faith compliance would require a fully staffed firehouse next to... every SINGLE damned house, out there. Clearly, an interpretation saying that fire/emergency response is a forced-issue... is based on a grossly myopic life.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Fareq]

One of the ER issues that doesn't exist here is that, in an ER situation, in many cases delaying treatment until verification of ability to pay (either insurance or simply having the money), would cause the death of many patients who do have the ability to pay simply because the 30+ minutes it may take to verify is longer than they would survive. Thus, the only viable mechanism is to start treatment at once, and figure out billing later. Of course, that leads to many huge ER bills that will never be paid (because treatment that the patient can't afford was provided)

In this case, with only one agency doing the lookup, presumably whether the fee was paid or not could be determined in seconds, by an administrator, while the firefighters are getting ready to leave the firehouse.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Yep, that's what I'm arguing for.
Of course, if the county provided a fire service, there would be no need for the city to provide one (though they could).
Alternatively, in heavily urbanised counties, the county fire department may just be a 1-man-1-day-a-week shell organisation which organises coverage with the cities for those outside any city boundaries.

But, I think state-level organisations are better - in the event of a major incident, you don't want to have dozens of squabbling single-firehouse individual fire departments to deal with if there's, say, an explosion at a major fuel depot.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I hate paying for taxes for all of those things too, but we aren't having a vote on that right now.

But I already pay about half of everything I make for those things, I'm not willing to also pay the other half so that other people (who pay nothing) can have even more things.

I don't know if it is the same in most of the EU as it is here, but we divide cleanly into the "pays" and the "pay nots"

About half of all Americans pay no taxes. They are also the recipients of all sorts of great benefits. They keep voting for higher taxes and more lavish benefits, since they never have to pay, but they get to keep all the goodies. These people would vote the 500% income tax in, if it would mean more freebies... after all only the "evil rich" will ever have to pay.

The other half does all of the work, does everything that makes the country go, pays all of the taxes, and, since they aren't poor, don't qualify for any of the benefits. So, they get upset when the half in the other category starts screaming that it isn't fair to only take away half of everything the pays produce, that they have to have three-quarters of it instead.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question would be why in America you have forsaken areas of No Man's Land where no local government will accept responsibility for provinding emergency services.

If you understood that just one of our smaller states is larger than your whole country, you'd understand that most of the US is rural and not easily accessible to municipal fire departments.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have this crazy idea in the United States that the people have a right to tell the government to take a hike when it asks for money (whether we always do have that right is another idea..)

But it turns out that some places this works. People think taxes are the most evil thing on the face of the planet, so they vote not to have them for things like a fire brigade. It's not that poor people don't get fire service (they do in most places), it's that these people decided that they didn't need no stinkin' public fire service, dammit, because it's government intrusion. This man gambled and lost, and its his own fault (his own county's, in a sense).

The United States as a whole doesn't have this idea that poor people must suffer because they're poor. But there are some areas where people simply don't want taxes, and they're allowed to do that. They just don't get services.

Stop pretending like it's policy in the United States to keep all services away from the poor. There are a lot of people who think the poor get what they deserve; but there are a lot who don't.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did the firefighters of South Fulton Kentucky ever swear to serve and protect the people of Obion County Kentucky? They have no legal responsibility to protect anyone outside of their jurisdiction. The subscription fee puts them in their jurisdiction. No subscription fee, no jurisdiction.

You're probably right. On the other hand... any equipped, on-premises, trained person that DOESN'T get in that house to make sure there's nobody inside should be beaten about the fucking head with a large stick.

I know teenagers that care more about helping their fellow man than these savages.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how people who don't have to pay much talk about how the system in which other people do all of the paying while they pay hardly anything at all but get all of the benefits, and then go on to complain about the lunacy of the people on the other end, tired of working all day so that 95% of their labor goes to the people who don't do anything to deserve it, finally decide to build a place where they don't have to support the lazy.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[tompaulco]

I don't have $5000 sitting around either, but if I have an emergency that costs me $5000, I can find a way to come up with it. Sell a car, ask a relative, get a short term loan. I'd say having to stash away $5000 on $15k a year is a darn sight better than paying $800 a month for full coverage (which usually STILL has 20% or so copy, and $500 or higher deductible). The difference in premium alone over one year will pay for your next two years emergencies.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Dave114]

If my attempt at translating redneck-ese to English is correct, it sounds as though he not only had done something similar before, his son's house had previously been on fire as well.

Cranick noted that the fire department used to make exceptions for fires at residences with unpaid fees. "About three years ago in December, there was a fire up here in my boy's house, and they waived the fee till the next day. We had the thing out before they got there," he added, "but they waived the fee and I went in the next day and paid."
Since that time, however, the South Fulton government has refused to put out fires if there are no people known to be inside the structure. Cranick commented that in the past few years, "They let three, and I heard four, burn. On the other side of Union City, they let a barn burn that had horses in it."

The policy appears to be that if there are no people inside the structure, it'll burn. Firefighters won't take the risk.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[tompaulco]

And now we have mandatory insurance (which is higher than when it was optional) AND we have to pay uninsured motorists coverage. I'll bet we will have a similar corollary in the medical insurance world when we are forced to buy medical insurance. I guess that is the tax we will have to pay for those who can't afford to pay for their mandatory insurance (ie, anyone who makes under $150,000 a year, and yes, I am included in this statistic. VERY included).

Re:You're kidding, right?

[treeves]

In that case, he definitely got what was coming to him. Should have known better than anyone, and should have paid. $75 a year is not that much. I'm assuming his property taxes are pretty low and that's why the FD has to charge these fees.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

But emergency rooms are still required to treat the grievously injured, insured or not. What if there had been a life on the line, someone trapped inside the building. Does some kid have to die because his dad was to cheep or too stupid to pay a fee?

There then would be at least two (2) lives on the line - the cheap father's kid, and some firefighter there to save him. Normally, doctors' lives are not (immediately) on the line when treating someone in the ER. That alone ends the validity of your argument. This brings this scenario:

• The purported dying kid's cheap father was knowingly showing his lack of care for firefighters or their well being by not paying the fee. Why then should the firefighters be inclined to care about this guy's kid (i.e., sacrifice their life to save his)?

As for the moral part of the argument, if the father (to cheap to pay for fire service) had a kid in his house dying from his fire because he could not be bothered by paying for fire service, then that father himself should start running into his building to save his dying kid. If the father did not or would not do this, he then shows he could not be bothered even with saving his own child.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Scooter's_dad]

because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things.

Huh? I believe that I'm "forced" to pay for Interstate Highways, Federal Police, the Military, and plenty of other things which are of only indirect benefit. If you don't like the health care proposal, do us all a favor and dislike it for a real reason, ok?

Yes, but you are "forced" to make payments to the government itself for those services. The new health care mandate forces us to pay *private companies* for services they render. Has this ever been the case before in the U.S.?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have this crazy idea over here that a person's right to emergency services shouldn't be based on how much money they're making,

If they are that broke and/or down on their luck, than home ownership is not for them, and they know it. This is about a bloke not paying required dues to get potential services for his house.

This is the same as a lad saying they are too broke to get car insurance, but continue to drive their lorry down the street hoping not to crush all minis in the way of their route.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[the-matt-mobile]

You also live in whole countries a third the size of some of our states. Easy to provide full coverage in those scenarios. Your concept of 'rural' is not really the same as ours. States and municipalities are better able to represent the people living in them than the federal government in every area except financially.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jyx]

From what I gather:

The guy was in a different STATE to the fire department he called.

The guy has wilfully chosen not to pay the next States fire department for coverage.

The guy lives in a state that has chosen no income tax which would normally provide for an internal fire department.

No lives were reported to be at risk.

The biggest casualties of this are the animals that were left to burn inside the house by both the owner and fire department.

I'm with the fire department on this one. The guy made his choices and they were wrong.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well aren't you special, you just described 99% of the US, you ignoramus. Almost all of US citizens are covered by professional or volunteer firefighters.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Smidge204]

I agree. I was simply addressing the "can't compel non-residents to pay" part as a general statement.

=Smidge=

Re:You're kidding, right?

[anegg]

I lived in Tennessee a few years ago; owned a house. It was clear that I wasn't covered for fire protection unless I subscribed to a service (Rural Metro, in my case). I subscribed. Its not rocket science. I liked the way that it worked.

I heard about a homeowner who had not subscribed having their house burn down; the fire company didn't put it out. One reason given was that the fire company's insurance would not cover them if they were putting out a fire at a house that was not a subscriber.

Its simple, really. You can live in a government-provided fire service area, and pay higher taxes. Or you can live in a lower service area, and decide which services you want, and pay for them.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[shentino]

Since he started the fire through negligent trash burning, how about making him liable for any damage done to his neighbor's property?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[roman_mir]

you sure know a bunch of useless people

Re:You're kidding, right?

[mcneely.mike]

Do you think your insurance company is going to be okay with you calling them up, saying your house is on fire and you'd like to pay that $500 fee for such and such house insurance?
  Why pay the fee if you don't have to... until your house catches fire, then pay it. You could go for years without paying a cent, and then just fork over the $75 when it does catch fire.

No... it doesn't work like that.

I could see making the house owner sign a document that they would fork over $1000 or some such amount before saving their house, but not just the $75 fee. There is no incentive to pay it if you can just pay it when your house catches fire.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[mcneely.mike]

And if the house of your other friend had two stories, but it wasn't really two stories, just one story and an alien ship, and then the Doctor came along in his cool blue police box and had to live in your friends house until he was able to save the Tardis and the friend (and his soon to be girlfriend) from the alien, and then....... ...... sorry, what were we talking about?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you cannot choose, at the time of the incident, to structure things differently. There is a time context issue here.

When politics is in play, and there is no fire to be seen, and people are screaming about taxes and all that, everyone wants to structure payments to minimize his/her own immediate outlay.

When the fire strikes, the owners are screaming about morality and ethics. They should have been screaming about morality and ethics when it was time to decide on the payment structure, not when the incident occurs.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[igxqrrl]

Most emergency response workers don't care about the money. They are doing their job to help people. Who else would sign up to run into burning buildings, or any of the other stuff that they do?

I know plenty of emergency response workers. Some of them care about people, some of them don't. But they all care about the money.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dcam]

Good point. I'm off to smash some windows.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ceejayoz]

The Court will evaluate the contract under the terms of "If the person's house wasn't on fire, would they have agreed to these terms".

... how?

Of course they wouldn't have agreed to such terms if their house was on fire. No one would pay for firefighters to spray water on a non-burning house.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[igxqrrl]

I'm sorry but that's just scary, around here the (horrible horrible tax-funded) fire department will at least make an effort, even if you live out in the middle of nowhere...

Let's say you choose to build your house in Sweden 100KM from the nearest fire department. Your house catches on fire. Will your tax dollars help put out the fire?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[IICV]

The comparison to national health care doesn't quite fit though, because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things.

The federal government clearly does have the authority to order people to buy things - after all, I don't remember willingly buying a couple of countries in the middle east, and the mortgage payments are killer. They aren't even in a nice neighborhood!

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Fastolfe]

The firefighters (like "wilderness rescue") almost certainly have a moral, if not legal, obligation to try to save a life, and to ensure the fire wasn't putting anyone in danger. No such obligation exists (nor should exist) when you're just talking about property damage.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[jythie]

In general, people who make 15k/year are not paying 800$/mo for insurance. Checking in my HR site, I am only paying 50$/mo through my company...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Fastolfe]

Who pays for the up front investment for the fire department to get more trucks and more firefighters to accommodate the sudden increase in demand for their services? The county? What happens when the county can't recover enough of their expenses (bills paid to the city for this service) from actions against the individuals that required the response in the first place? I guess you'd have to start levying a tax? It sounds like the county (its citizens) have long ago considered and rejected this option.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[slimjim8094]

But barely anybody pays for fire service like people in this county do... almost everywhere else rolls it into the city tax (which isn't itemized). The whole reason for this was the fact that the FD *can't* compel people to pay, since the city has no power of taxation over the county.

And even in a successfully fought fire, there is a tremendous amount of damage - almost certainly at least the cost of the bill, in the best case. This guy's house most probably wasn't worth that much - what could you take from him? And why is this the FD's job? They'd need to employ, or otherwise pay, for this process.

Basically, it's easy to imagine that he'd be no better off with a heavily damaged house and belongings, and a big bill, than he would be with no house (what he has now). Couple that in with the fact that the FD would have an unduly difficult time recovering their costs, and it's pretty reasonable that they didn't bother. Checking the insurance/protection list at dispatch-time for his house number is much more straightforward.

And by the way, the FD in this case would've intervened to the degree necessary to rescue anybody trapped. Nobody was, so they didn't do anything but protect the neighbor

Re:You're kidding, right?

[quist]

Somehow I doubt there is a homeowner policy in force...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[darthdavid]

The most efficient option would've been single payer. We have some of the highest per-capita health-care costs in the developed world for a service that doesn't even cover everyone (In other words, we pay more and get less). No chance in hell of that happening though, anyone who voted for it would get bricks thrown through their window by the teabaggers and faux news would roast them 24/7...

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Nyder]

Fire dept and police department services are NOT optional. This isn't a cell phone subscription or some opt in bullshit. These are required services needed to live.

If the voters in that district agreed with you, they would have approved the tax.

Thankfully this is America, where democracy still holds some kind of value, and the actual residents of the county get to decide what their laws say.

I wish i lived in the same United States of America that you do.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Nyder]

"Why not put out the fire and then bill him for the $75?"

I was thinking he should get a fine, like parking meters, it's only 50 cents an hour to park YMMV and no one's watching too closely and you could park and not pay, but if you're caught it's a $50+ fine.

I say put out the fire and bill him $7500+. If he don't pay put a lien on the house and take the house.

But to just stand there and watch it burn? That should be criminal, what if people died? I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.

Wow, your idea sounds great.

So instead of it burning down and he getting some insurance for it, you'd have it lose it instead thru the court systems, where he won't get any money out of it. But I guess maybe thats okay because he's pets would still be alive?

I'd rather live in a country where we help each other, cost be damned. Basic services should be covered, for everyone, no exceptions.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[darthdavid]

And of course there's also the utilitarian argument, all those people that get fucked over now for being too poor or cheap would be happier because they wouldn't get fucked over, all those people who'd have to pay for them to not be fucked over would, generally, be paying a similar or lesser amount (collective bargaining means that the more people pay into a service the less it costs per-head(usually)) and would live in a friendlier, nicer society while doing so. Everyone wins, everyone's happy.

But we can't have that, cause it's socialism. Which may or may not be against a document written by slave holding tax-dodgers in the 18th century and in any event is scary because it's like communism or fascism or something. You don't want to be a comminazzy like HITLER or STALIN do you? TRUST THE COMPUTER! THE COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND! Greetings, citizen!

Re:You're kidding, right?

[BoberFett]

Wish I could mod you up, this is the only post that really matters in this whole thread of hand wringing bleeding hearts.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[BoberFett]

Even as a libertarian, I can proudly say that I support socialism when it's done properly on a small manageable scale such as a town and it's an opt-in system comprised of those who choose to partake in it. What I don't support is socialism of the type that is currently being implemented at the level of US federal government, where a handful of wealthy assholes are telling 300 million people how to live. That's not socialism, it's authoritarianism.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[iamhassi]

"the Volunteer Fire Departments in my area of the country don't take any kind of Oath. "

What do you call a firefighter that doesn't fight fires?

A firefighter died and went to hell where he finds a wall of clocks. After seeing all these clocks on a wall, with his friends names under them, he asked the devil, what the clocks mean? "That's easy, each time one of your friends mess up on earth, their clock speeds up one hour." says the devil. "I don't see the Chiefs clock anywhere?" the fireman says. The devil replied, "Oh him, we have his down in the basement, we're using it for a fan."

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

He had paid for years and merely neglected the most recent one. Damn right its unjust. Not that anyone here will stop trolling 'lol, the cheapskate redneck deserved it.' because I'm sure they've never missed paying a bill in their lives.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Nazlfrag]

Nice way to ignore the fact that he paid every other year he was there. I'm sure you've never forgotten to pay a bill in your lifetime.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[dave87656]

Having them show up but refuse to put water to flame is just plain mean

My understanding is that they didn't respond at all. Sounds cruel but if every knew they would come anyway, no one would pay the fee.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Nazlfrag]

"If a fire breaks out in Tornio, for example, Swedish fire crews from Haparanda will cross the border to help put out the flames" Source.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

They were there attending a neighbouring property, for it to not catch fire. A pretty fast way to do that ("had there been a fire in the city...") would be to put down the fire; not waiting for it to mostly wind down itself to safe levels. That also means the whole "action" took large part of nominal costs already (but if they did do something, there could be an additional bill for putting down the fire of somebody "uninsured" instead of relying only on their pretty much fixed funds)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

> my other friend who is on benefits (which you'd call "welfare") because they're workshy and think they can make babies for a living
Fixed that for you.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pookie13]

Well. I have graduated from University of applied sciences and have been working in ICT field full time for 8 years and have been paying about 25% - 32% taxes of my total annual income.

And I still think that It's OK to pay a lot of taxes to have for example free fire departments and all the other things I mentioned before.

And I don't think that 95% of Finnish citizens don't deserve my tax money. That's just selfish.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Pheredhel]

Additionally, even if there were no limit there is a problem with this: if you can pay when the fire happens, someone could start a fire insurance like this: ask for 74$ a year, it pays the firefighters if you need them. problem: there is no money to pay the firefighters on watch, the equipment and so on, if there is no fire. the money is needed to run the FD, not having it at the beginning of the year makes. Running a service with startup costs as high as a Fire-department, you either need an investor, then it would become really expensive, or pay up front, so there is money to pay for it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read the article and the longer article linked in the first. It doesn't state that he has ever paid in any of them.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[QuestorTapes]

Not claiming what they did was right, but:

It's not a $75 fee for putting out a fire. Putting out fires costs a hell of a lot more in terms of costs for equipment, supplies, labor, etc. The $75 fee depends on amortizing the cost over time, and spreading the risk around a large pool of contributors. If they did charge on site, it would have to be a -very- big charge, at least thousands, probably tens of thousands of dollars.

Do you have thousands or tens of thousands to pay on site? I wouldn't; nor would most people in this position.

Others have pointed out the possibility of paying the cost by hitting him with a fine for needing the service and not paying for it previously. But this is a private firefighting company, contracted by South Fulton. They can't levy fines, nor can South Fulton, since the homeowner lives outside the city. The county could, but they didn't set up a fire fighting contract.

This is as much a failure of the homeowner and the county government as the city and the fire department.

And I think it is a failure on the part of the city and the fire department. The city chose to contract out the service, and both the city and the company should have anticipated these situations, and made some sort of arrangement with the county or state government.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[h4rm0ny]

If you understood that just one of our smaller states is larger than your whole country, you'd understand that most of the US is rural and not easily accessible to municipal fire departments.

And yet I'm expected to believe that it's lucrative for private industry to cover such remote areas? Something doesn't add up with that logic.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ArmyOfFun]

Thanks for the in-depth response. I appreciate it.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[LanMan04]

And yeah, a few lazy people abuse it; frankly, I'll accept that knowing that if anyone I care about is in need, no matter whether due to malice, bad luck or their own stupidity, they'll be helped, without needing to sign up for a series of different plans years beforehand.

That's the heart of the problem with American Conservatives. They absolutely CANNOT STAND anyone abusing the system. To them, someone receiving an undeserved benefit is the worst kind of affront, period. That is why they are happy to slash and burn the whole system, make everyone more miserable and cost everyone more money, so long as no one abuses the system. Of course, they can never even pull THAT off, so we're left with the worst of both worlds: A broken system that STILL gets abused.

I work at a financial institution. We understand that yes, sometimes people will rip us off. Sometimes people will put an empty deposit envelope into an ATM and then withdraw their phantom funds in cash. It's just a cost of doing business! If we tried to lock the whole thing down so tight that no one ever abused it, all of our legitimate customers would suffer. It would make no sense whatsoever.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

Interesting but off the point. Your example is one where they do have agreements between the towns. "Everything from central heating to postal delivery is centrally coordinated"

My question involved responding to something outside of their jurisdiction.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

And some of those countries have two times smaller population density than the US.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Nazlfrag]

Yes, they share a border. Yes, among the safety and rescue service of each country, including firefighting, there is a strong cooperative effort. I am not too familiar with that, but I know that in Australia we all respond when our neighbours are in crisis. For example, the recent Victorian bushfires saw firefighters from all neighbouring states plus Tasmania, Western Australia and even internationally from New Zealand. What I can't understand is the pathetic obidence to authourity those firefighters diplayed. I know an Aussie firefighter would tell the chief to go fuck himself if put in this situation.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

But part does go higher, to the EU budget. Also - proportionally more from the countries which are doing better, and when assigning funds - proportionally more to the countries that are doing worse (also for public infrastructure) - crazy idea, I know.

And since national borders quite often go through some city, or even down the middle of some street, public services from both sides don't limit themselves particularly rigorously to how the border goes, when responding (heck, even mixed police patrols composed of one officer from each country)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Thumper_SVX]

As a Brit living in the USA I sort of see your point... but have you been to America? Huge amounts of this country are rural and incredibly sparsely populated. There are entire swathes of the midwest where you can literally drive miles and not see a single house. The simple fact is that the people who live in these rural areas have to rely on the fire departments of small towns. Since they don't live in these small towns, those small towns cannot collect taxes from them. As a result, the taxes that pay for the fire department are the taxes from the people of that small town. Now, optionally the small towns have the right to charge for "extended fire coverage" to places outside their borders, and as such these people in TFA were asked to pay that small sum of money ($75 a year... a tiny amount, really) to help pay for the costs of keeping the firefighters on-call, the cost of the fire trucks, the cost of the fuel for the fire trucks and so on.

Now, I can see your argument about your friend who pays no taxes to speak of also getting fire coverage... but this is not the same. There is simply the incredibly impracticality of providing fire coverage to everyone in the USA regardless of location... the costs become immense quite rapidly. In Britain you have a much smaller distance to cover... simply put there are VERY few people in the UK who are effectively beyond the borders of a town and thus they are covered by a particular town's fire department. The fact that the fire department is also paid out of a "federal" pool (I know that's an Americanism but it fits) instead of local funds makes a huge difference... that way those taxes are collected across the entire country rather than by municipalities.

America works differently; government is much more fragmented simply because of the incredible size of this country. Federal government only collects taxes for federal programs... and generally "benefits" type programs are collected by municipalities. Firefighters fall into the latter category and thus I definitely see why it would be unfair to expect assistance from a municipality into which you pay nothing.

On the flip side of the coin I do think that this particular instance falls into the "grey area" where you can't really say if the firefighters were right or wrong. Were they wrong to refuse to put out the fire? Well, given that outside the city limits theirs is a paid service, it would be a bad precedent to set to put the fire out. Once the rest of the neighbours had found out then the entire revenue stream of money from those remote families is at risk... they would quite likely think that because one person got a fire put out with no $75 a year fee, that they can expect the same and may well stop paying. It may be an ethical debate at that point, but even billing the person after the fact or fining them may be a dead loss because you've already set that precedent. And because money is constantly being spent to maintain the fire department, money must constantly be coming in. Offering to pay your $75 "insurance payment" while your house is burning is frankly ridiculous and stupid.

These people have now paid for their own short sightedness. As much as I am a believer in some "benefits" programs like federal healthcare, I also understand that here in America we are as limited by logistics and geography as we are limited by "the way things actually work".

Re:You're kidding, right?

[ikeman32]

I'd sue the fire department and the city into chapter 11. What they did was so f'd up on so many levels. in the orignial story one of the guy's kids was arressted a few days later because he tried to kick the fire chief's ass over the incident. can't say that I blame the guy.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[IMightB]

I live in CO, trust me, if SaR is called out for you, you're paying for it. There is a COSaR card that you can purchase ahead of time for $12 and it's good for 5 years. I believe that if you purchase a hunting/fishing license you're covered as well.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

That's what additional tourist or skiing insurances are partly for?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

That's also probably a matter of scale, actual non-manufactured need, etc.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gfreeman]

Does your city funded (garbage collection? I'm sure your city governments do something.) also perform their function in the rural area adjacent for free?

Well no, that rural adjacent area is maintained by the adjacent city government. If there's no city on the other side of the land, the city line moves out and "hey, free land!"

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gfreeman]

Nothing to do with insurance. If the fire dept had done their job, his house would not have burned down.

If you get robbed, you expect the police to take an interest rather than shrug and say "not our job, sorry".

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gfreeman]

Some locations are just that "No Man's Land" and are very rural. Emergency services response times would be far to great to save some folks/structures.

But not in this case, obviously, so that argument does not apply here.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gfreeman]

True, but no-one is forcing him to sign anything. Duress would mean that the Fire Department would be putting him under "extreme unlawful pressure" to sign. Seems like it was actually the other way round - he was willing to pay "whatever it cost" to put the fire out, and the FD were unwilling to bow to HIS pressure to get them to put out the fire.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pgmrdlm]

Pay the fucking bill than. People, companies, and cities do not work for free.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[spamking]

Maybe not, but its more common than some folks realize.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[reynost]

But emergency rooms are still required to treat the grievously injured, insured or not. What if there had been a life on the line, someone trapped inside the building. Does some kid have to die because his dad was to cheep or too stupid to pay a fee?

I understand why this happened this way but I don't see why it couldnt be structured differently. If wilderness rescue can charge a lost hiker for finding them without that hiker having to pay a $75 fee ahead of time just in case they get lost, why cant the fire department charge someone who didn't pay the fee up front. Obviously the fee for putting out the fire should be a lot more than what the person would pay if they just paid in advance but it should be an option.

pets died. Granted that they're not people, but a life is a life. The pets (and even children) would have no choice in the matter as to whether their owner/parent paid the fees. I agree that everyone should pay their dues. Having a welfare state is not good. However, I also believe that we as humans and neighbors should be willing to help out in dire situations such as this. I think the damage caused by the fire to this point and then to the house, far outweighed a $75 bill. Also, we really don't have all the info around what that bill was do we? Was it specifically for fire related services? or was it a parking ticket? Are we really going to let someone's house burn over an unpaid parking ticket in the future?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gfreeman]

He offered to pay the bill, in fact he offered to foot the entire bill for putting out the fire, not just the $75 annual fee which he had paid each year until this one, when he admits to having forgot to pay.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Firethorn]

someone could start a fire insurance like this: ask for 74$ a year, it pays the firefighters if you need them. problem: there is no money to pay the firefighters on watch, the equipment and so on, if there is no fire. the money is needed to run the FD, not having it at the beginning of the year makes.

Then the FD needs to charge more for a non-covered call out, the insurance ends up costing $76, and it goes away. Or somebody starts up a rival FD and only charges $70, but I doubt that would happen because even with a volunteer force and surplus equipment(how my old FD was run), it gets expensive.

Heck, our biggest tanker was converted to a tanker from a donated ladder truck by volunteer welders using donated metal, and it STILL ended up costing like $20k before they were done(before my time).

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pixelpusher220]

From a moral argument it is indefensible, no argument there.

From a duty to their paying customers, if they lost either staff or equipment fighting a fire that they weren't on the hook to fight, what do you tell the people for whom they are responsible when they don't have the ability to respond anymore?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gfreeman]

Go through the courts. Show me a judge who'd rule against a fire department.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[SatanicPuppy]

What's strange about you europeans is that you've spent the history of the world killing each other, exterminating other cultures and minority groups, and now that you can't afford to be all imperialists, think you can get snarky with us for deploying our military to fix things that were largely caused by your meddling.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gfreeman]

Had he offered up 1-5K I would put money on it that they would have put it out.

Then I would take your money because (FTFA) "Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out. His offer wasn't accepted, he said."

Please donate said money to whatever public fund is set up to help Cranick.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[commodore64_love]

Did you ever stop to think that maybe I WANT to die, and not buying insurance is a way to make that happen? Can't commit suicide (illegal)... so instead you just get sick and die.
.

>>>What this IS is an example of democracy. The people of that county are free to rule themselves in this matter.

Progressives (big government types) only believe in democracy when it agrees with them. When it doesn't agree with them, then they ram it down the voters' throats even if they don't want it. Like when 80% were against the Bush Corporate Bailout Bill, but it got passed anyway. And 70% against the Healthcare Bill, but it too got passed.

In THIS case the voters don't want a fire department. They want an opt-in system Some here, the progressives, thing the will of the voters should be over-ruled. They don't believe in democracy.
--

Re:You're kidding, right?

[darkshadow88]

Are you seriously arguing that a hospital should let someone die if they could know up front that that person doesn't have the money to pay for treatment? You are a disgusting, repulsive human being--what you are arguing for is essentially genocide of the poor.

Anyhow, this is a perfect example of why private enterprise is not always a good thing. This is just a volunteer fire department that is trying to cover costs, so imagine the insanity that would ensue if public services were privatized. There would probably be different levels of fire protection subscriptions, where wealthy people would get preferential treatment. Imagine the same thing for the police--there's an intruder in your home, and you call 911, only to find out that burglary isn't covered by your police protection package.

People here in the U.S. seem to have a strong distaste for taxes, but they are necessary for a well-functioning society. Certain services need to be provided by the government and guaranteed to all, such as police, fire protection, and, yes, health care.

Call me a socialist if you like--I don't consider that an insult. In fact, we would do well to tone down our capitalism a bit and include some socialist ideas. Of course, pure socialism is not a good idea, but the thought that socialism=bad and capitalism=good is a gross oversimplification of a more fine-grained continuum, where a certain balance is ideal, and where both extremes are dangerous.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you care if committing suicide was illegal? ;)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt they check by name or have misspellings to deal with. Taxes are paid for an address, so they can simply look up that address and see if it's covered.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[MysteriousPreacher]

Sad situation, but maybe they're just not set-up to accept that kind of payment.

It's kind of in a different league, but when going onsite to do warranty repairs you'd get people offering to pay for things not covered by the warranty, but there was no scope for accepting those payments.

The whole situation seems mad to me. I'm used to the way things work in most European countries, in which we kind of take for granted that services of this kind are going to be provided through our taxes.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Seumas]

Right, because a guy who won't pay $75 is totally going to pay $750.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Seumas]

Sounds like Christians make shitty business men, then.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Seumas]

Yeah, too bad I have to pay my bills in US Dollars and "basic human compassion" isn't a viable currency. It's not like their own city fire department refused to service them. They don't even HAVE a fire department. Hence the need to pay for the remote fire department services. No pay no service. Seems sensible, to me.

You make it sound like the other 99.999% of the country is like this one single case in a remote area. Like the fire department I pay taxes for in my city is going to roll up to my place or my neighbors and decide whether or not to help us based on what kind of car is in your driveway.

Of course, it's always a lot of fun to talk about how other people should perform their job for free. It's quite a different story if someone asks you to do what you do for a living, gratis.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Seumas]

If you can afford to buy a house and you can afford to pay a couple thousand a year in property tax on that house, you should probably be able to pay $75 for fire service. Especially since, I suspect, your insurer would refuse to cover you if you're not going to secure fire service.

Of course, people can fall on hard times and $75 can be a lot during those times. But you're still paying property tax and (probably) insurance, so if you can maintain ownership of a home, $75 *shouldn't* be the difference between eating human food or eating cat food, right?

Of course, in a town with only 2,000 people . . . we're probably only talking about a few hundred homes and we may be talking a far different amount of money involved for home ownership compared with the rest of the country.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Seumas]

If I were a fire fighter and there were no lives at risk in your burning house and you had repeatedly disregarded the meager fee for our services (and therefore, a disregard for our value and my need to earn a living), my response to putting out your house might also be a big "fuck you".

Seriously. You can't even pay the $75 for service, but you want me to risk my fucking LIFE for your shitty unoccupied house? Fuck that.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Seumas]

I've found that almost everything in the world is done better and more efficiently and with a better attitude when I am contracting with a private company to do it rather than relying on some tax-funded, indifferent, inefficient government waste of cash.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Interesting premise, either Christian or a businessman. Hmmm that would suggest that businemen are anti-Christian or just plain evil. Hmmm, you may be right.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[pgmrdlm]

I read that article and did not read where he offered to pay the complete bill for the fire fighting. But, I have 20/200 vision so I can believe I missed that.

I will be honest. I can understand the fire department saying no to the 75 dollar payment offer. But to turn down full payment I find hard to believe.

Thank you for pointing out something I missed.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[RockDoctor]

RTFS.
The fire department "didn't respond".
That's not "they turned up, parked and stood there laughing" ; it's "they did not respond".

But this is history, not news : many countries had fire departments like that - in the 16th and 17th centuries CE. It led to, amongst other things, the concept of insewerants, where you make a bet on whether or not your house sets on fire in the next year, you put your cash on the table, and then if your home does burn, the FD loses, and comes out to put the fire out ; but if your house doesn't burn, you lose your stake money to the FD.

I know it's a difficult concept ; but the statistics of gambling are well publicised, and this is obviously who lost his $75 bet with the friends, family, pets & kids.
Big Fucking Deal.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

How quickly people forget... (you might also look sometimes at your findings from the point of view of perception bias, perhaps also fundamental attribution error (after all it might be also on the level of "we, the People vs. "them, the Govs"...), etc.)

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

Both Finland and Sweden have significantly lower population density than the US.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

Finland has two times lower population density than the US. Sweden also significantly lower.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

Cross-border agreements of public services are normal throghout the EU, Schengen area, etc.. It's quite easy to find joint police patrols where there's one officer from each side of the border. That's just what sensible neighbouring jurisdictions do.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

Probably even more folks don't realize how Finland has two times lower population density than the US; Sweden significantly lower, too.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[sznupi]

Systems of governance are simplu an integral part of the society, are indeed simply of of its fecets, a reflection of sorts.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[gfreeman]

7th paragraph in the msn linked article.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[loners]

It is called a public report and is (at least in Arizona) mandatory that the buyer signs it before the real estate purchase can occur.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Kral_Blbec]

Lots of state and national parks have fees for camping and hiking. They are also supported by state and federal taxes. Your comparison doesn't hold up.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Moofie]

If you do not think that universal insurance coverage should be mandatory, then you accept that people without means should be allowed to die in the street.

Because universal insurance coverage is the least expensive (to me, a wealthy insurance covered person) option, and that is the right way to do it.

If you think that health care can ever be a free market, you do not understand what free markets mean.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[arkenian]

Saying he offered to pay "whatever it took" depends entirely on whether he actually COULD. Not to mention that the FD probably doesn't have a convenient way of calculating it. One should also note, perhaps, here, that Ben Franklin originally envisioned fire departments that behaved exactly like this. This is what Fire Insurance used to be....

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Lanteran]

Now, in a situation like that, the hardest core libertarian would agree with the idea of forming a contract on the spot to extinguish the fire in exchange for a price acceptable to the fire department.

Indeed I do; not doing so is just sick.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[vux984]

That's true, this is like the health care debate. In this case, someone chose not to buy the service, and the public outcry will be, "That's terrible! No one should have that choice!"

You should note the people inside city limits did not have a choice. They are required to pay as a component of their property taxes. It was only the rural homes that had an option.

The comparison to national health care doesn't quite fit though, because the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things. It definitely does not, if the Constitution is still a meaningful limit on federal power.

Unless you live in the city, in which case they do compel you to 'buy' fire department service. What point were you trying to make exactly?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[vux984]

Probably would be at least $30,000. Then again, that is probably more than a house in the rural SE United States is worth..

The cost of actually putting out a particular home fire is pretty trivial. The costs are largely fixed (salary, equipment, maintenance, training) These costs don't change whether you put out 0 fires a month, or 20 fires.

Actually putting out a fire (oxygen, water, fuel, retardants, etc won't add up to much for a normal home fire. A few hundred bucks tops.

Now obviously it should be more than that, considering the high fixed operating costs.

So lets take a look at those fixed operating costs... the community of Naugatuck Connecticut, with ~31,000 people has 41 employees, 5 volunteers, and necessary fire equipment. They have an annual budget of $2.9 million.

Now I doubt they are going to send all 45 firefighters out to deal with simple home fire, but the picture for the story shows 10, so lets run with that, and for the sake of over estimating assume that it takes a whole day to put out the fire.

Based on that a "reasonable" charge to put out the fire is 10/45ths of 1/365th of $2.9M. You see what I did there? Do you find that agreeable? Then add on a few hundred bucks for consumables etc... aw hell... make it an even $1000.

That works out to about $2800 to put out the fire. Sounds about right to me.

Why exactly do you think it should be 10x that amount?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[vux984]

The new health care mandate forces us to pay *private companies* for services they render. Has this ever been the case before in the U.S.?

Car insurance springs to mind.Granted we can choose not to drive, but if we want to drive a car around we are legally required to purchase insurance services from a private company.

But I find it even more interesting that you seem to object to the government cutting out the middle man. Its interesting that Obama wanted a 'public option', but couldn't pass the bill with that in place.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[amiga3D]

The Constitution? We still have one of those?

Re:You're kidding, right?

[amiga3D]

An emergency room will treat you on a cash basis. I once was required to make a $700 deposit for service. It took me 6 months to get a refund on the $109 they owed me.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[amiga3D]

It may seem stupid to you but you obviously aren't aware of how the rural south works. Many times you have sparsely populated areas that have minimal police and fire protection. Generally it's better in towns and cities. Where I live I am near a fair sized city of about 50,000 population and the county is fairly populated too. The county has fire coverage by volunteer firemen who respond to calls by dispatcher from their homes or jobs. There are some full time employees here but most counties have few or no such personnel. This fire service is funded partially by county taxes but also by donations and fundraisers. I contribute voluntarily to my local fire station (45 dollars) and so do many other residents. This works well here as a full up fire department would be so expensive as to be a burden on taxpayers. Rural counties and towns are generally poor and do the best they can with what they have. I spent 3 years in Germany and I noticed there that rural areas are totally different from what we have in the US. The country has most of the population settled in small town or villages 15 to 20 kilometers apart and the farmers often live in town and drive out on tractors to the fields to work. Here in the Southern US people tend to spread out often having 10 or more acres to themselves with a trailer or small house even if they do not farm. Trying to saturate this population with social services is incredibly difficult and expensive and the people that live this way don't generally desire it anyway. A lot of people like living down a dirt road and being left alone.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[orgelspieler]

According to the NPR story on this, the US companies worked a little differently. The insurance companies would pay the private firefighters a bounty for putting out the fires. It was more of a macho/community pride thing. Don't know how true it is though. It seems just as likely that rival firefighters would have started fires just to be the first to arrive and put it out.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[mr_mischief]

to Obion county, Tennessee, get yourself on the county board, and institute a tax to cover a fire service. South Fulton has no legal mandate to even offer fire protection outside the boundaries of the city. Blame the county and its rural residents for not having a fire service of their own or taking proper precautions for living in such a remote area that some other legal jurisdiction feels compelled to contract out protection.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[mr_mischief]

I don't think they should have responded, as someone in their tax base within the city might have needed their service, and they were off taking care of someone outside the city who hadn't paid anything in to the system. That said, once they were on the scene, they should have fought the fire until called away to somewhere that a taxpayer or a rural paying subscriber needed them. To have the equipment and people there and just watch it burn is the really reprehensible part in my eyes. Shame on Obion County's rural residents for not voting in a fire district to collect $75 per household up front in taxes to pay the town of South Fulton for their services across the board.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[mr_mischief]

The fire wasn't in the town. It was in a rural part of the county, outside the town whose fire service responded. There are no taxes a town can collect on property outside the town. The people inside the town deserve to get something paid into their fire service when their homes and businesses are put at greater risk because their fire service that they pay taxes for leaves their jurisdiction to fight some fire elsewhere. The shame is not on the town or its mayor.

The shame is on the county for not offering rural fire protection for its residents. If it can't afford to run its own fire service, it could at least put a $75 per household per year fire district tax in place and contract the services of the town of South Fulton to respond to any fire in the county, or at least in this area of the county that relies on the town's kindness to offer protection to people outside the town.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[MoralHazard]

The Duress in this situation is the Stress of "the house is on fire and losing value per minute". Note the 911 call from the homeowners wife offering to pay "whatever you want".

THE WORD "DURESS" DOES NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS, IN A LEGAL CONTEXT. Kind of like how a "cookie" doesn't mean "a kind of baked edible snack", when we're talking about web browsers.

You are only familiar with the colloquial, everyday definition of duress, which includes being under any kind of pressure. Look back to my original post--the LEGAL definition of "duress" is pretty different from the everyday definition.

In a legal context, "duress" only covers threats and pressures that are INHERENTLY ILLEGAL by themselves. Ordinary pressure, by itself, isn't enough to overturn a contract, because LEGALLY it doesn't meet the definition of "duress".

Here's an example that might help illustrate the difference for you:

Pretend that you own a small ISP company, and your entire sysadmin staff suddenly quits, one day. You have nobody to run your technical operations, perform maintenance, handle tech support calls, etc. Every hour that goes by, your customers are getting more frustrated at the service problems, and more and more of them are switching to a different provider. You are losing money. Metaphorically speaking, your business is burning down around you.

Now, pretend that I call you and offer my services as an emergency sysadmin. I have good references (from people you respect) and experience with your kind of situation. But because I'm so good, I charge a HELL of a lot of money. Before I'll start working for you, I demand a signed contract, with my standard hourly rate of $500/hour. (That's about 3x what you used to pay your whole sysadmin department, before they all quit.)

Obviously, you don't like the idea of paying me $500/hour on a contract that will probably run for several weeks. But you don't have a lot of other options. It's hard to find someone good on short notice, and maybe you have a reputation as being a jerk to the people who work for you.

So let's say that you consider your options, investigate the alternatives, and you come down to a simple choice: Either you agree to my contract, or your business goes under.

Would you, the business owner, be signing that contract under duress? According to the everyday definition, absolutely it's duress. But not according to the legal definition. There's nothing inherently illegal about me not solving your technical problems. In fact, on a daily basis, I don't solve 99.99999999% of the world's technical problems, and you don't see them sending me to jail for that.

So what IS duress, legally? Here are some examples:

  * I threaten to DoS you with my botnet, unless you sign a contract with me. (This would also be criminal extortion, and possibly a few other things.)

  * I point a gun at your head and tell you that either your signature or your brains will be on my contract, by the time I leave the room. (Again, there would probably also be criminal charges, here, too.)

  * I show you some pictures of you, your mistress, and a boa constrictor performing deviant sexual acts together, and offer to keep your secrets from your wife/mother/church congregation/local newspaper, in you'd kindly sign my contract. (Yep, blackmail's a crime, too.)

See the differences, here? In these last three examples, I'm making an inherently illegal threat. THAT is what defines duress, in a legal context. It's not just about whether you're under pressure, or whether you're losing money, or your house/business/whatever. If it's legal to not help you fight your house fire, than the contract that I demand you to sign before helping you fight it is perfectly legal.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[MoralHazard]

Did you even read the article? The burning house was in a rural area that had no regular fire department. A nearby city offered to protect individual property owners, IF they paid an annual $75 fee, but this was purely on a contract basis. The rural property owners were NOT residents of that city, and they did NOT pay any taxes to that city, and they had no claim on the city's services (firefighting, garbage pickup, street maintenance) unless they had a separate contract with the city.

So tell me how lawful it is to say "Give us $75 per year, and we'll make sure your house doesn't burn down."

You have an overly simplistic and ignorant perception of what American law is, and how it applies. Your everyday notions of right, wrong, fairness, justice, equality, etc. are not enough to understand these things. The law is a complex, highly nuances, and technical subject, and you have (apparantly) never studied it.

In the US, there's no general law saying that you have the right to fire-fighting services. Most cities, and many counties, do provide blanket fire protection to properties within their limits. And in those jurisdictions, a homeowner has some legal expectation that the local fire department will extinguish his burning house.

If an individual fire fighter or department refused to fight such a fire or demanded payment, then the homeowner would probably have a claim to sue that firefighter, the department, and/or the city or county. Most likely, the firefighter(s) who refused would lose his/their job(s), too. SOME jurisdictions MIGHT also have laws making a delinquent firefighter criminally responsible for letting the house burn down. But I know there are no such laws in at least one major American city (New York).

Re:You're kidding, right?

[olderchurch]

I don't know where the GP got their $30,000 from, but your reasoning is flawed.

The FD has 45 people and needs 10 firefighters to put out a fire. The FD needs people 24/7, so they need at least 4 shifts. Which means that you only have 11 people available at any time. That would make the grand total according to your example to about $8300

Re:You're kidding, right?

[tempest69]

The man didn't refuse, he forgot. Now I've managed to forget many a bill, especially a small one like $75. Though I really think that the FD should be able to put out the fire, and bill the man accordingly. They can use last years fire budget/number of fires extinguished as an appropriate number. Which should prove to be quite expensive.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anti_Climax]

Human Compassion, with a price-tag that carries the weight of law is Socialism. One can be an advocate of compassion for others without advocating that compassion be mandated by the government. I see it as a significant distinction.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[kainosnous]

I certainly don't think that the fire department is responsible for the house or the fire, so they shouldn't have to put it out. However, I would say they should have put out the fire, and then charged the owner the full cost of the service (and if possible an additional fee), assuming that the home owner was willing to comply. They were already there and not putting it out would likely risk other damage to surrounding areas that they might be required to deal with.

socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you don't have socialism.

Re:socialism

[rwven]

Or a moral compass for that matter...

Re:socialism

[RoFLKOPTr]

This is what happens when you don't have socialism.

Translation: "When you don't have socialism, the prick that refuses to subscribe to a voluntary fire service from a neighboring city because he doesn't want to have to pay money for things he doesn't think he needs doesn't get fire service. When you DO have socialism, the prick is FORCED to pay for the fire service that he doesn't want." Yeah, sounds like a great plan.

Though, to be fair, there are a few things that really ought to be socialized, fire service being one of them. I'm more using the above as a metaphor for other various government and non-government services that aren't as important to the lives of other people around you.

Re:socialism

[thijsh]

Owwwwww, *BURN*!

Re:socialism

[SatanicPuppy]

In London, in the 1800's fire protection was provided by private companies.

They discontinued this because the private companies quickly turned into a mafia-style protection racket. "Nice house you got here...It'd be a shame if it burned down."

Competing fire departments would set fire to other departments protected houses, and block the road in between, then sit out in front of the burning house with their own people, negotiating with the homeowner while his house burned down behind him.

Yea, no corruption there.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be responsible for yourself? How terrible!

Re:socialism

[ViViDboarder]

Yea, and in America they'd be charged with Arson and then sued for property damage.

Rackets like that are illegal regardless of private/social services. In other words, it's a totally different issue. You don't think it's possible for public service workers to do the same thing and ask for "extra money for faster service?" It's illegal and they know they'd be prosecuted.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Firestations are a prime investment.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't one because there's not enough demand to have one in this area. Not providing a service because it can only operate at a loss? That's capitalism for you.

Re:socialism

[SatanicPuppy]

I don't have any particular stake in it. It just irritates me when it is suggested that private services are necessarily better than public ones.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol!! What's next? Pay us for "fire protection" or fires "happen"?

Re:socialism

[Myopic]

Yeah, and then we'd have two problems (a burned down house AND a lawsuit to deal with) instead of no problems (a house saved by the publicly funded fire department). Some people prefer to have problems because they are required by their ideology. I prefer to change the ideology to not have the problems. But, I guess that means it's not an ideology.

Re:socialism

[inthealpine]

Only on slashdot would someone saying this is what happens when you don't have socialism gets +5 insightful. When a much more simple and useful answer is provided it's a troll. Talk about complicating the obvious.

Let's try this. My answer has changed to:

Yea! Socialism!
I hate Faux News!

Let the mod ups commence...

Re:socialism

[ViViDboarder]

Right, neither is necessarily better. It really needs to be looked at case by case and those specifically involved.

Re:socialism

[kaiser423]

There's obviously not a market for a competing department, otherwise the free market would have sprung one up. There's nothing keeping them from making their own for-fee fire department.

There are volunteer FD's all over the nation....some that act pretty much as a business, so there's nothing "socialist" about it -- they *could* set up another fire department, but they didn't.

Re:socialism

[operagost]

This is what happens when you DO have socialism.

Re:socialism

[ViViDboarder]

I don't get it...

We're not talking about this specific case. I'm just saying that Private and Public fire depots would be equally able to run such a racket. In both cases you'd have a house burnt and someone extorted and then someone (hopefully) prosecuted and sued.

The case of what actually happened is akin to someone not paying their taxes (it was a fee in this case because it was not the homeowners county) for their public service and therefor not receiving their service.

Re:socialism

[ilsaloving]

What competing fire department? Do you know what socialism even is.?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=socialism

If this was socialist oriented service, he would have been guaranteed service, but also required to pay the fee.

Re:socialism

[A beautiful mind]

This is still socialism in action. Where's the competing fire department?

No, the phrase you were looking for is "monopoly". It's still capitalist, because it's still an organization bargaining with a powerless individual in this case.

Re:socialism

[Sheafification]

Any one is free to open up their own firefighting company to provide service to these areas that fall outside of the city limits. Where's the competing services? Sounds like it's a case of free market failure to me.

Re:socialism

[MadUndergrad]

He didn't pay the one fire department, why do you think he'd have paid the other? Also, I'm not aware that it's illegal to start a private fire department in rural Tennessee. So where is the competing fire department?

Re:socialism

[TheRaven64]

It's not cost effective to run one. There's no law preventing someone else from starting one. Capitalism doesn't magically create competition.

Re:socialism

[operagost]

The competing fire department can't open because:

• Their vehicles wouldn't be allowed the right of way
• They would have to pay a lot of property tax
  and finally;
• They would be expected to PUT OUT PEOPLE'S FIRES FOR FREE and their only recourse for non-payers would be to send the bill to a collection agency.

Re:socialism

[Joe Snipe]

When you DO have socialism, the prick is FORCED to pay for the fire service that he doesn't want.

Funny, I hear him saying he wanted the service. If it worked the way you describe he should be saying "Thanks for letting it burn! The system works!"

Re:socialism

[NeutronCowboy]

What you're missing is that in the private case, you have a direct incentive to run the racket, and the negotiation is legal (only the arson is illegal). In the public case, the arson is illegal, as well as the negotiation. Furthermore, it is exponentially harder to hide the negotiation and the its results.

Which means that the private fire depot has both more incentive to engage in this behavior, and less of an opportunity to get caught. A public fire depot significantly reduces the likelihood of this type of racket.

Re:socialism

[imunfair]

I don't see the problem here - the guy was so cheap he didn't want to pay $6.25/month for fire department protection, so he didn't get the services. Exactly the same as getting cancer after choosing not to pay for health insurance.

I think the problem with offering a one time fire-fighting fee of $7500 or whatever is that people would fight it in court as a decision made under duress, and might actually win.

Re:socialism

[rochberg]

Exactly! Clearly, the state of Tennessee has laws forbidding anyone from offering a private fire service. Oh wait...they haven't.

Look, privatized fire departments don't work. They don't make economic sense. To understand why, look into decision theory, specifically areas like Dempster-Shafer theory. When the level of uncertainty rises, people become significantly more risk averse. Consider the following games:

• Game 1: Flip a fair coin, and pick heads or tails. If you're right, you win $100. If you're wrong, you lose $100.
• Game 2: Flip a biased coin, and pick heads or tails. By biased, it either comes up heads 9999 times out of 10,000, or it comes up tails 9999 times out of 10,000. But you don't know the bias. If you're right, you win $100, and if you're wrong, you lose $100.

Now here's the catch: You have to play the games 10,000 times, and you have to always pick the same way. So once you choose "heads," you're always choosing heads.

Which game do you choose? Clearly, game 1. Since you know the coin is fair, you'll be right about half the time and wrong about half the time. So you'll break even. Now look at game 2. If you guess correctly, you'll win 9999 times and lose once. That means you would win $999,900. If you guess wrong, you'll lose $999,900. But look...the expected value is still $0! So, according to basic probability theory, there's no rational reason to pick game 1 over game 2. But when you start considering factors such as the uncertainty about the probabilities, changes in the possible payoffs, etc., things become more complicated, and most people become risk averse.

Now, let's return to the privatized fire department world. Does your neighbor subscribe to a fire service? More uncertainty. Is your service really the best you can get? Perhaps your service's company policy is to only attempt to fight the fire after 99% of the house is burned down. (Sure, you could read their policy, if disclosure was required by evil government regulators. And clearly no company (cell phones *cough cough* credit cards *cough*) has ever used intentionally complicated policies to mislead their customers.) More uncertainty. Competing fire services have a vested interest in your service doing poorly (i.e., more business for them later on). Are those competing services doing unethical things that could interfere with your fire service? More uncertainty.

There is considerably more uncertainty in privatized services like this than in public systems. As a result, subscribers would be significantly more risk averse...which means the market would establish a significantly higher equilibrium point, based on higher demand. Such privatized services will impose a larger total cost on everyone. Also, since the vast majority would subscribe in the privatized version (because they're risk averse), that means that the average cost per person would also probably be higher in a private system. The only way the average privatized cost would be lower is if the overwhelming majority of fires happened to non-subscribers (meaning they would pay most of the costs).

At the end of the day, free market zealots that argue for the privatization of everything don't understand economics, don't understand human nature, or are simply being irrationally dogmatic. Or some combination thereof.

And just to prevent any ad hominem rebuttals that I'm an evil, commie, Marxist, socialist, fascist... I'm not arguing against all private enterprise. I am simply pointing out that, in some areas, yes, a government-run solution can be less costly than a private solution, and just as efficient.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

Score 5, Insightful? All the moderators and the OP are apparently smoking crack today. Did you guys even read the other comments or TFA? Durr, wait, this is Slashdot, of course not.

I'd rather live in a place where I can refuse a service than force everyone to pay for it.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

You said "the prick is FORCED to pay for the fire service that he doesn't want"... but he did want it. He begged for it. He offered to pay what basically amounted to a bribe for it when firefighters turned up.

Re:socialism

[Myopic]

I suppose you could say that, but I'm looking around not seeing any instances of public fire departments extorting emergency fees from the public. Public services are run professionally and with an eye for serving the public instead of maximizing profits. That's why this sort of enterprise is best run by the government. And I don't want to argue about it, so if you disagree you can have the last word.

Re:socialism

[dcw3]

This is what happens when you don't have socialism.

Highly off-topic, and trollish of an AC. You mods should be ashamed.

Re:socialism

[cheekyjohnson]

"Yeah, sounds like a great plan."

Saving innocent animals when you have the ability to do so is a great plan, yes.

Re:socialism

[ViViDboarder]

Nope. No argument here.

I agree with you that I'm not seeing it either in public instances. I think that you're right that there is little chance of corruption in a case of government run fire depot.

In fact, I'd prefer my fire depot run by my county as well rather than privately.

Re:socialism

[RoFLKOPTr]

Funny, I hear him saying he wanted the service.

He wanted the service AFTER it became necessary. Before his house started burning to the ground, he was the prick that refused to give $75 to the government.

So if we take my example about socialism and your explanation of the actions he's taken, then I guess my property taxes should only go up to pay for the fire department after my house burns down... which isn't socialism at all.

Re:socialism

[magus_melchior]

That's a possibility, but IMO it's just as likely the judge/jury will see it as a fair payment for services rendered, as the fire victim* didn't opt into fire service but asked for it. Since the FD arrived as the house was burning down (the timing is a bit fuzzy), not putting out the fire could make the FD and city liable for negligence. I'm not a lawyer, of course, so I could be totally wrong.

* Victim of his own stupidity, perhaps.

Re:socialism

[sourcerror]

There's no fire-department, because they want lower taxes.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

I would loved the deal.

Fire/EMT is probably 30% of my local government's budget. That means my tax bill would be on 70% what it is now if I could make other arrangements.

30% of my local taxes is a LOT more than $75.

The free market works again!

Re:socialism

[sourcerror]

Well, you can't force people to start a firefighting business.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's a good thing. Under capitalism, you can be guaranteed that all of the other neighbors that "forgot" to pay their service fee have now sent in their checks.

Capitalism teaches one to be responsible for their own lives and actions. Socialism caters to the free loaders of society.

Re:socialism

[rochberg]

Exactly the same as getting cancer after choosing not to pay for health insurance.

Well, yeah, it'd be exactly the same if every physician refused to give you chemotherapy, even if you offer to pay out of pocket. Fortunately, the medical profession is regulated and they have to follow the Hyppocratic Oath.

Re:socialism

[shutdown -p now]

This is still socialism in action. Where's the competing fire department?

In a true anarcho-capitalist society, it would be setting someone else's house on fire, so I'm not sure why I should prefer that.

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you don't have socialism.

How did you get insightful? Does no-one pay attention to the meaning of words? On a nerd discussion site of all places>

Socialism is when the means of production are owned by the state. Firefighting equipment is not "the means of production" it's an emergency service. Having armed forces is not socialism, having courts is not socialism, having police is not socialism, having a fire department is not socialism.

How can you have intelligent discussion if you just make up new meanings for words whenever it suits you? Parent post is flamebait, not insightful.

Re:socialism

[Kurofuneparry]

The fire-department in question was a social program, just not administered correctly. They're already spread their coverage area in a response to the backlash. This is an example of what you get from poorly administered socialism, which is the most common type.

Re:socialism

[lawpoop]

the prick is FORCED to pay for the fire service that he doesn't want." Yeah, sounds like a great plan.

You've got the key point backwards: it turns out this prick wanted the firefighting after all. He said he didn't want it, didn't pay for it, and then when push came to shove, he actually wanted it, and was willing to pay for it.

Re:socialism

[tmosley]

I sure can't think of any public services that are better than private equivalents, at least prior to the government enforcing rules and regulations to prevent competition with the government in such sectors.

Generally, the arguments brought up against private services include use of patently illegal tactics that were rarely if ever used by the industry in question, and for which any failure to prosecute was the fault of the government, not the industry. For example, we have private firemen starting fires, well, there are plenty of examples of firemen starting fires today. This is done by gloryhounds. Other people bring up the issue of murders or assaults by Pinkertons. The Pinkertons who committed such acts were forced to answer for their behavior in court, and were dealt with particularly harshly. Police, not so much.

Hell, I won't even call the police, because they are more likely to kill me, a member of my family, or my dogs as they are to arrest any lawbreakers in the area. In my own hometown, the police responded to a guy who was suicidal, where the wife said there was a gun in the house. He didn't have the gun in his hand, but it was at the bottom of the closet, disassembled with no bullets. The police surrounded the house, and opened fire, leaving some 300 bullet holes in the house. One policeman was killed (or injured, I don't recall) by a bullet that went through the house. Turns out it was fired by another officer. They tried to pin it on the guy, who they put in the hospital with some half dozen gunshot wounds. He was only let off when they found out where the gun was, and proved that the bullet that struck the officer came from a rifle rather than a handgun. There are huge numbers of incidents like this, but we let the police get away with it because they are authority figures.

The same is the case with most any other government organization, whether it be the DMV, the IRS (who now have shock troops, by the way), or Homeland Security. They all stand in the way of freedom and real progress. Why do you think we don't have flying cars yet? Is it because technology is not advancing as fast as we thought it would back in the 50's? NO! It's because the FAA refuses to change its policies, leaving us stuck in the same situation we were in when they were formed. Further, the costs they impose create monolithic corporations that commingle with regulatory agencies to the ends of disaster for all (see BP).

To fully illustrate the scope of this problem, think of the United States in the year 1900. Economically, we were the most powerful nation on the planet. Militarily, we were a bit of a backwater, but that's ok, we didn't need to kill brown people (we still don't, but we keep doing it for some reason). We did have strong border defenses, especially with Poncho Villa wreaking havoc along the border. We had a respectable navy, and a strong merchant marine corp. Total government spending was 2% of GDP. 2%!

Today it's 40%! We have military bases all around the world, are engaged in three wars, and our economy is crumbling. Everything is being nationalized, from student loans, to banking, to car companies, to the stock market. Clearly, more government spending is not what we need. But we're going to get it, no matter what us "little people" think about it. This is not a matter of left or right. Both the left and the right have conspired over the last hundred years to increase their own power and wealth, while selling the freedoms of the American people down the river. They have promoted these very form of thinking that says that "governments can compete with private industry", and that they can somehow "save the free market" while fully ignoring its principles. Well screw that. We don't need ANY government "services", and we certainly don't need 95% of the crap they shovel down our throats, whether they are war, empire, or bankrupt social programs set up like Ponzi schemes.

Re:socialism

[RoFLKOPTr]

He said he didn't want it, didn't pay for it, and then when push came to shove, he actually wanted it, and was willing to pay for it.

EXACTLY. He wanted to buy into what is essentially fire insurance after his house caught fire. Do you think it only costs $75 to put out a house fire? No, because that's ridiculous. It costs more in the thousands of dollars. If he had said "here, I'll cut you a check for however much it costs to put out my fire," that would be fine and dandy. What he wanted to do was akin to buying life insurance when your doctor tells you you're going to die next week.

Re:socialism

[makomk]

Yea, and in America they'd be charged with Arson and then sued for property damage.

Assuming anyone could prove they'd done it, yes. What's more, fire departments would have an incentive to frame their competitors for arson as well. (The era of private fire companies in London was back before there was a state-funded police force or widely-distributed newspapers, as I recall,so this wasn't viable back then.)

Re:socialism

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's what happens when you have communism which is merely one extreme form of socialism.

Re:socialism

[LanMan04]

When you DO have socialism, the prick is FORCED to pay for the fire service that he doesn't want.

Oh, he wanted it alright. He just didn't think he had to pay for it and that they'd still show up. Looks like he thought wrong.

Re:socialism

[rbarreira]

Exactly the same as getting cancer after choosing not to pay for health insurance.

Except cancer is usually not contagious, and a fire is definitely contagious. If the fire had quickly spread and completely destroyed a nearby house which had paid the fee, what would the firefighters say to the owner of this house?

Follow this argument for a while and the obvious conclusion is that you just can't have an optional fee for a service like fire protection. It doesn't work.

Re:socialism

[gfreeman]

There's no law preventing someone else from starting one.

I guess that's true in some places, but I'd expect that in most urban European cities you'd not be able to start up your own for-profit firefighting service.

Re:socialism

[jcr]

Look, privatized fire departments don't work.

That will be news to these people.

They don't make economic sense.

Oh, really?

From a quick glance at their ten-year chart and their market valuation, I'd have to conclude that you don't know what you're talking about.

-jcr

This happened to me once!

[Idimmu Xul]

This one time I didn't have contents insurance and got robbed and all the insurance companies stood around doing nothing because I didn't have a policy with any of them!

Re:This happened to me once!

[SoTerrified]

This one time I didn't have contents insurance and got robbed and all the insurance companies stood around doing nothing because I didn't have a policy with any of them!

What? And when you said "I'll happily buy your policy now", I bet the evil insurance company didn't even allow you to do that.

I'm firmly in the camp that, the guy didn't pay the $75 fee, he's responsible for his own fire prevention. *shrug*.

Re:This happened to me once!

[rwven]

All I'm saying is that it's a good thing EMS services don't operate under the same principal...

Re:This happened to me once!

[weiserfireman]

Federal EMTALA law is the only reason why. They used to operate that way, if they existed at all.

Re:This happened to me once!

[Anonymous Coward]

This one time I didn't have contents insurance and got robbed and all the insurance companies stood around doing nothing because I didn't have a policy with any of them!

Which is why some services aren't voluntary, and we have taxes to cover them. Fire departments shouldn't operate like private insurances. If you live in that area, it should be included in your property taxes, and you shouldn't have the option not to pay.

Freaking hell, dude. It's one thing to not have contents insurance and not being able to collect on insurance money. It's another thing entirely if you hear the thief entering your home and have the police refuse to come to your rescue because you didn't pay a fee. The only thing alive inside his house happened to be pets, but what if someone was trapped inside? Are you really willing to let some random irresponsible dude's child die because the guy didn't pay his fire services fee?

Re:This happened to me once!

[Myopic]

Indeed, nor should it be. Most of us recognize human life as a specially valuable thing, more than pretty much any other thing, such as a double-wide trailer (or any personal property). Our society long ago set up structures to protect human life, and those structures execute categorically, by which I mean an EMT will save any human life at any time no matter what. We also set up structures (such as fire departments) to protect personal property, but some backwards places decided they didn't want them -- and that's the case in Tennessee.

Basically my point is that human life is different, and it's different for a reason.

Re:This happened to me once!

[alta]

I see what you did there. Pretty good. Very subtle, I like it.

Re:This happened to me once!

[Daniel_Staal]

I suspect the fire department would have gone in if anyone's actual life were in danger, fee or no fee.

Of course, they'd just save the person's life, not stop the rest of the fire.

Re:This happened to me once!

[rwven]

So if there were humans killed in this house fire, how would you feel about this stupid $75 fee?

Re:This happened to me once!

[Ngarrang]

All I'm saying is that it's a good thing EMS services don't operate under the same principal...

At least my area, EMS sends you a bill if you use their services. Local taxes support equipment purchases and maintenance. The EMS agents are volunteers. If you actually use the service, you get a bill later, which under most health insurances, is covered.

Re:This happened to me once!

[rwven]

Bull. They didn't even show up.

Re:This happened to me once!

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

They did show up, they would have gone in (they are required to) to save a person, and would have fought the fire to the extent to save the person's life

Re:This happened to me once!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it is. Remember that the next time you or someone around you uses the phrase "obama care" or cries about socialized medicine in disgust.

Re:This happened to me once!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is their principal?

Re:This happened to me once!

[Myopic]

The fee would be inconsequential to my feelings. If firefighters stood around and blithely witnessed the death of humans, then I would think that was bad. If they tried to help and couldn't, I would think that was sad but fine.

My feelings happen to align with the law in this case: human life is different than all other things, so I am willing to accept that firefighters blithly stand around watching a house burn in places where free people have democratically decided that that should be the lawful course of action for firefighters. (Although I personally prefer big government paid for by high taxes.)

Re:This happened to me once!

[SmurfButcher Bob]

You're a full of sh*t troll.

If there were humans in that fire, the FFs would have done what was necessary to rescue them. It's called a Duty to Act.

Once life-safety issues are resolved, the duty ends.

Period.

Re:This happened to me once!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? I'd gladly pay $75/year for EMS service for my family!

Re:This happened to me once!

[rwven]

Yeah, I've heard of ambulance fees and junk like that. That seems to be pretty standard.

well maybe

[yourlord]

he'll learn to pay the fee once they haul in his next doublewide.

His neighbor had paid the fee so the fire department came out and hosed down the neighbor's house to make sure it didn't spread to it.

Re:well maybe

[SharpFang]

Remember to pay your crime insurance. Otherwise the next time a bandit stabs you with a knife, the Police will arrive and just look out so that no paying citizen gets stabbed, while you bleed to death.

Re:well maybe

[Gadget_Guy]

The problem with that policy is that it endangers the neighbor's houses and everyone's lives. If I were a paid-up neighbor, I would be pissed off at any damage that could have been prevented.

I really don't see what the problem is. If the householder doesn't pay the $75, charge them $1000 when you come out to save the house. That way the surrounding properties are not put in danger, the fire department gets more money than they otherwise would have and they don't end up looking like petty, money hungry dicks.

Re:well maybe

[yourlord]

in my area my government confiscates my money and a portion of that is used to fund our local police.

I'd much rather have the option to keep my money and pay for a private police option. That way I can have enough control to ensure my money won't be wasted unjustly imprisoning people for non-crimes like drugs and prostitution. Of course if I tried to not pay the government their shakedown money, they would send those same police to beat it out of me or throw me in jail and confiscate my private property.

Having said that, our police should not venture into another area and provide their services to people who are not being pillaged to pay for them.

Re:well maybe

[Sprouticus]

two parts of this statement are false

1) Police service is mandatory to my knowledge. I have never heard of a optional police fee.

2) We as a society place a much higher value on human life than we do property. This is why anyone can walk into a hospital and get treatment to stablize them for free.

Re:well maybe

[characterZer0]

If the voters in a democracy are dumb enough to have the police department operate that way, that is what they would get. Remember, this is a democracy. The people decided not to have a fire department and to instead contract on an individual basis.

Re:well maybe

[yourlord]

Charge them $1000? Ever tried to squeeze blood from a turnip? Especially when that turnip just lost all it's possessions and probably has no other insurance? Not to mention the strong chance that the turnip can and will just bankrupt on your bill?

They don't look like money hungry dicks to me.. They look like a fire department operating within a budget and providing the services they were contracted to provide to the people who contracted them to provide them!

Re:well maybe

[VJ42]

2) We as a society place a much higher value on human life than we do property.

So if someone was trapped in the house, would the Firemen have saved it?

Re:well maybe

[tophermeyer]

#1 is not entirely correct. Google "Warren v. District of Columbia". Basically the precedent set is that while Police exist to protect society at larg, they are are under no obligation to provide individual protection. As an individual I cannot expect the Police to render me personal protection, though most PD's will do their best to offer it anyway. Police primarily serve to prevent and investigate crime, not to stop it in the act.

To me this story sounds like a bit of ridiculous politicking on the part of some local government official. I know a few volunteer firefighters, and I can't imagine the guys I know would stand around and let that building burn just because the owner failed to pay his $75.

Re:well maybe

[weiserfireman]

Department used to try and charge non-subscribers $500 for responding. Less than 50% paid that bill. They would ignore a $1000 bill too.

Re:well maybe

[alta]

The person was not in life or death peril. And as for the pets, tell the fireman's little girl that daddy died trying to save a socialists little kitty. I'm sure the kitty part will make it all ok.

Re:well maybe

[Gadget_Guy]

Ever tried to squeeze blood from a turnip? Especially when that turnip just lost all it's possessions and probably has no other insurance?

The point was that he might not have lost all his possessions if they hadn't just stood around watching it all burn down.

They don't look like money hungry dicks to me.. They look like a fire department operating within a budget and providing the services they were contracted to provide to the people who contracted them to provide them!

No, they were dicks. The homeowner said that he would pay them but they refused. And the fire department paid their firefighters to stand around and watch. How much would they have been out of pocket if they had actually done something about the fire?

People respect firefighters and call them heroes because they save people and their homes. I certainly do. But those guys in the picture weren't heroes, they are just opportunistic pond scum.

Re:well maybe

[Revotron]

Yes. Fire and EMS services are legally required to respond to calls of life in distress.

As the mayor of the town noted, the fire department responds to any and all directly life-threatening calls.

And I know there is legislation requiring that EMS responders treat and transport life-threatening calls regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.

However, in this case no *human* lives were at stake. Therefore the fire department is not obligated to respond to a call that is not within their coverage boundary. Additionally, stepping outside of their boundaries would have voided any occupational hazard insurance they may carry, because providing fire response outside of their duty radius is considered action outside of the line of duty.

Re:well maybe

[yourlord]

Ever had a house fire where the fire department showed up and hosed it down? Everything in the house is basically a total loss either way. Between heat damage, smoke damage, and water damage, it all ends up on the scrap heap. So yes, he probably still would have lost everything.

He said he would pay them... $75... It probably costs more than that to turn the key on the water pumps.

It costs more than $75 an incident to fund a fire department. That's why they spread that cost out over the out-of-jurisdiction subscribers at $75 each. If they would show up and put out fires and just take a check for $75, then NO ONE would pony up the yearly fee, and that per incident fee would rapidly go up to not $75, but more like $75,000..

This fire department would not even have driven to the scene, at all, if one of the people who had subscribed hadn't called them to make sure the fire didn't spread to his house. Exactly as they were supposed to do.

Re:well maybe

[anUnhandledException]

So when he doesn't pay the $10,000 what then? You are ware that trillions in debt gets written off as uncollectable every year.

So the guy so reckless and irresponsible to not pay $75 upfront will suddenly become some responsible to pay $10,000 AFTER his home is already saved? I think not.

So where does the $10,000 default loss come from? From all the responsible people. So instead of paying $75 they pay $80, or 85 just so this jack wagon can be cheap and save $75. Why?

Simple concept:
Pay $75 and home is protected. He didn't pay, his home isn't protected..

Re:well maybe

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

Are you fucking kidding me? I wish all insurance worked that way! Not to mention, the firefighters own health insurance wont cover them if they get hurt fighting that guys fire.

Re:well maybe

[ChefInnocent]

Well, that $1000 can be covered by a simple lien. If the owner doesn't pay, then a lien sale happens. It's how many other things happen. You don't pay your property taxes, a lien gets placed. You don't pay the plumber for his services, he can place a lien. Depending on how the state & county laws are written, you get enough liens or the liens go unpaid long enough, the property is seized and sold.

Re:well maybe

[cheekyjohnson]

"We as a society place a much higher value on human life"

Apparently we place the same amount of value in innocent animals as we do property. Sad.

Re:well maybe

[cheekyjohnson]

"Remember, this is a democracy"

It's a republic, a democracies more corrupted form.

Re:well maybe

[Achromatic1978]

However, in this case no *human* lives were at stake. Therefore the fire department is not obligated to respond to a call that is not within their coverage boundary. Additionally, stepping outside of their boundaries would have voided any occupational hazard insurance they may carry, because providing fire response outside of their duty radius is considered action outside of the line of duty.

Agreed, but to clarify, there would have been lives at stake, those of the firefighters. One of the first things we are taught? "Risk a lot to save a lot. Risk little to save little."

Re:well maybe

[shentino]

Seeing as county fire protection has been voted down, I think both him and his neighbor got what they deserved.

Re:well maybe

[SmurfButcher Bob]

You also neglect to mention the timeframe involved - how much time the homeowner had to remove the pets, himself.

Two hours, I hear?

Re:well maybe

[Gadget_Guy]

Ever had a house fire where the fire department showed up and hosed it down? Everything in the house is basically a total loss either way. Between heat damage, smoke damage, and water damage, it all ends up on the scrap heap.

Yes, I have had that happen and no I didn't lose everything. Our fire department turns up quickly (and saved the house) because they didn't need to haggle about the price. It was free.

Our ambulance service does charge a call out fee, which is waived if you pay a yearly fee. However, they do not haggle first - they come out and do the job and THEN worry about the money. Sure there might be some people who don't pay. After all, they might be coming out to a burn victim who lost everything in a house fire. If the person ends up dying then they are out of luck. But they could factor that into rate the non-subscribers pay. The system does work.

Re:well maybe

[SharpFang]

Well, you were a non-contributing citizen, unemployed, maybe even used drugs. How would the policeman's daughter feel if her father died defending some lazy bum from bandits?

It's a slippery slope. Pets today, elder tomorrow...

You don't pay your premiums...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you don't have coverage. What's so hard to understand about that?

And yes, paying your fees for fire service is, essentially, an insurance premium.

Summary is retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary conveniently omits the fact that the firefighters DID respond - they showed up and WATCHED THE HOUSE BURN. Even better, when the fire started to move into a neighbor's yard they put *that* part out. Welcome to everywhere in the US circa 2020 if the teabaggers have their way.

Re:Summary is retarded

[aenea]

They responded because the neighbor DID pay for fire protection. Which is why they put out the fire on the neighbor's property. I'm not sure what you point is: the home owner lives outside of the town. The town can't tax him to pay for fire services. The town voluntarily allows people to pay $75/year to be included in the town's fire protection services. The home owner didn't pay. The neighbor did. Everything pretty much worked the way it was supposed to.

Re:Summary is retarded

[tiberus]

I'd bet a pretty penny that everyone (okay maybe just nearly everyone) in that area has been told what will happen in the event of a fire if you haven't paid your fee and/or knows a story of this happening. Our local fire company was quite blunt about it, no pay no play. While I feel for the guy and his family, I seriously doubt he had a reasonable expectation he would be protected if his home caught fire.

Re:Summary is retarded

[Culture20]

They responded because the neighbor DID pay for fire protection. Which is why they put out the fire on the neighbor's property. I'm not sure what you point is: the home owner lives outside of the town. The town can't tax him to pay for fire services. The town voluntarily allows people to pay $75/year to be included in the town's fire protection services. The home owner didn't pay. The neighbor did. Everything pretty much worked the way it was supposed to.

The owner was there and was willing to pay money. They could have asked for thousands and gotten it from him gladly. They were being evil just to be evil. Instead of saving what wealth he had (and splitting the wealth with the owner), they gleefully watched it burn.

Re:Summary is retarded

[aenea]

The guy that refused to pay them $75, is going to pay thousands? Did he have the cash on him?

The city used to have a policy that allowed non-payers to be billed $500 (not thousands). 50% never paid.

Re:Summary is retarded

[Culture20]

The guy that refused to pay them $75, is going to pay thousands?

From TFA:

Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out. His offer wasn't accepted, he said.

Perhaps he had a wad of cash inside. Perhaps he could have sold some antiques inside. Perhaps he could have sold the (saved) house to pay for half of the blank check he offered the fire department, and kept the other half. Instead, because the Fire Chief David Wilds had a stick up his butt, both parties lost out.

Uh..

[iONiUM]

I realize they were in their "rights" legally and such to put out the neighbours fire and not his.. (from the TFA, they just sat there and made sure it didn't spread). But I mean, as a human, what the fuck. Is there so little empathy?

Why couldn't they have put it out and then billed him? He probably would have been so happy he would have paid it. This reeks of callousness. What have "we" become (I'm not american, but I am a human, I think..)

Re:Uh..

[MozeeToby]

As decent human beings, I would imagine that many of the firefighters wanted to help the guy out. On the other hand, what kind of precedent does that set? Don't pay and your house is on fire? Well, I guess we'll help out this time. What incentive would there be for anyone to pay the fee if they all knew that the fire department would come and help them out anyway? No... as much as it pains me to say it, the fire department made the right choice, if they had done anything else the whole system would fall apart. Maybe that would have been a good thing, but I don't see that it is the firefighters job to make that decision.

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Because then everyone would do that. And you cannot have the equipment ready and the staff on hand and trained in the hopes that occasionally someone will pay you $75. What about the empathy the homeowner could have had in paying $75 so the community could benefit without knowing for sure if he'd need the service himself?

Re:Uh..

[anUnhandledException]

If one could get after the fact coverage by just paying $75 when their house IS ON FIRE..... why would ANYONE. I mean ANYONE pay $75 before hand.

Simply don't pay. If you house doesn't catch fire... cool you saved $75. If it does then you just pay $75.

I mean it would be like not having health insurance, having a heart attack, getting $50K in bills. Then you call up insurance company and say. I will get insurance. I'll pay $400 premium for last month and you retroactively cover my $50K in expenses.

The insurance company would laugh you off the phone.

The guy is an idiot. He took a risk. Had it worked out over his life he would have saved a couple grand.

Re:Uh..

[geekoid]

NO, you bill them for the cost, not the missed payment. The entire cost. which I believe is about 7500 dollars.

Re:Uh..

[Ephemeriis]

I realize they were in their "rights" legally and such to put out the neighbours fire and not his.. (from the TFA, they just sat there and made sure it didn't spread). But I mean, as a human, what the fuck. Is there so little empathy?

As human beings, I'm sure there was plenty of empathy. And now that this guy's got national attention, I'm sure there will be plenty more. There'll be donations a-plenty. He'll probably be fine.

But water isn't free... Nor is the gas to drive the truck out there... Nor are the paychecks that all the fire fighters collect... You can't really run a fire department for free. If they start running around, putting out fires for free, pretty soon there won't be a fire department at all.

Why couldn't they have put it out and then billed him? He probably would have been so happy he would have paid it. This reeks of callousness. What have "we" become (I'm not american, but I am a human, I think..)

Fire departments cost money all the time, not just when stuff is on fire. You have to pay to maintain the equipment, pay the employees, etc. You need that money year-round, not just when stuff is on fire. And, if you're lucky, more people pay you (via taxes or fees) than people actually have fires. So you don't have to charge every single person the full cost of putting out their fire.

If they were allowed to collect money at the time of the fire, nobody would pay ahead of time. I mean, hell, why would you? Pay $75 now on the off chance that you might have a fire... Or pay $75 when your house is actually in flames, and if it never burns you don't have to pay... Tough choice!

But then the fire department has no money to maintain anything, no money to hire anyone. And then you've got no fire department at all.

Re:Uh..

[geekoid]

It set the precedent that your human beings.

I don't know why this is missed by people here, but OBVIOUSLY you would bill him for putting it out. OBVIOUSLY I mean the entire cost not the 75 dollars.

I would get fired before I let someones home burn down. To hide behind 'policy' and rules is a way to cover up entrenched callousness and cowardice.

The whole thing reeks of 3rd world policy.

Re:Uh..

[Dunbal]

I mean it would be like not having health insurance, having a heart attack, getting $50K in bills.

My recent heart attack just cost me $130k. Check your prices...

Re:Uh..

[Byzantine]

I realize they were in their "rights" legally and such to put out the neighbours fire and not his.. (from the TFA, they just sat there and made sure it didn't spread). But I mean, as a human, what the fuck. Is there so little empathy?

Why couldn't they have put it out and then billed him? He probably would have been so happy he would have paid it. This reeks of callousness. What have "we" become (I'm not american, but I am a human, I think..)

Is there so little empathy? Yes. There is. And quite rightly so, in this case.[1] This is simply the free-rider problem writ in large, fiery letters—basic economics. Fire departments have enormous up-front costs to acquire resources like equipment, maintenance, training, etc. Every time a department deploys those resources, it lessens its ability to respond to future emergencies. With building owners or tenants paying fees, the department can potentially replenish those resources. If they deploy those resources on buildings whose owners or tenants have not paid the fees, well, they've just become a barrel with a hole in the bottom. Eventually, the department may well put itself into a situation where it can't put out any fires except the barbecue pit next to the station.

As for billing afterwards—well, I'll just say that gratitude is not nearly as widespread in this fallen world as you seem to think it is. Further, if there's a fee system in place, and the fire department responds to anybody regardless of whether they've paid, you've just removed the incentive for anyone to pay. As I mentioned, fire departments have large up-front costs; without money to pay them, goodbye, fire department.

The Right Answer, of course, is make paying the "fee" mandatory, i.e., a tax, and have it enforced by the government. That's the difficulty with democracy, though; you can't make people choose the Right Answer.

[1] Caveat: I only read the summary, not the article.

Re:Uh..

[MozeeToby]

How do you figure out what to bill him? Cost of the firefighters time? Cost of the water used? Cost of the fuel used to get out there? Cost of wear and tear on equipment? Cost of insurance for the firefighting personnel? What about equipment that is damaged? Do you negotiate a price before you start helping (which you have no way of knowing the total cost) or do you drop a bill for $10k+ on the guy afterword and have him refuse or be unable to pay?

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple cost of putting out fires is not the entire cost of maintaining a fire department in a state of readiness. Unless you're going to also bill the owner for the firefighters' pay, training costs, and equipment/facilities costs between his fire and the last fire, it's still a losing proposition for the fire department. The only real solution is to pay the entire cost of the department with a fee that you can't opt out of... which takes us back to taxes.

Re:Uh..

[0123456]

NO, you bill them for the cost, not the missed payment. The entire cost. which I believe is about 7500 dollars.

While I agree that would have been a better solution, if they won't pay a whole $75 a year to have firefighting service (which is negligible compared to the cost of maintaining the average house), what makes you think they'll pay a bill for $7500 after you put the fire out?

Re:Uh..

[Mirey]

Would you be willing to risk your life for someone who doesn't want your services anyway?

Re:Uh..

[anUnhandledException]

Ouch. I haven't had a heart attack (yet). Still $5K, $50K, or $130K no entity could survive by offering retroactive insurance.

Re:Uh..

[Combatso]

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no.. then put a lien on the house and sue his insurance company.. I am suprised the insurance company doesnt make it mandatory to have this service paid up to date...

Re:Uh..

[anUnhandledException]

Then the firedept gets to be a bill collection service too which increases costs and overhead for the 99.999999999999999999% of people smart enough to protect their home for $75.

Then like any other debt some % becomes noncollectable which further increases costs.

The county has no fire dept. If they (residents collectively) want fire coverage they could simply raise taxes and have a fire dept.

Alternatively the county could raise taxes and simply pay lump sum fee to the town to "cover" the entire county.

Likely neither of those have happened because the $75 fee is a good enough value and easily enough paid that for 99% of county residents they simply pay it (like they do utility bills and homeowners insurance).

Re:Uh..

[hsmith]

If they can't pay $75, I doubt they can pay $7,500...

Re:Uh..

[abigsmurf]

It's not that hard. Policing large events and festivals frequently involves the organisers being billed for it, sometimes retroactively, sometimes in advance. Any fire service that doesn't have a good idea of what the costs are when the firemen are called out frankly have utterly incompetent book keepers. They know how many man hours it took, how much any materials cost, maintenence and wear and tear on equiptment. You can even bill the time it takes for someone to calculate this.

You then claim this money off of his insurance or get a court to enforce him to pay it back in installments (when again, you can bill him for any costs arising through doing this).

Re:Uh..

[guru42101]

Makes sense to me.

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize they were in their "rights" legally and such to put out the neighbours fire and not his.. (from the TFA, they just sat there and made sure it didn't spread). But I mean, as a human, what the fuck. Is there so little empathy?

Why couldn't they have put it out and then billed him? He probably would have been so happy he would have paid it. This reeks of callousness. What have "we" become (I'm not american, but I am a human, I think..)

Jeez. I had to read half a page of idiotic comments until iONiUM injected some sanity into the conversation.

Re:Uh..

[dkleinsc]

But how about being able to afford $7500, but refusing to pay the $75 based on some (stupid) principle?

What I'm actually wondering is how the homeowner's insurance companies will react. My guess: they'll figure out which areas don't have public fire departments that save everybody's house regardless of whether they can afford a fee, and charge those people more than $75 extra unless they submit proof that they've paid up.

Re:Uh..

[operagost]

I mean it would be like not having health insurance, having a heart attack, getting $50K in bills. Then you call up insurance company and say. I will get insurance. I'll pay $400 premium for last month and you retroactively cover my $50K in expenses.

This is pretty much what will happen under ObamaCare. Dissenters will have to pay a fine every year, but the fine will cost a LOT less than health insurance.

Re:Uh..

[elrous0]

Would it have been "empathy" to fuck over the 100 people who paid *their* fees just to save this lazy fuck's cat?

Re:Uh..

[Mr.Intel]

I realize they were in their "rights" legally and such to put out the neighbours fire and not his.. (from the TFA, they just sat there and made sure it didn't spread). But I mean, as a human, what the ****. Is there so little empathy?

Why couldn't they have put it out and then billed him? He probably would have been so happy he would have paid it. This reeks of callousness. What have "we" become (I'm not american, but I am a human, I think..)

I imagine that if the guy or his wife or kid were trapped in the house, they would have done something. Since it's just property, they were under no such humanistic constraint. Human compassion has to have limits, or we would go around trying to fix every injustice. So I say, "well done" on calling it right for such a tough situation.

Re:Uh..

[Xyrus]

Oh they could have, but your forgetting something.

The guy didn't pay. Fine. However since he didn't pay there was no standing legal contract. Does that prevent them from putting out the fire? No. Does it open them to litigation? Hell yeah.

I'm pretty sure they didn't stand around because they wanted to. They were standing around because if they went ahead and put out the fire, then the owner could simply sue them for any number of reasons which would cost well in excess of the cost for putting out the fire. This would end up impacting everyone else who actually DOES pay for the service or even potentially bankrupting the fire department.

Even IF verbal agreement were accepted in the state of Tennessee, the guy could still sue them and say the decision was made under duress.

It may sound completely stupid and ridiculous but remember we live in a country where stupid and ridiculous can get you big court judgments.

Re:Uh..

[ydrol]

Surely a fire department knows how much it costs (all inclusive) to put out a fire.

Re:Uh..

[glassware]

>> I would get fired

I see what you did there.

Re:Uh..

[NeutronCowboy]

And if he can't or doesn't want to pay that? You sue, get in held up in court, add lawyer costs, add load to the court system.... To fully allow the city and the county to break even, it will be even more than that. A few people like that, and your fire department goes quickly bankrupt.

Re:Uh..

[LinuxAndLube]

Ever heard of the concept of a 'business', 'detailed invoice', etc ?

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, someone with some common sense. We don't need socialism, etc. just some good old fashioned common decency.
In the rural area of Missouri I live in, I have the option of paying a fee for fire protection, which I pay. I am not required to pay the fee, but in order to prevent situations like the above from happening, the fire department is still required by state law to respond and put the fire out if my home were to catch fire. The law also gives the fire department the option of billing me a set fee for putting out the fire if I did not pay the much smaller optional fee beforehand. Seems like a fair and reasonable arrangement for all parties to me.

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the perfect solution for a portable cellphone-enabled credit card reader that I've used at fireworks booths here in California. Fire department shows up, informs them they will not put out the fire as he didn't pay the $75 fee, but for a one-time charge of $7,500 they will put it out. Get a signature and run the credit card ran and approved, and put out the fire.

Both sides win: the home owner gets his stuff saved (worth well more than $7,500) and the fire put out, and the fire department gets what they need, financial support.

Re:Uh..

[dcw3]

NO, you bill them for the cost, not the missed payment. The entire cost. which I believe is about 7500 dollars.

Sending a bill doesn't mean that you'll get paid, and isn't enforceable. And if he doesn't pay, they can't legally fine him...he doesn't live in their jurisdiction. They could try to bill, and take him to court when he doesn't pay, but that's simply not a viable solution either. Why do people keep missing these points that have already been laid out above!?!

Re:Uh..

[Helix_Sky]

Did you miss the point that the fire department wasn't even in the same county? You pay the $75 dollars so that you can have a fire department in the first place. Crying that someone else's "socialism" should take care of you is hypocritical.

Re:Uh..

[Maxo-Texas]

A fine paid annually is basically a health insurance premium.

But yes, if the cost of running the system exceeds the fine then it won't continue to offer the same services.

Of course the US system is not only grossly more expensive but also does a worse job for people below median income and those who lack insurance.

It's great if you are in the top half of income and have insurance- even better if you have a gold plated health plan (typical for company executives) or are in the top 2% of income.

Re:Uh..

[jbssm]

The whole thing reeks of 3rd world policy.

No, not really, even 3rd world countries have universal fire coverage (it's even strange to write "universal fire coverage" ... never though some country could be so backwards not to have it since the middle ages, so never tough about writing it).

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

How would they enforce the bill getting paid in a county they have no jurisdiction over?

Suddenly nobody pays the $75 or the bills that come after their fire gets put out.

Re:Uh..

[Achromatic1978]

Fire departments have enormous up-front costs to acquire resources like equipment, maintenance, training, etc. Every time a department deploys those resources, it lessens its ability to respond to future emergencies.

There is, and I don't think many people realize that. Our area just bought a new ladder truck. How much do you think that thing cost? $1.2 million. And all that equipment. Struts to stabilize your car while we pull you out of it? $20,000. Jaws to cut open said car? $20-40,000. Basic FF training? $2,000... EMS? $2,000... incident command, fire behavior, adjunct training (night ops, hybrid cars, etc, etc)... cha-ching, cash register. Facilities. Maintenance.... it adds up.

Re:Uh..

[shutdown -p now]

Then the firedept gets to be a bill collection service too which increases costs and overhead for the 99.999999999999999999% of people smart enough to protect their home for $75.

Then like any other debt some % becomes noncollectable which further increases costs.

I think it's an acceptable compromise for not being a third world country (as we suddenly found out!).

Re:Uh..

[shutdown -p now]

My recent heart attack just cost me $130k.

Since you're still alive to post this, I assume they didn't yet tell you how much your second heart attack (after you found out about $130K) will cost?

Well, they got to keep their customers, I guess...

Re:Uh..

[shutdown -p now]

Well, if I were one of the guys who paid the fee, I wouldn't consider that being "fucked up". Furthermore, I dare say that the word "sociopath" is quite applicable to those who would.

Re:Uh..

[Yakasha]

NO, you bill them for the cost, not the missed payment. The entire cost. which I believe is about 7500 dollars.

While I agree that would have been a better solution, if they won't pay a whole $75 a year to have firefighting service (which is negligible compared to the cost of maintaining the average house), what makes you think they'll pay a bill for $7500 after you put the fire out?

Why was this flagged troll? That is exactly the argument I would have used.

I'll even add to it:
Why should the city subject its citizens to a possible lawsuit to cover this guy? What if after they save his house he claims he never asked them to and sues for the water damage?

Re:Uh..

[shentino]

Simple.

Put a fireman's lien on the property.

Re:Uh..

[SmurfButcher Bob]

You put a lien on his burnt double-wide?

Ok, there's $12. Where's the remaining $14988 come from?

Re:Uh..

[moortak]

Then instead of standing around being foul human beings there should have been a policy in place to bill him for the actual cost, yes including his share of standby time and costs that extend beyond the moment. If you worry about it being paid have it be a lien applied to the house.

Re:Uh..

[Ramahan]

It set the precedent that your human beings.

I don't know why this is missed by people here, but OBVIOUSLY you would bill him for putting it out. OBVIOUSLY I mean the entire cost not the 75 dollars.

I would get fired before I let someones home burn down. To hide behind 'policy' and rules is a way to cover up entrenched callousness and cowardice.

The whole thing reeks of 3rd world policy.

Fun to see all the whack Jobs who keep focusing on the "Forgotten payment" without realizing what wasn't in force due to that fee not being paid! The Fellow lived outside of the Fire Company's coverage zone which meant that unless he was paying for the service there was no insurance coverage for any Firefighters who might have been hurt while fighting said fire!

You could accept the firing for putting out the fire but have you thought through what else you'd be accepting? You would also be willfully accept paying for the equipment damage out of your own pocket since there was no coverage for said equipment! You'd also be accepting the fact that you'd be paying out of your own pocket for treatment of any injuries you might sustain.

Re:Uh..

[Combatso]

Obamabucks

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

as someone else posted, less than 50% of people who were billed in that county paid their bills WITH court order. So there's a 75% chance that the fire dept would incur a financial loss.

Or you know, instead of paying and contributing for a PREVENTIVE service by creating an infrastructure beforehand, only pay the $7500 on the spot, wait a few weeks for a fire truck and trained firemen to arrive and put out the fire.

This is America

[BadAnalogyGuy]

This is what has happened in America. If you don't pay, if you can't pay, you will not get services. We have turned into the Randian utopia of rugged individualists who have given up on treating each other as human beings.

We treat each other like consumers.

It's sad, and it's one of the things I had hoped the Obama era would overcome. Unfortunately, it seems like the problem has only been exacerbated.

Re:This is America

[SatanicPuppy]

Dude, it's the state, not the country. Don't blame fricking Obama for the problems of Fulton County Tennesee's rural fire department! That's just absurd.

In most other states, there'd be a state income tax, or a hefty county tax, or a sales tax or something to support fire coverage for all the citizens in the county. They didn't want that there, so there is a fee. And if you don't pay it, you're screwed. And it's their own bed to lie in.

Re:This is America

[Rhaban]

In most other states, there'd be a state income tax, or a hefty county tax, or a sales tax or something to support fire coverage for all the citizens in the county.

But... but... but... that's COMMUNISM!

Re:This is America

[anUnhandledException]

He could afford to pay for a home but not $75 to insure it? Really?

Re:This is America

[homer_s]

Randian utopia of rugged individualists who have given up on treating each other as human beings.

First of all, this was a local government agency, not a private company.
Secondly, have you seen the size of the Federal Register? To claim that this country is a "Randian utopia", when the size of government has grown so much is ridiculous.
Thirdly, are you so naive as to think that one individual can change the culture of 300 million people? In 2 years?

Re:This is America

[CyprusBlue113]

Honestly I think this should be the new commercial against the ultra small goverment nut jobs.

Re:This is America

[IICV]

Also it says in TFA that this has been their policy for the past 20 years, so it's kind of hard to blame Obama for it; the only weird thing is that there don't seem to be reports of this having happened before. Maybe the media just didn't pick up on it last time?

Re:This is America

[flibbidyfloo]

Yeah! Damn that Obama. Almost two years in office and he still hasn't fixed the Tennessee rural fire department problem!

Re:This is America

[operagost]

No, we've turned into a nation of entitled slobs. Back in the 18th century, you had to pay a fee to the fire company so that they would place a plaque on your home. THIS IS NOT NEW. Not simply putting out the fire and billing the owner for the full cost of the response is asshattery, however.

Re:This is America

[SatanicPuppy]

I doubt anyone made a big stink over it: it takes a special kind of person to not pay and bitch about it.

But also, there may not have been many fires, and those may have all been on protected houses. That area is extremely sparsely populated.

Re:This is America

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm assuming you meant America in the United States of context but Canada has similar provisions. If you're doing a controlled burn on your property and would like the fire dept. to bail you out in the event you light yourself on fire then you need to pay a fee. The burn is legal either way but you risk torching yourself without assistance, just like this guy did.

Re:This is America

[Anonymous Coward]

Obion County actually. South Fulton is a city (small town by most standards) in Obion County. So's Troy.

Obion County "established" a County Wide fire department back in 1987 and has never allocated a dime to pay for it.

http://troy.troytn.com/Obion%20County%20Fire%20Department%20Presentation%20Presented%20to%20the%20County%20Commission.pdf

Quote: "
Obion County is currently served by eight (8) municipal fire departments:
o Hornbeak Fire Department
o Kenton Fire Department
o Obion Fire Department
o Rives Fire Department
o Samburg Fire Department
o South Fulton Fire Department
o Troy Fire Department
o Union City Fire Department

  Three (3) departments use subscription response:
o Kenton Fire Department
o South Fulton Fire Department
o Union City Fire Department

  Five (5) departments respond on an “as needed” basis not taking ability to pay into
consideration:
o Hornbeak Fire Department
o Obion Fire Department
o Rives Fire Department
o Samburg Fire Department
o Troy Fire Department

  Each fire department has a designated primary coverage area to which they respond.

  Obion County has small portions to which departments outside of Obion County
respond:
o Ridgely Fire Department from Lake County in Southwestern Obion County.
Ridgely Fire Department operates on a subscription basis.
o Trimble Fire Department from Dyer County in the Trimble area.
o Sidonia Fire Department from Weakley County in Southeastern Obion
County.

  Approximately 15 square miles of Obion County presently have no fire protection for
rural structure fires.

Response Type
All municipal fire departments charge $500.00 to the property owners or their insurance
company when dispatched to a fire. Most departments collect less than 50% of these
charges.

Subscription response Annual Fee Amt Respond w/o Contract
Union City F.D. $ 75.00 No
Kenton F.D. $ 50.00 Maybe
South Fulton F.D. $ 75.00 No

Non-Subscription Response (will respond to rural calls without ability to pay)
Hornbeak F.D.
Obion F.D.
Rives F.D.
Samburg F.D.
Troy F.D.

Re:This is America

[Anonymous Coward]

Make up your mind: United or not?

Re:This is America

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Clearly there are for bigger things you should be blaming on Obama. For a start Health care = Obama, Fire = Fire Dept.

Re:This is America

[FrootLoops]

Empathy and compassion are often taken too locally. You just spent a million dollars of your health insurance company's money to live a horrible extra year? That's almost 50 years of person-hours working for $10/hour, 40 hours/week. Where's the compassion for the working masses instead of the sick guy? It's callous *not* to be callous, sometimes. I'd say this is the same situation--we fight your fire against policy and we'll get burned, which will burn other people later on.

I agree, though, that people don't treat each other terribly well much of the time. Your ideas are interesting, but they lack rigor. They'd be much more interesting with more solid reasoning backing them up.

Re:This is America

[Anonymous Coward]

Ridiculous. Firefighters get paid, or there would be no firefighters (AS THIS STORY HAS PROVEN!). The city pays for and has firefighters. The county DOES NOT HAVE firefighters. The city folks were nice enough to extend coverage to county folks if they would also pay. Some chose to, some do not.

If the city tried to cover the entire county, without charging county residents, they could not afford to operate. There wouldn't be enough trucks or firefighters for the city. There is a county government. Governments aren't magic. They have to pay their employees.

The difference between a socialist country and capitalist one? We have the choice to have decent fire departments. Ever seen a cuban fire dept? I rest my case.

Re:This is America

[guspasho]

Dude, didn't you hear? Obama isn't a legitimate president, he's a socialist! He isn't even American!

The problem with the "Obama era" is so many people buy in to crap like that. Solidarity is dead. It's each man for himself. As much as some of us would like it to be different, that exactly describes what happened in this story.

Re:This is America

[Anonymous Coward]

Fulton County, KENTUCKY.
The fire was in Tennessee.
The fire department was in Kentucky.

Re:This is America

[WindBourne]

Why do you equate Ayn Rand with our situation? Exactly how many Libertarians have you seen in control of the gov? The Libertians would have pushed a competitive system.

This system is a gov. ran monopoly, in which a single party has control over how things happen. What party is it? Republicans/Tea-Baggers/neo-cons.

Those creatures have NOTHING to do with Libertarians. Heck, comparing them to Libertarians would be like comparing Dems to Communist China. These days, Communist China has more in simularity to republicans then they do to dems. The reason is that Communist China has never been Communist, but totalitarian.

Re:This is America

[Achromatic1978]

or a hefty county tax

Hefty? My small fire district has 6,000 people, 24 sq. mi. We have three engines, two tenders (water supply), two ambulances, command vehicles, three stations, 8 full time staff, and approx. 50 volunteers who receive approximately $5,000 each a year for their efforts. Plus all assorted and associated equipment. Our "hefty" county tax for this fire service is $1.05 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

Re:This is America

[Achromatic1978]

Firefighters get paid, or there would be no firefighters (AS THIS STORY HAS PROVEN!). The city pays for and has firefighters. The county DOES NOT HAVE firefighters.

Actually, no. 73% of American firefighters are volunteer.

Re:This is America

[bonch]

You think that's the problem with the Obama era and not the disastrous rise in the deficit, mishandling of the BP spill, mishandling of Middle-East negotiations, the closed-door passage of healthcare legislation, etc.?

Re:This is America

[guspasho]

I was referring to the post I responded to, We have turned into the Randian utopia of rugged individualists who have given up on treating each other as human beings. We treat each other like consumers. It's sad, and it's one of the things I had hoped the Obama era would overcome. Unfortunately, it seems like the problem has only been exacerbated.

That problem is not due to the reasons you cited, but the increasingly narcissistic right wing that believes and perpetuates ideas that lead to things like this man's house burning down while the fire department sits idly by.

Re:This is America

[innocent_white_lamb]

Volunteer firefighters get paid for the time that they are working/training/whatever.

Re:This is America

[SatanicPuppy]

I'm guessing this is up north somewhere.

South Fulton, the local metropolis that has the fire department, has a population of 2300. The most pimped out house in the whole town probably didn't cost 100,000.

I leave it to your imagination to figure what the population density is like outside the city. I'd imagine their 75-bucks-per-house fee doesn't get a whole lot. To make matters even worse, the whole area straddles the border between KY and TN, so funding is bound to be confused.

Re:This is America

[Achromatic1978]

Sometimes. But definitely not always.

~ Yours, A Volunteer Firefighter

Re:This is America

[innocent_white_lamb]

In a former life I was in charge of Emergency and Disaster Response for a Mutual Aid District. Every town in the district that had a volunteer fire department paid the volunteers an hourly wage for training time and call-outs. Towns and villages that didn't have their own FD always had some kind of a contract with a neighbouring town to provide fire protection through their FD at a fixed yearly price plus hourly call-out charges.
 
I always assumed that similar arrangements were in place "everywhere"; at least, everyone that I ever met while doing that seemed to be familiar with the model.

Another win

[geekoid]

for libertarians everywhere.

Re:Another win

[operagost]

Libertarianism does not preclude compassion. That's a straw man. A libertarian would have put out the fire, not only for compassion's sake but because a wild fire endangers the community. However, the homeowner would have been billed for the full cost later. Besides, the FD is a government-run org. It's not like the FD was a private business with a monopoly. They were perfectly capable of fighting the fire, and the homeowner was capable of paying the fee. So I can only conclude that you believe in socialism even when people who can take care of themselves fail to do so.

Re:Another win

[elrous0]

I don't see why this is modded flamebait. Libertarians (not all, but many) complain about taxes and offer the idea of a world where everyone is responsible for themselves as a utopia. Well, guess what, it isn't always a utopia--not for everyone.

Re:Another win

[sarhjinian]

Libertarianism has the same flaws as communism: it doesn't really work--especially on a large scale---because actual people are involved, and people are not neat little Randian or Marxist entities but complex, real-world things. Arguing that "it's better" or "real libertarianism has never been tried" is exactly the same kind of self-delusional wankery that Marxists exercise.

You couldn't guarantee that "a libertarian would have put out the fire" because it's equally likely that a libertarian might buy the fire department and then go around starting fires in order to make money. Libertarians are people, too, and subject to the same nobility and failings as people everywhere.

This is why democratic socialism will win every single damn time: it's not perfect (far from it) but it's built assuming that people will be people, whereas know-it-all totalitarism or anarchism are divorced from how people actually act.

Re:Another win

[xavi62028]

Except that this was a government run service, not a private one. A private company would certainly have a profit incentive to fight the fire and stick the homeowner with a huge bill.

Re:Another win

[Anonymous Coward]

It is. It's more evidence that coercively funded organizations are more rigid and irresponsible than the market alternatives.

A likely alternative in the market would be that his insurance company would have deals with local fire departments or multi-function firms and if they failed to help the client they'd pay out to replace it and sue the department. At least the owner would know exactly his level of responsibility whereas here he assumed the town would help regardless. Bad incentives will lead to bad results.

Re:Another win

[dcw3]

Because that's exactly what it is. Show me anywhere on a national level that the Libertarian party has demanded the removal of essential services. Complaining about taxes isn't the same thing because there is clearly way too much waste in govt.

Re:Another win

[Achromatic1978]

A likely alternative in the market would be that his insurance company would have deals with local fire departments or multi-function firms and if they failed to help the client they'd pay out to replace it and sue the department.

Insurance companies are already using private firefighters to protect "high-value homes" of clients, whilst ignoring other homes burning around them...

Perhaps in this case if his home insurer wanted the assistance of the fire department, they could have footed the bill and added it to his premium.

Re:Another win

[operagost]

You couldn't guarantee that "a libertarian would have put out the fire" because it's equally likely that a libertarian might buy the fire department and then go around starting fires in order to make money.

Kind of like how governments start wars so that they can increase defense spending, impose a draft, raise taxes, or remove rights? How about saying that we're in a financial emergency, and we have to pass a bill IMMEDIATELY to keep unemployment from exceeding 8.5%?

Governments start fires all the time.

whereas know-it-all totalitarism or anarchism are divorced from how people actually act.

A true democracy is one step away from anarchy. "Democratic socialism" serves the masses, not individual rights.

Re:Another win

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the best posts I've ever read on /.

Well written my friend!

Re:Another win

[dumky]

What's libertarian about government-provided fire protection services, exactly?
So the government service fails again, as the monopoly that it is (lower quality, higher prices), and that somehow indicts the free-market?

Re:Another win

[Kjella]

There's waste in every sector, a lot of people would recognize parts of "Dilbert" is their job in the private sector. What you're feeling is the "stockholder's itch", if you owned stock in a company you'd feel exactly the same after they pissed away $100m on a failed IT project. That is your money they're pissing away, not somebody else's.

Is cutting taxes going to fix that? Nah. It's a never ending excuse you can use to cut taxes, there's always too much waste in government. And the result will always be the same, a reduction in services instead. But not because taxes were cut, because they did not reduce waste.

Just stand for the practical consequences the way the world works, not some theoretical ideological world where something else happens. Worst are the purists, who think that if the world reacts differently than their ideology it's because they haven't followed it blindly enough.

A good example is socialized health care, we pay less per person because it's less waste than in the US system. But since per ideology the free market is always best, the market can not be free enough. Oh well...

Re:Another win

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldn't talk so loudly about stuff you don't know: you confuse libertarianism with anarchy. Libertarianism is not anarchy. There are still laws, and enforcement of those laws. Arson would still be illegal.

In a libertarian world, there would be the possibility of multiple private fire services (not just a state-controlled monopoly).

Now, can we get back to the real topic at hand, instead of swatting at straw men? What happened, and what could have been done better?

Re:Another win

[dcw3]

Never heard of "stockholder's itch", but I guarantee that any private company that was run the same way would be bankrupt. I'm a govt. contractor, and have observed wastefulness on a regular basis for over 30 years in person.

I'm all for essential services...fire, police, military, etc. But most of the remainder could go away, and we'd all be much better off for it.

No govt. office will ever offer to reduce their budget, or work to become more efficient on their own. So, the only way to deal with it is to cut their budgets.

The US system of healthcare is far from a free market. There's no competition, and we've screwed ourselves by allowing ambulance chasers to drive up the costs for everyone.

Same with OnStar

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing with OnStar. I got rid of their service since I didn't want it. A few years later I got in an accident (hit a deer and air bag deployed) and I was curious if they'd still call me. They did not. I didn't expect them to since I didn't pay for their service. If they were required to, then they'd go out of business since everyone would just cancel their subscriptions. I can see the firefighters being required to (fee or no fee) if someone's live is in danger but not to save some things.

Re:Same with OnStar

[Applekid]

OnStar emergency response is one thing. That whole hands free calling, concierge, directions and other services are another.

I don't think it's unreasonable that if you don't pay your fees you don't get luxury services.

But to have deployed technology that can save lives (let's be real here: at some point in the OnStar client code it's getting signaled on a crash and checking a "isPaidUp" flag) then there ought to be a obligation to save the lives.

I mean, even a cell phone with an expired SIM card is still required to allow calls to 911. I don't think anyone will argue that society is worse off that the cell phone carriers are "forced" to be human and let through an emergency call.

This is what taxes are for

[onyxruby]

This is the kind of thing taxes are for - essential public services. The fact that the home burned to the ground was a travesty, but not so great as the lack of funding for the fire department in the first place. All that being said, charging residents $75 just in case is absurd. His county should pay his losses and fix their tax situation!

Re:This is what taxes are for

[Idimmu Xul]

This is the kind of thing taxes are for - essential public services. The fact that the home burned to the ground was a travesty, but not so great as the lack of funding for the fire department in the first place. All that being said, charging residents $75 just in case is absurd. His county should pay his losses and fix their tax situation!

A publicly funded fire brigade? What's next? Public healthcare? You dirty socialist!

Re:This is what taxes are for

[Anonymous Coward]

No they shouldn't. This situation is not that uncommon for very rural areas. You pay a yearly fee to help keep them going, you know, a TAX. It's $75 a year, not that much of a hit. Considering what you will loose without it, it's a drop in the ocean.

People need to learn to take responsibility for their own situations, not depend on everyone to fix their problems no matter what.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[SatanicPuppy]

I absolutely disagree with the idea that the state should have to pay for this joker's bad decisions. That's money out of all of our pockets because he can't make a rational choice.

Forcing everyone to pay for fire coverage (via taxes) is fine. But that doesn't mean that we owe some joker in some county that didn't feel the need.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[gurps_npc]

I agree this is what taxes are for. And the county had the opportunity to approve a tax. Doing this would either require a vote by the population or a vote by elected officials. Either way, the people responsible is not the county but the people that voted for 'no new taxes'. You certainly should NOT force the county to pay and fix the loss. This is exactly what the people of his county voted to do and they did it on purpose.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[j0nb0y]

Believe it or not many rural areas get by with volunteer fire departments that are largely funded through donations...

Re:This is what taxes are for

[plcurechax]

A publicly funded fire brigade? What's next? Public healthcare? You dirty socialist!

Gawd, won't somebody think of the children?

Next thing you know the government will be taking care of orphans and offering free public education.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[inthealpine]

Only a true commie would think we need a huge federal government to put out a house fire. Us toothless uneducated conservative dolts out here in my neck of the 'woods' have volunteer fire fighters who do the job because they like it. The community supports them through the fund raisers and such.

Your socialist ideas do have merit though. If we just 'purged' (that means kill in Russia,Cuba,China, etc.) libertarian and conservative operatives that would mean far less people who might need government services. Although the problem arises that of the remaining population there would be only about 6 people not on welfare of some sort. Something to think about though.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[operagost]

Slippery slope fallacy.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[bcmm]

A publicly funded fire brigade? What's next? Public healthcare? You dirty socialist!

You're ignoring the greater problem: socialised defense! The federal government is taking your money, and using it to protect poor people from terrorism.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the kind of thing taxes are for - essential public services. The fact that the home burned to the ground was a travesty, but not so great as the lack of funding for the fire department in the first place. All that being said, charging residents $75 just in case is absurd. His county should pay his losses and fix their tax situation!

A publicly funded fire brigade? What's next? Public healthcare? You dirty socialist!

Pubic healthcare. A very dirty socialist.

Re:This is what taxes are for

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol in my country we have tax funded fire brigades, public health care and public schools even, Works just fine.

Personally i feel that its opening message describes is extorsion in mafia style: pay us 75$ or your house might burn....
i prefer tax funded system better, equal to everyone... Alto rich thend to try to weasel themselfs out of paying taxes...

Violation

[JustOK]

"Don't be a dick" might have been a valid argument in this case.

Re:Violation

[Anonymous Coward]

true but i like the phrase: burn baby burn (it's obligatory)

Re:Violation

[VGPowerlord]

We didn't start the fire.

Oh, wait...

Re:Violation

[Anonymous Coward]

Then that leaves you with the choice of being a pussy or being an asshole. Which will you choose? In either case you're getting fucked by a dick.

Re:Violation

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm generally a knee or an elbow.

No, that's not it at all

[Space cowboy]

They turned up to stop the spread of the fire to a neighbouring property, then they stood and watched as the house burnt to the ground, killing the animals inside. The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it, and they refused, they just watched his house, his life's possessions, and his pets burn alive.

I don't care who you are, that's callous beyond anything I wish to respect.

Simon

Re:No, that's not it at all

[MyLongNickName]

The real problem is why this is a voluntary fee? You can point the finger at the fire department, you can point it at the home owner. But the reality is that the system forced this type of situation.

When you see this type of conflict, you canalmost always trace the problem to the next level up in "management". if management sets up a situation where an entity has two conflicting priorities, then you should look up a level to see who created the mess.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "forgot" you mean "willfully decided not to pay" then yeah, he "forgot". Reap what you sow.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

He didn't forget to pay. He chose not to pay. He received a bill and then a phone call and was advised his home would not be protected if he didn't pay.

No different then letting your life insurance policy lapse, then you die, and your spouse tries to collect $1 mil by paying this months premium.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[0123456]

I don't care who you are, that's callous beyond anything I wish to respect.

How long do you think there would be firefighters to call if you could just pay $75 when you have to call them out because your house is on fire? That's like crashing your car into a Ferrari and _then_ offering to pay $100 for insurance because you 'forgot' to pay the premium beforehand.

If that behaviour became the norm then no-one would pay and the next time someone's house caught fire the whole area would burn down.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

The county he lives in does not have a fire department. A nearby city does. The city FD (which is funded by the tax base of the city only, not the county at large) allows county residents to pay the $75 for them to cover them as well, but since they don't live in the city itself, the city can't compel them to pay. And the county apparently isn't willing or able to fund their own FD out of the county tax base.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?" Sorry, that's SOP. If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

This person lived outside of the city fire jurisdiction. The had been petitioned by the people in the county to extend their coverage, but since those people didn't want to incorporate as part OF the city, the city offered to agree to put out fires for people who wanted to pay the $75 fee. So, this is a service the city is doing for those that pay for it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[vlm]

I don't care who you are, that's callous beyond anything I wish to respect.

I agree with you, he should have paid his $75. Sounds like the kind of guy that won't buy a car seat for his infant kids or vet service for his pets "to save money".

You've got to remember, some folks just don't care, and this guys house, junk, and pets wasn't worth $75 to him.

I'm not sure what strategy is most productive to get the guy (and others in similar situation) to pay. Maybe publicizing his story to embarrass him?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Tangential]

The real problem is why this is a voluntary fee?

From what I've read, this is a voluntary fee because they do not live within the city limits. The city has no obligation to also serve people who reside outside of it. When I was a kid, folks out in the country (outside of the city limits) could pay a fee to have their kids attend the city school system, instead of the county schools. This is pretty similar.

It looks like this homeowner specifically declined to pay the $75. If the city started letting people pay the fee after they needed it, it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck. In other words, after a while, the only $75 payments they'd collect would be for the houses that actually caught on fire.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

They turned up to stop the spread of the fire to a neighbouring property, then they stood and watched as the house burnt to the ground, killing the animals inside. The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it, and they refused, they just watched his house, his life's possessions, and his pets burn alive.

Why didn't the owner open the door and let out the pets before the house was engulfed in flames? And if it's too dangerous, why should firefighters risk their lives to get the pets out?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Outlander Engine]

They refused his $75 because on principal.

If they allowed folks to pay them the $75 AFTER the house started burning, no one would pay at all.

As for his pets, those were his fault. They were his responsibility and he failed them.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ceoyoyo]

They should set things up so that everyone pays, or they get a fine or go to jail. To make that work I guess you'd have to have the government in charge of fire protection, but then they could make sure everyone got it. Then there wouldn't be issues like this.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Hurricane Katrina has as devastating an effect as it did. People didn't help one another - they simply resolved the situation down to fight or flight, euthanized the people in the hospitals and left the residents who stayed without water or services, and fled. Meanwhile, in Cuba, which was hit equally hard had ZERO casualties, and was back up and running in under two weeks.

Society is about more than the almighty dollar - it ultimately comes down to some form of social contract where you help those in need, whether or not they paid their fee, because it's the morally correct thing to do.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[elrous0]

Yeah, I forgot to pay my car insurance this year. After I had an accident, the insurance company refused to pay to fix my car, even though I offered to make good on it. Those callous bastards!

Re:No, that's not it at all

[roman_mir]

It's beyond anything I wish to respect when somebody expects the rest of society to provide them with anything they wish free of charge, this includes the fire department insurance.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[aenea]

And the morally correct thing to do is to not pay a small yearly fee to help cover the cost of fire services in your community?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[elrous0]

This is Tennessee we're talking about. Any attempt to do that would be met by a rally of tea-partiers calling you a socialist. Got to keep the government off our backs, you know.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Fnkmaster]

Insanity. There should be taxes collected at the county or state level that fund this fee then. If people don't pay the taxes, the county can file liens on their houses with penalties, just like they do in my city.

I'm all for the free market, but making a public good like firefighting or police service an opt-in fee is stupid and results in dumb, avoidable tragic circumstances.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[sznupi]

That ends up, on a moral level, not too far from firefighters-arsonists...

(worst case scenario - what would be the problem with billing the firefighting action?)

Re:No, that's not it at all

[omnichad]

That may be true, but the county can raise property taxes by $75 for everyone outside city limits and administer this themselves, rather than making it optional or more complicated. There's no reason that one should have a choice. If everyone should be paying, then make it part of the budget and fold those fees into taxes.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[vlm]

They should set things up so that everyone pays, or they get a fine or go to jail. To make that work I guess you'd have to have the government in charge of fire protection, but then they could make sure everyone got it. Then there wouldn't be issues like this.

Another fun issue is the firemen can be better firemen if they're only firemen and not tax clerks.

There is a little old lady at my local city hall that hands me a receipt when I pay my annual property taxes. She's done a great job for ten years. And I know a couple firefighters whom do a pretty good job. Based on my experience, the Venn diagram set of "great firefighters" and "great tax clerks" probably has minimal overlap.

Sooner or later there will be an epic fail where the records are not up to date.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

His county HAS NO FIRE DEPT.

There is no technical reason preventing them from starting a fire dept. However doing so would require raising taxes. Given the size of the county and low population density taxes might need to be raised SIGNIFICANTLY (likely more than $75 per capita) to fund a county fire dept.

The nearby town offers coverage (because the county he lives in, pays taxes in, and votes in) has no fire protection of their own. Now fire depts cost money so the town doesn't provide it free to non-residents. IF you live in the town would you want to pay higher taxes to offer free coverage to non-residents outside the town (who don't pay town taxes)? I don't think so. So the town offers (they can't force, they have no ability to tax non-residents) coverage for a modest $75. The homeowner denied coverage. He wasn't covered.

If the town didn't offer coverage to non-residents he also wouldn't be covered and his home would still have burned.

So in the future the county can
a) fund a fire dept
b) increase county/real estate taxes by $75 per residence and get a blanket contract for whole county to be covered by the town fire dept.
c) encourage residents to pay $75.

The town isn't at fault because the county has no fire dept.
The town isn't at fault because the county resident (who they have no legal authority to tax) didn't pay the $75 fee.
The town isn't at fault because the county govt didn't just step in and pay for coverage for all county residents.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is simple: Bill him for the fire fighters' time and other incurred expenses as they put out the fire. It might amount to several thousand dollars, but it's certainly more of a win:win than letting his house burn to the ground while you sit idly by and watch.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

They turned up to stop the spread of the fire to a neighbouring property

If I were the owner of that property, I'd sue the fire department for gross negligence.

They were alerted that a fire existed. They *knew* it could spread to my property. They did nothing to prevent it. That sounds like a recipe for negligence to me.

If they were doing their job, my property wouldn't have caught fire.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Culture20]

They refused his $75 because on principal.
If they allowed folks to pay them the $75 AFTER the house started burning, no one would pay at all.

Then they should have charged him $750-$7500 for the night's services. But save his house and pets! Those firefighters have probably started a modern day family feud.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

AAA will let you become a member at the moment you need roadside assistance. And to think, they're even a private company! Gosh.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

If he didn't pay, then send him the bill for putting the fire out. You know, x many men times y hours times z dollars per man-hour, 1 fireengine, so many gallons of water/foam, etc.

Why do we even need to discuss this? Has the world gone insane? W-T-F-!? Everybody who watched the house burn down should be fined for failing to render assistance and be liable for damages.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymusing]

"The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it"

The county's policy has been in place for 20 years. In another article, the homeowner is quoted saying, "I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong." In other words: HE KNEW. And as the mayor put it, if the fire department accepted payments when your house was already burning, then nobody would pay until then.

I think the law should be amended, though. People could pay $75/year up front, OR they could pay for the full actual costs of putting out the fire, as well as covering all the firefighters' damages and injuries sustained during the firefighting. Because that's what it comes down to. Firefighter's insurance will not cover their injuries/damages unless they meet the requirements of the insurance policy. There are plenty of cases where a house on a county line starts to burn, and fire companies from adjacent counties are called in. The company from across the border may just stand there and watch it burn because the house is outside its insurance's geographic limits.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Shakrai]

There's no reason that one should have a choice

Why not?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[hibiki_r]

It is quite different.

A regular insurance policy is nothing more than a bet: You pay X per year, and in case of your death, your beneficiaries get Y back: If putting X in an investment fund would have netted you more than Y at the time of death, the insurance company wins, if Y is greater, you and your family win, so paying for coverage after you want to make a claim just doesn't work.

Now, in a fire, the amount of money destroyed by letting any given fire run amok in an average house is always far higher than the cost of actually stopping the fire. It's not a zero sum game. If I give you, right there and then, four times as much as it costs to put out the fire, as it happens, both sides win, as they are both better off than if the value of the house just evaporates.

So the real problem is not the fact that this guy was unwise in his choice to not pay for the fire coverage, but on the fact that there was no mechanism to allow him to make a far higher contribution on site, for a final result that was superior to every party involved.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

The fire department had a choice: they could put out the fire, be heroes, and send the guy a hefty bill in the mail, or they could let the house burn, be villains, and not make any money. To defend the fire department, you're pretty much forced to pretend that the "send a bill in the mail" option doesn't exist, don't you?

It would have been SO easy for them to have put out the fire and told reporters, "We're glad to do it, and it's too bad he didn't pay his $75 subscription, since we're gonna have to bill him $3,000 for saving his house." They'd get lots of new sign-ups and renewals after every fire that way, without being the bad guys.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

However the county is controlled by voters, voters such as this guy who felt $75 less in expenses was a good tradeoff for leaving his home vulnerable to fire.
The county can have at any point in last 20 years simply funded their own fire dept but didn't. That likely gives some insight into the views and wants of the voters.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. At what point does this stop being a business issue and start becoming a human issue? How could those firefighters, as human beings, stand there and watch property and animals burn alive, regardless of the cost? How many regular citizens assist their fellow man every single day without regard to financial or physical consequences, just because its the RIGHT THING TO DO? If there had been people still in the burning structure, would they have just sat there and watched the show?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Obfuscant]

I'm all for the free market, but making a public good like firefighting or police service an opt-in fee is stupid and results in dumb, avoidable tragic circumstances.

This has nothing to do with "free market". There is no competition in the marketplace, there is no other provider.

What this IS is an example of democracy. The people of that county are free to rule themselves in this matter. If they wanted a tax on everyone to pay for this, they could vote for it. Alternatively, their county commissioners could have voted for it, if their constituents wanted it. Apparently they decided not to. That is their RIGHT in a free society.

While the Constitution tells us what jobs are rightly the government's, nothing says that the PEOPLE can't decide they don't want their government doing one of them. It's not as if the local government's aren't able to levy taxes at the drop of a hat to pay for whatever stuff the commissioners or councils feel like doing.

It is none of our business how they want to tax themselves. Unless you live there, you don't get a vote, and your opinion doesn't matter.

Yes, I think it is stupid not to have this protection paid for out of property taxes, but my opinion doesn't matter, either. I suspect that the city fire department would love to have it tax-based so they get more money, and I also suspect that this will get the county to implement a new tax.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[scot4875]

it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck

No, it wouldn't be like that at all. It would be more like an ambulance ride, where you call them up when you need them and they give you a ride to the hospital, and charge you for it.

Your analogy would mean that while your house is burning, you call up the fire department, give them $75, and they're on the hook for the house an its contents. That indeed would be stupid, which is why nobody is suggesting that.

--Jeremy

Re:No, that's not it at all

[aenea]

It's not win:win. It win for most homeowners who never experience a fire and would not feel a need to pay a yearly fee. It's lose for the fire department that doesn't have an income stream while they are waiting for your house to burn down.

It's also probably not good public policy to pay a fire department on a per fire basis.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

the county gets it's authority FROM the voters of the county. Maybe the voters of the county don't want coverage.

I mean Democracy is about representing the will of the people. Nobody said the people always make the right decisions.

Maybe this incident will either
a) cause county to fund it's own fire dept
b) cause legislation for county to pay for "universal coverage" via taxes to pass

or maybe the county will still not want "big govt" forcing people to get thing they don't want.

I mean if the people in the county don't want forced coverage who is going to force them to get it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[omnichad]

Because that's really the whole point of having a county government - to organize basic services efficiently. Look at the outrage over someone who didn't get service because they didn't pay their bill. Everyone obviously feels that they have a right to that coverage. Making it optional really just ends up making you look bad. There's no benefit to anyone.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

The govt IS in charge of fire protection.

The GOVT of the COUNTY has chosen to NOT have fire dept.

The town has a fire dept (paid for by taxes on town residents) as a friendly neighbor the town offers the county residents coverage because it knows they don't have coverage.

The govt isn't some magical entity. It is (imperfectly) the will of the people. Obviously the fact that the county has no universal coverage means the people of the county don't want universal coverage.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[RattFink]

No it's very different then life insurance. Life insurance pays out when you die, it doesn't pay for anything that may prevent you from dieing. The whole idea behind fees like that is to pay your part of the larger budget. If you don't pay you should owe the complete and actual costs to provide the service not be denied it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[jackbird]

Our local vollie ambulance corps has a deal where if you pay your yearly $50 membership, they bill $100 for a ride in that year instead of $500. The FD should have billed him for the cost of fighting the fire in light of not getting his check, not let his house burn down.

I'll be a bit surprised if his homeowners insurance company or bank (assuming he has a mortgage) doesn't sue the fire department.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[omnichad]

Except that this guy didn't think it was a good trade-off. He was banking on luck to try and pocket $75, only to go back on his decision when trouble came. The wants of the voters is obviously what we're really looking at, but if voters want something for nothing, there's no way to accommodate that.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[atrain728]

This, to me, is going to the ER without insurance. You can't just pay your premium that night to get care (otherwise who would pay it every month) because you "forgot".

At the same time, they're not going to let you bleed out on the street. They'll bill you an inflated price from cost, often several times more than your premium would have been. The same should have been done here. $75 obviously makes no sense, but 10 or even 100 times that?

Of course, there's the issue that many people never pay those bills at the hospital, but because this is related to property, there's pretty well known avenues for collecting that bill where this is concerned.

There are failures at every level here, and I'll admit the guy seems like a bit of a moron. But "watching it burn" is just downright inhumane. I don't care what the guy did or didn't pay.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[rochberg]

For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?"

First correction: He did not offer to pay $75. He offered to pay whatever the cost to put out the fire.

If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.

You are exactly right. So clearly, just billing the $75 is not adequate. So, like you said, treat it as insurance. Consider the parallels to the medical world (at least the idealized version of it). If you have health insurance and go to the emergency room, you pay $X, which is significantly less than the actual cost of service. If you don't have insurance, you have to pay for the actual services used. So do the same thing in this situation. The invoice could be:

• 8 firefighters, billed at $200/hour for the duration. If it takes 3 hours of work, that's $4800.
• $5000 for use of the truck.
• $1000 for the water.
• $500 for the call to dispatch.
• Grand total: $11,300

Again, that's what the guy offered to pay...not just the $75. Basically, it comes out to skipping the $75 payment for 150 years. To me, that's plenty of incentive to pay $75 a year for guaranteed service.

Interesting follow-on to this story: One of Cranick's relatives later went to the fire station and punched the chief that ordered the firefighters not to put out the fire (even though they were on the scene). He's now been charged with assault, but I know a lot of people who want to contribute to the guy's legal defense fund.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[caluml]

Point made, and understood. However, don't you think that some things (healthcare, fire, police, transport infrastructure, etc) are such basic needs that everyone should be taxed to pay for them?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Animaether]

As for his pets, those were his fault. They were his responsibility and he failed them.

Harsh. What if it was some babies/young kids? yeah, "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!", I know - but tons of common sense changes as soon as it's no longer animals, but humans, and the laws reflect this.

I don't know if they were aware of the animals' presence or, even if they were, whether the seriousness of the fire would have even permitted them to try and rescue the animals. But if they were and could have, they should have.. and then let the house burn down if they must.

Letting people, or animals, die in a fire just to make a statement is way up there on the effed up list.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[e70838]

The first insightful comment of the page.
Of course, if he has not paid the $75 tax, he should be offered to pay the full expense of the firemen intervention (with surtaxes).
This is a bit like insurance. Either everybody pay regularly a little to be cured for free, of you pay the full amount when you get cured, or you die.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

And it costs a LOT less to fix a flat than it does to put out a fire. Crawl back in your hole.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[indifferent children]

There's no reason that one should have a choice.

Sure they should have a choice, but I expect that their homeowner's insurance should also be more than $75 higher if they don't have fire-department coverage.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because that's really the whole point of having a county government - to organize basic services efficiently."

Cool. What's a "basic service?" I'm hoping prostitution and open bars count.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anomalyx]

He didn't forget to pay. He chose not to pay.

Ah, yet another person who reads the one article and believes they know everything about it. As much as you will hate hearing it, you are absolutely wrong. This was a case of forgetfulness. He had paid the fee on-time for years and years past, and slipped his mind this time. And that's not my assuming, that's my reading articles, listening to news bits, and quotes directly from those who handle fees and from Mr. Cranick.

And it's EXTREMELY different than life insurance. Life insurance is paying fees for benefit. This case is paying fees so you don't lose everything you own. It is a case when no policy like this will ever be right. There are plenty of better ways to go about this situation... They chose about the dumbest one possible.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[elrous0]

Yes I do. But most Tennesseans don't.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[matazar]

This is exactly how it should have happened.

He didn't pay his $75 fee for firefighters, so he can either watch his house burn or pay the full amount it costs to put out the fire. From what I read he didn't get that second option, which is just stupid.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[sorak]

No. Life insurance doesn't save your life. It would be analogous to an emergency room doctor standing around, with all of his equipment nearby, watching you die because you don't have health insurance.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, that could be the solution. People would pay up if the fire department guaranteed, say, five house fires a year.

I remember the libertarian I've-got-mine-Jack contingent here years ago saying "why should I pay for police/firefighters/public health/public schools when I don't use them?" Evidently when their car or laptop is stolen, or their condo catches fire, or they get H1N1 from a neighbor, they lay back and say "it's the will of the free market," or "that's the price of liberty," instead of complaining.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[JordanL]

It's important to remember that the $75 fee doesn't just pay for putting out that one fire, and if you charged for the cost of putting out that one fire that wouldn't actually cover your cost either.

You have to pay to have MORE firefighters to cover a larger area, and these fighters have health coverage, and pensions, and sick days, etc. You need more equipment for those firefighters, etc.

The idea that you can correctly assess the cost of "putting out this fire" is ridiculous.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[IndustrialComplex]

This is Tennessee we're talking about. Any attempt to do that would be met by a rally of tea-partiers calling you a socialist. Got to keep the government off our backs, you know.

I'd be pretty upset if a $75 fee was being enforced via a threat of jailtime.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[demonlapin]

He has no relationship with the town in question. He doesn't live in its jurisdiction. He could choose to subscribe to their fire service, or not. He chose not, and by doing so took a gamble. He lost.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

They won't sue.

When I bought my house the agent researched if there was a fire department serving my house. When he found out it was for pay, then he said that I need to either pay the fee or I can opt to pay more for insurance. I opted to pay the fee because it was about the same as the surcharge on the insurance.

Insurance companies already know about this and they charge more for those who don't pay or it's not available. They will LOOSE this battle if they sue because they're already charging the customer more because he has no coverage from a fire department.

Bank won't sue because they get their $ from the insurance company. If the house somehow ISN'T insured, which is rare because you pay your insurance costs with your mortgage bill, the bank will sue the homeowner. (PS. I work in this industry)

Re:No, that's not it at all

[sorak]

There's no reason that one should have a choice

Why not?

Because your burning pile of crap is too close to my flammable pile of crap. Because the situation endangered neighbors who paid for fire protection, and lowered property values for the entire neighborhood...

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

One of Cranick's relatives later went to the fire station and punched the chief [nwtntoday.com] that ordered the firefighters not to put out the fire (even though they were on the scene). He's now been charged with assault, but I know a lot of people who want to contribute to the guy's legal defense fund.

Two words, jury nullification

Re:No, that's not it at all

[demonlapin]

You'd have to show that they had a duty to fight a fire that wasn't on your property.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can justify this, you are a heartless piece of crap. No seriously, the fucking Grinch only stole presents, he never burnt down a fucking house. The poor bastard offered to pay the entire cost, between him and his neighbor had $5,000 to pay on the spot, but no fucking way, you didn't pay your protection money, now you get to learn your lesson. Its not like there were not other options. The fire department could of found funding any number of ways, including getting federal stimulus funds, but that would of required them to be humane and put out everyone's fire. But they turned down more money than they would of had, provided from out of state, so they could drink the privatization Kool Aid. And this is what we get, more expensive, more complicated, less useful, less efficient. But at least there are no fucking freeloaders. You people make me sick.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[indifferent children]

It's also probably not good public policy to pay a fire department on a per fire basis.

Are you suggesting that there might suddenly be more fires, if the fire department got paid per-fire? How odd!

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ArcherB]

There's no reason that one should have a choice.

Seriously?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

If everyone only payed AFTER the fire (and everyone would) then there would be no budget for the fire department to run on. Sorry, but they have to get a way for people to pay ahead of time, or it's not 'insurance.'

The only way this scheme should work is if you added a line near that bottom that said $3000 Profit.

Only then could a system work where people paid for the service after the fact. That makes it a business model, and only then would a bank loan them money for a truck.

In a PERFECT WORLD your plan would work. But in this world that PROFIT line would have to cover the cost of idle fire fighters (between fires) their workers comp insurance and the lawyers to sue the people who didn't pay their bill.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[vistapwns]

Lots of people are saying this, "pay the full price of putting out the fire instead of the $75" but still that wouldn't work, it sounds 'fair' but there are probably so few fires, that the fire dept. would lose lots of money maintaining, training, equipping the fire fighters and so on. You'd have to pay some price (not sure what to call it) that covers what ever the F.D. would get from everyone who now opts not to pay the $75, divided by the number of people who have fires. Would be way to much money probably than anyone could afford and they'd just say 'let the house burn' anyway.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[maxume]

So should fire services be enforced at the federal level, or should people make smart decisions about the jurisdictions they choose to live in?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[elrous0]

That's how taxes work. If they didn't, no one would ever pay them.

Now, some states/cities/counties elect to not have taxes, or to have very low taxes. As a consequence they are not able to provide many public services, such as fire service. This guy elected to live in such a state and such a county.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a long history behind this attitude. Anyone remember firemarks?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_insurance_marks

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

Protection money = insurance.

Insurance only works if people pay into the pool when they don't need to.

The moment they accept that $5000 everyone else stops paying into the pull and it all falls apart. No more budget for the FD.

Life is rough. $75 helps it not be so rough, IF YOU CHOOSE.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ArcherB]

This is Tennessee we're talking about. Any attempt to do that would be met by a rally of tea-partiers calling you a socialist. Got to keep the government off our backs, you know.

I guess I have to tell you this since you obviously don't know. However, ignorance didn't seem to stop you from spouting off.

The TEA Party has no problem with taxes for local services. TEA Partiers have a problem with the federal government providing services they have no business providing that can be handled better and more efficiently by local governments.

This guy is a poster case for personal responsibility. You'll notice most conservatives here are saying that his house burning down was his fault whereas liberals are saying that the fire department should have saved his house even though he chose not to pay the fee. The problem is that liberals don't seem to understand that if you start offering services for those who don't pay for them, pretty soon, no one will be paying for the services that everyone is entitled to.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ceoyoyo]

If their government has chosen not to offer fire protection, and you have to go to contract someone else to get it, then their government isn't in charge of fire protection, is it?

My government doesn't provide hot lunches. Are they still in charge of hot lunches?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy didn't "forget" to pay the fee. He never paid the fee any year in the whole 20 years. at the point the firefighters showed up the house was engulfed and the animals already dead from smoke inhalation long before the fire touched them. so they didn't watch the animals burn to death as you so colorfully put it. also at that point the house was beyond saving so there really wasn't much they could have done at that point.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ifiwereasculptor]

I, on the other hand, usually distrust the free market. If the FD started to benefit from fires, then they'd have conflicting interests. You can bet they would take a huge step back in promoting prevention and safety, for instance. In the worst case scenario, we'd have fire marshall Bear Gryils setting fire to a few houses that didn't buy "protection". But that's not what happened here. How dumb do you have to be to set your own house on fire? If you have a hose and a fire extinguisher (and you should), you will never need the fire dept. Unless you're really, really stupid and decide to, say, BURN TRASH ON YOUR YARD. Really, it's all kinds of idiotic. Not to say environmentally ghastly. So I'd prefer not to have coverage, because I don't really like the idea of funding other people's stupidity. I find it similar to car insurance. We all should pay the government a fee in the event that we harm someone else, to pay for their hospital bills, granted. But I don't want the government also repairing my car, as that'd be expensive and lead to a much higher tax, one that a lot of people probably couldn't afford and will never need. On the other hand, fire can be deadly and could be compared to the hospital bills in my metaphor instead of car repairs, so I'm a bit torn.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[t-twisted]

He said he has insurance - I am absolutely shocked the insurance company did not enforce the payment of this fee as a way to protect their interest in his house, either by revocation of the policy for nonpayment, or by making the payment themselves and charging the homeowner through the premium on their insurance policy.

Also - if you watch the video, he said his son had set fire to his house 3 years ago in a similar manner, hadn't paid, but the fire company responded anyway with the 'promise to pay' later (under a different fire chief). It's likely the entire community had the mindset of "they'll come even if I don't pay", and the new fire chief wasn't able to keep enough firefighters on to cover all areas due to lack of funds. The real problem is likely due to such responses in the past where the fee was not enforced and on an informal 'pay-as-you-go' policy. Personally, if a family member had already experienced a fire and there was even a whiff of a question of whether the fire department would respond or not, you'd better believe I'd have that bill paid in full, on-time, every year.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Y2KDragon]

Wait, now my local taxpayer-funded services can exhtort money or refuse to respond? What a load of crap. This is not an "insurance" policy, it's a public service. Refusing to put out his fire because he didn't pay the $75? There needs to be some auditing somewhere, and find out where the money to provide the service is from. This is more like paying your insurance policy, but the local agent saying that unless you pay him a "service fee", your claims won't get processed at all.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[thrillseeker]

Ah yes ... the government, whether you like it or not, approach. For the children ...

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymusing]

I agree with you. Especially after I just read elsewhere that various other municipalities have tried this and only gotten a 50% rate of payment. The city should not have to go to court to collect these payments.

In the end, the system they have is probably the best one. And once in awhile, this kind of regrettable situation will happen.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. They stood there and watched. What a bunch of assholes. I'm amazed at how many comments here are trying to justify this behaviour.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Khyber]

"This person lived outside of the city fire jurisdiction."

No such fucking thing. Multi-alarm fires are common and by law if the request for help from other departments is made THEY MUST ANSWER BY LAW.

It's quite apparent none of you people have done any sort of volunteer firefighting or professional firefighting.

This is pure criminal negligence upon the part of South Fulton.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Khyber]

"From what I've read, this is a voluntary fee because they do not live within the city limits."

County > city. Taxes should have been paying for this all along.

Did you fail your basic civics lessons?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Khyber]

"His county HAS NO FIRE DEPT."

WRONG

County is greater level than city, and as such, they could have easily ordered the city FD to respond.

It seems everyone does not know the layers of government. This is pretty sad, no wonder half of this site is arguing in favor of the FD.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[LinuxAndLube]

Your analogy with car insurance is flawed. This is how it should go: when you have a wreck and you're not assured, you pay the full cost. Similarly, when your house is burning and you haven't paid your fee, then you pay to full cost of putting out the fire, not the full cost of the house. The owner did offer to pay this cost. Besides, I wonder, what would they have done if there were somebody inside?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Khyber]

You're a fuckwit without any clue about ESSENTIAL CIVIL SERVICES.

I hope you burn in a fire and die, you poor excuse for an American.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[atdt1991]

"it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck."

No, it would be like having a heart attack, going to the hospital, and be told that since you did not buy insurance they would not treat your life-threatening condition at all. Not that you would have to pay full price - NO amount of money would convince them to treat you.

Rules are rules, right?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[LinuxAndLube]

He (or his neighbor) was prepared to pay the full cost of putting the fire out, which one assumes would be less than the cost of rebuilding the house. What they did was immoral and stupid. Would they let somebody burn to death because of a minor mistake (not paying 75 USD)? I guess that in the world of the slashdotters who modded the parent insightful, they would.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

I will say this very clearly....
HE DOESN'T PAY ANY TAXES (as in $0.00) for FIRE DEPT.

His county has NO fire dept.

The nearby town DOES have a fire dept.
Town residents DO pay taxes (and thus no $75 fee).
The town offers an optional service to NON-RESIDENTS for fire service outside the town.

The county this voter lives in has for 20 years voted down any attempt to raise taxes to fund a county fire dept.

Starting to get it.
He wants fire service yet he doesn't want to pay it (either by $75 fee or by higher taxes). There are no free lunches.

Three scenarios:
a) he lived in town - he would pay higher taxes and would have fire dept coverage
b) he lived in county and paid $75 fee - he would have lower taxes, pay fee and have coverage.
c) he lived in county and opted out of fee - he would have lowest cost and no coverage.

He made a choice (a bad choice) to opt for C. Nobody forced him to do that. He though he could not pay and still be protected (others would pay the cost). He was wrong.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[LinuxAndLube]

Of course, that's what a free market is all about. I can't believe some of the comments I'm seeing here on slashdot. Anal is just too gentle a word.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't die, I paid my $75.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Big difference between insurance and life-threatening fires. Life insurance not being paid after the fact is not as big a deal as the only people equipped with putting out fires refusing to.

I'm all for libertarianism and lower taxes and all that, but fire is bad for everyone, no matter whose it is.

In this case only three dogs and a cat died. What if there were a small child or otherwise helpless person trapped in there? I'm sure everyone would agree that's fine, because hey, he should have paid the money for fire protection! Lives be damned, they need their fees to operate!

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

The problem becomes collection.

In a perfect economic system in which all debts are always paid, and there is no legal or illegal method to avoid payment you are right.

The reality is collecting of post-service especially on a very very large cost is prohibitive. A huge % of billed amount will never be paid. Thus that costs has to be absorbed by those who do pay.

The town has no taxing authority for non-residents. They have no authority to compell payment and as such the debt would quickly become uncollectable as do trillions of dollars in consumer debt every year.

Why should the town face such a burden just to protect those who intentionally opt out of a low cost protection?

I mean they likely could and the cost "could" be redistributed (maybe every prepaid non-resident pays $120 per year instead of $75) but why?

If I am smart enough to pay the $75 why should I have to pay more because this guy is too reckless to make the easy choice to pay $75 up front and be covered.

Your entire premise boils down to the fact that the fire dept will be able to collect tens of thousands of dollars from the same individual who opted out of paying $75.

That isn't a logical premise.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Tangential]

it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck

No, it wouldn't be like that at all. It would be more like an ambulance ride, where you call them up when you need them and they give you a ride to the hospital, and charge you for it.

No, its really not very similar to a non-municipal ambulance service at all and a municipal ambulance service relies on prepayment of fees (often called taxes) by its constituency. (Hmmm. That sounds familiar. Kind of exactly like this.)

If it is a private ambulance service, then there is no prepay option available. If it is a private service, then there is generally more than one and you have the option to call whichever one you want at the time you need the service.

A private ambulance is just a service. You have no relationship with it before you use it and you pay nothing for its existence until after you use it.

Insurance is something you pay for in advance, not at the time it is used or post-usage. The prepay model of this FD is a heckuva lot closer to the insurance model (only in this case you are insuring performance not contents) than a normal service model.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

I'd also like to add that in our free society people still have the ability to live wherever they want. There are 50 states to choose from, hot and cold, liberal or conservative, fire protection or no fire protection.

Some none free countries don't give you the ability to pack up and move somewhere you like better.

If you don't like the services that the people around you voted to provide, pack up and move to where there are more people like you. You're free to do that here. Enjoy.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

No you are wrong yet again.

The town isn't in the county where the house is located. The town is located in ANOTHER county.

The county where the house is located has devoted $0.00 on fire protection. It has done so by the express will of the voters (like the individual who's house burned). For 20 years there have been proposals to raise taxes to either fund a fire dept or purchase blanket coverage from another county/town. Those proposals have died.

The county has no fire coverage at all.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

So, just to get this clear, if I - say - go to another town and get mugged, I shouldn't expect the police to help me because I don't live in that town's jurisdiction, and that's OK because I didn't pay taxes or anything there?

This is not how it works. Police work, just like firefighting, is a public service that cannot work if it's compartmented like that. If you want proof for that, look no further than the story itself.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Tangential]

Your analogy with car insurance is flawed. This is how it should go: when you have a wreck and you're not assured, you pay the full cost. Similarly, when your house is burning and you haven't paid your fee, then you pay to full cost of putting out the fire, not the full cost of the house. The owner did offer to pay this cost. Besides, I wonder, what would they have done if there were somebody inside?

I expect that if someone was inside they would attempt a rescue. I don't think they'd necessarily try to save the house as an objective. It might happen as a side-effect.

Why would anyone ever pay the $75 if the FD would come anyway and put out the fire? If you assume that your house will never burn, you'd be crazy to pay the $75.

Paying this anyway is some type of bet that you might need them and the $75 is cheaper than excessive damage and the full cost of a dispatch.

I am amazed that this doesn't sound like insurance to you. It sounds awfully close to the insurance model to me.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[kangsterizer]

You should still be allowed to pay a premium to get the service in that case.
It's quite fucked up when you are not forced to pay that tax, but when your house burn, you should be able to pay $1000 or whatever the cost is to get it fixed, instead of "sorry we let it burn".
Or have a private company doing the same thing for a normal one time fee (which is more or less the same in the end, just costs more)

Otherwise.. what happens.. tax is optional.. why pay it? Maybe they can't even afford it. But when the sinister arrives, what do they do? who do they call ? It's not like they were condemned to see their house burn by fire cause they didn't pay the *optional* tax.

As for "good lesson", well, once ur house is burnt, considered you weren't rich enough to pay $75 a year, congratulation, you just destroyed a familly's life, they might as well be dead inside.

Not even talking about the pets which asked nothing but died in a fire for no real reason, we're not even making steaks of that.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[kangsterizer]

they have a fire dpt that they maintain already, since they came... .so your argument is not relevant.
the law is just totally retarded. you should be able to pay the full price if you're not paying the $75. even if full price is lets say $7500 (its probably quite lower) to save a house its well worth it

but then again, if that's not enough to let their dpt survive, the tax should be mandatory.. => retarded law

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

pets fireman's life. Just ask the child of a dead firefighter.

Incidently, firefighters don't put out fires from the outside. If they fight it, they go in. There's no halfassing it.

If people can just pay the cost of the visit then everyone would choose to do so. At that point we're back to private fire departments. Look where that got us (private firefighters were becoming arsonists)

It's quite fucked up when you, AS AN ADULT choose not to pay something that's about .0001% the value of your house to keep it from burning down. If you don't think your shit is worth $75/year then WHY THE FUCK would a firefighter think it's worth their life?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[nomadic]

The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it,

Not only that, he offered to pay whatever costs the fire department would incur by fighting the fire at his house.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Byzantine]

Now, in a fire, the amount of money destroyed by letting any given fire run amok in an average house is always far higher than the cost of actually stopping the fire.

I'm not saying this assertion is untrue, but I'd like to see it substantiated before accepting it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[orgelspieler]

Read the article again. He didn't just offer to pay $75. He told the operator "he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out." That is completely different than just offering to pay the fee.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[orgelspieler]

It's even worse that that. He didn't offer to make good on $75, he said "he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out." And they STILL wouldn't come out. That's just stupid.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[divisionbyzero]

For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?" Sorry, that's SOP. If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.

Unfortunately most people don't think of taxes or fees as insurance. Instead all they see is all of this money going toward nothing. And really it's a different kind of insurance than most people are accustomed. It's not like people are guaranteed to get anything by paying it. Firefighters could show up and the house could still burn down.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

>>>There's no reason that one should have a choice

Heil Mein Fuhrer!!!

Ooops. Sorry. I just saw Dr. Strangelove last night. But seriously: Why shouldn't people have CHOICE? You can choose to insure your house, or not. You can choose to insure your body, or not. You can choose to wear a condom, or not. You can choose to abort a human fetus, or not.

"Choice" is the foundation of freedom (so long as your choices don't physically harm others). Without choice you are no longer free.

C64_love - Pro-Choice on everything.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[divisionbyzero]

Except the only thing guaranteed is that they will try to fight the fire. The whole place could still burn down and then I'm sure he would have refused to pay.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Obfuscant]

County > city. Taxes should have been paying for this all along.

City taxes don't pay for county services. County taxes don't pay for city services. Basic accounting 101. I live in a city and have to pay both city and county property taxes. The county, as a service to the cities therein, sends the bill for both and distributes the payments, but still two different governments.

What you think taxes should be used to pay for is trumped by what the citizens who pay the taxes want them to pay for.

Did you fail your basic civics lessons?

Nope. But you did. Democracy rocks, dude.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like crashing your car into a Ferrari and _then_ offering to pay $100 for insurance because you 'forgot' to pay the premium beforehand.

No, that's like a seeing a family's Chevy sliding towards a cliff - still in safe distance from the cliff - with their pets and all their life's items stored in the car, together with all their documents, clothes, computers, dreams and memories - and refusing to stop the car via your special towing car, just because the family didn't pay the insurance bill, and watching the car crash down the cliff passively.

The fire brigade watched the home burn down, dammit. The poor guy could have signed any document they demanded, for pretty much any sum - well above the actual costs of 10 years of fire-service readiness costs for that property.

Also note that the outcome would have been distinctly different, had it been a true Ferrari owner: say a rich resident with good connections to local businessmen, politicians and the fire department. The fire chief would probably have called the fire brigade personally to make a special exception for that excellent gentleman.

This kind of 'society for the privileged' is precisely what the founding fathers fought against.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Byzantine]

He didn't forget to pay. He chose not to pay.

Ah, yet another person who reads the one article and believes they know everything about it. As much as you will hate hearing it, you are absolutely wrong. This was a case of forgetfulness. He had paid the fee on-time for years and years past, and slipped his mind this time.

And? Every month except last month I've paid my water bill on time. Last month I forgot to mail it until the day after it was due, and consequently the city charged me a late fee. Which I paid. The reason Mr. Cranick did not pay his $75.00 fee would only be relevant if he were genuinely prevented from doing so—which he wasn't, as far as I can tell.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[LinuxAndLube]

It's like health insurance, not car insurance. In the context of health insurance, when a problem arises, it might not be too late to save what is at stake, and if you're not insured, then you can still pay the full bill (what this guy or his neighbor offered to do). In the context of car insurance, the damage is done and cannot be prevented anymore.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[nomadic]

The FD should have billed him for the cost of fighting the fire in light of not getting his check, not let his house burn down.

He made it easier for them by offering on the spot to do so.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Surt]

The solution, of course, is to pay the full cost on demand. The fee is an insurance scheme to amortize the costs from the losers to the winners. So a responsible homeowner who DOESN'T choose to burn trash in his yard has to pay to cover this yahoo, who does.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

My state doesn't have a county government (you insensitive clod). Everything is controlled from the central capitol which operates administrative offices with essentially no power but to follow the dictates of the legislature.

As for this "victim" he made his choice, and he paid the ultimate price. Just the same as my car is not insured, so if I wreck it, the car is done. What the fire department should have is an "post-fire fee" of about $1500 (i.e. twenty years worth of coverage). That way it would encourage people to insure their houses upfront with $75 fees, rather than after the fact.

Still - they should have the choice. It should never, ever, never be taken away from them. Freedom is too precious to be not free.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cheekyjohnson]

You don't just let innocent animals or people burn in a building when you have the ability to do something about it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Surt]

What they obviously should have offered was the opportunity to pay the full cost of response rather than the $75. If he payed $15,000, I bet that would have covered the cost of response.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fyngyrz]

What this IS is an example of democracy.

It's also an example of stupidity; of failure; of a poor system that produces cluetards and then lets them vote.

Democracy: where any two idiots can outvote an expert on any subject;
Tennessee: where there are very few experts.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unequivocal]

True - and the real baffler for me is that if everyone were made to pay in this manner the cost would probably be a lot less than $75 / house.. But as another poster observed, TN natives really don't like mandatory taxes.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[blair1q]

The city has no obligation to also serve people who reside outside of it.

The imaginary line around the city does not absolve people in the fire department from their moral obligation to help anyone who needs help.

Used to be if there was a fire everyone within reach would be running with a bucket.

Now you have "professionals" who niggle over taxation vs. fee-based services while your pets are incinerated.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ayahner]

The cost of putting out this single fire CAN be quantified. It's ridiculous to think it couldn't.
The firemen went on-site and watched a man's house burn down despite him offering to pay "whatever it costs" to put out the fire.

Certainly if they put out the fire and accepted the $75 fee, everyone outside the city fire coverage would likely cancel their fire coverage.
But if the fire department stated simply, "Sir, you didn't opt in for fire covereage so you will be assessed a fee covering the cost of putting out the fire outside of the coverage. is this acceptable?"

The man would say yes, the city would put out the fire, save the dogs, and likely sue the mortgage company for the house to recover the cost.

They let the house burn, risked losing control of the fire, possibly damaged the property (and property values) of the neighbor which DID pay for coverage.

This is a mistake by the fire dept. they were not responsible for responding to his request for putting out the fire: true. but they were responsible for ensuring the safety and protection of the rest of the paying neighborhood. A moral obligation is a different issue, and something tells me this man has a history with the municipality that came into play during this decision.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cheekyjohnson]

"wasn't worth $75"

Maybe, just maybe, he was poor and couldn't afford anymore bills. They had the ability to save lives of innocent creatures, but they let them burn. They didn't do anything to deserve that. Save lives? Apparently that isn't the goal of these firefighters unless they get their worthless money. Perfect example of how money is detrimental to the rest of society.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fyngyrz]

The city has no obligation to also serve people who reside outside of it.

The county does, though. And they should have been collecting that $75.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[adisakp]

No different then letting your life insurance policy lapse, then you die, and your spouse tries to collect $1 mil by paying this months premium.

I agree 100% -- if you opt out of paying for a service, you have opted out of receiving that service -- whether the service is provided by the gov't or a private entity.

It can costs hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars to run a fire department even if the number of fires are relative low.

Let's say it costs $500,000 to run the department but there are on average only 10 fires a year and coverage is a $75 voluntary fee.

If everyone chose not to pay the $75, there would be no fire department. If you could pay $0, and then only pay $75 when the fire department, the fire department would operate on a $499,250 budget deficit (since who would prepay when you could pay per use).

If you want to make it a "per use" payment -- i.e. pay to save a house after the fact, you need to charge $50,000 or more in order for the department to actually exist.

Or you can charge people a fee and amortize it and deny coverage to those who don't pay.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[DrugCheese]

Have you ever moved everything in your house? It's far from being free.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cheekyjohnson]

"As for his pets, those were his fault"

I'm surprised at how many people agree with this decision. They let innocent creatures die for a small amount of money, and I'm sure they'll later claim to be heroes or whatever they want to call themselves. These animals didn't do anything to deserve that.

"They were his responsibility and he failed them."

So did the firefighters which could have saved them but chose not to for a small amount of money. This just further shows how the existence of worthless artificial currencies hurts our society and encourages greed and corruption.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

>>>lowered property values for the entire neighborhood...

Bullshit. That's the same argument the Housing Association gave when they refused to let my parents put an antenna on the roof (to get TV). The lawyer, who was quite good, dug-out the 1996 Telecommuncations Act which gave my parents the right to erect an antenna. He also noted several other laws the HA was in violation of (requiring a certain kind of grass), which eventually led to the judge dismantling the HA for multiple counts of abuse against citizens.

You see: Congress decided freedom to "pursue happiness"
  was more important than property values. Freedom means nothing, if you are not truly free to make your own choices.

I don't insure my car. Do you think you have a right to FORCE me to insure it? You don't. Neither do you have a right to force me to insure my house.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

>>>What this IS is an example of democracy. The people of that county are free to rule themselves in this matter.

Progressives (big government types) only believe in democracy when it agrees with them. When it doesn't agree with them, then they ram it down the voters' throats even if they don't want it. Like when 80% were against the Bush Corporate Bailout Bill, but it got passed anyway. And 70% against the Healthcare Bill, but it too got passed.

In THIS case the voters don't want a fire department. They want an opt-in system Some here, the progressives, thing the will of the voters should be over-ruled. They don't believe in democracy.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Obfuscant]

"This person lived outside of the city fire jurisdiction." No such fucking thing.

Of course there is. Maybe you live in a part of the country like Mass. where every tiny city has expanded until the borders all touch and there is no unincorporated area, but out here in the big bad west we have LOTS of places that are outside the city's jurisdiction, both for fire and police.

That's why those areas that want fire protection create Rural Fire Protection Districts and vote themselves a tax (or sometimes a fee) to pay for it.

...if the request for help from other departments is made ...

I guess you didn't read even the simple summary. There was no local fire department to make the request. The first part of your conditional is false.

... THEY MUST ANSWER BY LAW.

Depends on what the law is, now doesn't it? Maybe some places have different laws than where you live? Just maybe?

No, One World Order is the law, I guess.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[easterberry]

I forgot to pay my taxes on time this year, and when the police who they fund saw my getting mugged they just sat there and let it happen. The fire department is an emergency service, they should not have a "we won't help you" option and their service should not be opt in.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[adisakp]

Now, in a fire, the amount of money destroyed by letting any given fire run amok in an average house is always far higher than the cost of actually stopping the fire. It's not a zero sum game. If I give you, right there and then, four times as much as it costs to put out the fire, as it happens, both sides win, as they are both better off than if the value of the house just evaporates.

It's the exact same as insurance -- by charging a small fee per house, the fire dept is betting that only 1 house out of every couple thousand will catch on fire per year.

If you let them pay after the fact, both sides don't win. It costs way more than $75 to put out a fire -- the cost is amortized by the fact that a fire only occurs for every couple thousand or so citizens who pay the fee. The actual cost of putting out the fire may be $100,000 or more (if you consider the cost of fire dept, vehicles, having fire fighters on standby, etc). If you allow people to pay $75 only when you need services, the fire department will incur a huge loss because it's "betting" that 1,999 out of 2,000 people won't have fires when they charge the $75 fee.

The only way to make the cost a win for the city/fire-dept side would be to charge the person the actual cost of putting out the fire (and running the fire department / number of fires per year). This might result in a charge of $100,000 - $200,000 to the person and might actually be more than their house and possessions are worth.... and note this isn't really a win for the city - it's just break-even cost -- and that assumes you can collect the $200,000 from someone whose house just burned down because insurance doesn't pay for saved houses, only destroyed ones.

The only practical way to do it is to enforce the fact that when someone opts out of paying for a service, they have opted out of receiving that service.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Tangential]

The city has no obligation to also serve people who reside outside of it.

The county does, though. And they should have been collecting that $75.

Exactly! The county could mandate the payment of this fee.

Yet, nowhere in this story is anyone the villain except the City FD.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[demonlapin]

When you get mugged in another town, it happens within that town's jurisdiction. This is more like asking why I can't get the (less corrupt, more competent) police from another city near me to come investigate when my car gets broken into at home.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[nomadic]

I don't insure my car. Do you think you have a right to FORCE me to insure it?

Uhhh...in a lot of states the government DOES force you insure your car.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[adisakp]

It's not a zero sum game. If I give you, right there and then, four times as much as it costs to put out the fire, as it happens, both sides win, as they are both better off than if the value of the house just evaporates.

Just because it's not a zero sum game doesn't mean that both sides win. Lets take your 4:1 ratio and say the house is worth $500,000 and it costs the fire department $125,000 to save the house.

If we let people not pay until they have a fire and only pay $75 to put of the fire, I would posit that yes there is a net gain ($500K - $125K) overall... but the homeowner comes out ($500K - $75) ahead and the fire department comes out ($125K - $75) behind.

NET_GAIN = GAIN_PARTY_A + GAIN_PARTY_B

$375,000 = ($499,925) + (- $124,925)

I don't see how losing nearly $125K is a win for the city & fire department. However, it is a huge win of nearly half a millions $$$$ for the home-owner.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Roblimo]

Actually, here in Manatee County, FL, the County EMS costs $650 + mileage per response. Blue Double Cross only pays a portion of that, BTW, but uninsured people or ones who haven't hit their health ins. deductible pay the full amount.

Worse = Baylfite, the private (non-profit) medical helicopter co. that flies all accident victims here to the closest trauma center, across the bay in St. Petersburg -- for a $5100 "liftoff fee" plus $1000 per mile flown. And they WILL fly you if your apparent injuries meet an arbitrary point system.

Example: Over 55 plus a broken arm = "fly to trauma center" even if you're sitting up and chatting with the cops. And then, like as not, Double Cross or another insurer will only pay $1000 or so, and you are stuck with the rest.

Fun, isn't it? :)

Re:No, that's not it at all

[magus_melchior]

And the straw man being raised here in rebuttal is that the guy offered to pay 75 bucks. He offered to pay "whatever it took", which means that he offered to pay the cost of fire service, which would probably go into the thousands.

Obviously, that's going on the Cranicks' word alone, but if the 911 dispatcher recording also backs him up, the "Everyone else would fail to pay up" argument would hold no water. The sensible thing to have done is to put out the fire anyway and have the Cranicks sign a release stating they would pay up the cost of the service, rather than the annual fee. As IANAL, I don't know if that would hold up-- they obviously can't tax the Cranicks, nor can they demand anything from the county without a pre-approved agreement.

If enough people in that county are motivated, the county and city will change their laws to allow after payment of service. However, I doubt anyone but the Cranicks and their friends care in that neck of the woods, so we'll probably see a repeat event in the future. That's the basic lesson of history.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[RightSaidFred99]

If the city started letting people pay the fee after they needed it, it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck. In other words, after a while, the only $75 payments they'd collect would be for the houses that actually caught on fire.

Prepare for some subtle sarcasm...

What's wrong with that? That's exactly and literally what our sweet ass new health care plan in the US will be doing. You can pay a fine that's well less than the price of insurance, and then just buy insurance if you get really sick. I mean, I just don't see any problem with that, what could possibly go wrong?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[tmosley]

The really odd part is that he apparently had insurance. Why didn't the insurance company force him to have fire coverage, or drop his policy (or refuse to pay when the cause of loss is a fire)?

The insurer is the one that screwed the pooch here, by my reckoning. But then, this type of thing probably doesn't happen that often.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[frosty_tsm]

For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?" Sorry, that's SOP. If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.

You make an excellent point (which is also made by others). What if the FD offered a $500 fee for coming out when the insurance hasn't been paid? $1,000? I'd pay or scrape together $5,000 to get them to come out rather than letting the place burn down.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[JustSomeProgrammer]

I think a $1500 fee would be reasonable in this situation. What is particularly evil (yes I feel the fire department acted evil) is that they refused any kind of payment. I'm sure if they said "We're going to have to charge you $1500" the guy would have accepted. But now his life is basically gone. For what? An example? Seriously? How fucking evil can they be? God forbid they teach kids in school there to call 911 in case of an emergency. "My mommy fell and the house is on fire please come save her!" "I'm sorry child, she didn't pay the rescue fee. She has to die."

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

Actually, it's called the real world. If you don't pay to have people fight your fires, then nobody will. Offering to make good on it is not an option. Do you expect your insurance company to pay for your car if you offer to make good on the payments after the fact?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

Probably the fire department or the city government will get sued for negligence and endangerment. They won't get away with just standing there.

In cases where gov't personnel rescue lost people in mountains or at sea, they do the job they were trained to do. And then they charge the victim later on. (And if not paid, they take wages from the person's paycheck.) This city FD should have followed the same principle.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[magus_melchior]

Not only did he not pay, one of his sons had the benefit of getting the fire department to put out a fire in his house even though he hadn't paid the fee. When the father's house caught fire, he then assumed the FD would put out the fire anyway as a public hazard concern, but that turned out to be quite the fatal assumption.

I have little sympathy for those decisions, and I'm sure he would be more careful with his new house if he were wise.

That said, the county and its residents bear a lot of responsibility for having such a screwed-up system. If you demand no taxes and a powerless government, you will get no help from the government. This, the Massey mine accident, the BP spill, and Katrina are all stark examples of how neutralizing the government has serious consequences.

I hate to sound cynical, but I doubt the county's people will learn from this; they'll scoff at the Cranicks as many of the libertarians here no doubt have, without realizing that they'll be ill-equipped to handle the next disaster.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

It's arson, actually. And they'd better be *extremely* sure they didn't get it wrong, because civil and criminal liabilities could fall on the individual firefighters.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

I personally have more important things to do with my money than to waste it repairing my car because some self important twat runs into it and won't make it right. Your are Damn right that you should be forced to insure your car. If you can't be a respectable part of the community then you can keep you car in the garage for as long as you want, but as soon as you go out with the grownups, you had better be able to follow the rules.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

"This person lived outside of the city fire jurisdiction."

It goes to another level when there was actually a fire crew dispatched to the scene, fully equipped to fight a fire, and then choosing not to fight it.

That's completely different from there not being any resources to fight the fire in the first place. So different that I will say it constitutes arson, and that the "firefighters" should face prison time for this.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[NoSleepDemon]

When a family's ENTIRE LIFE is going up in flames, along with their pets, whether or not they paid for some service or other is irrelevant. You save their fucking livelihood and THEN deal with whatever they did or did not pay. The county should have levied a several thousand dollar fine on them or whatever they saw fit, it's likely to be equal to less than the cost of their house and future happiness. It's easy to say they were scrounging pricks for not paying an obviously essential tax, but to not have the humanity to help then anyway? When they're standing watching their house burn mere metres from where you stand? I think you'd eat your words.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

"Probably the fire department or the city government will get sued for negligence and endangerment. They won't get away with just standing there."

If I were the insurance company (there is one involved!), I would be pressing a civil case against each firefighter individually, and would be getting individual depositions *today* from each firefighter explaining why he responded to the scene but did not do anything to fight the fire.

I would also be insisting on criminal investigations of arson against everyone involved, including the homeowner and the brother, because there are a lot of things about this story that seem more than a little suspicious.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

"His county HAS NO FIRE DEPT."

Irrelevant because a fire crew did show up at the scene, but chose not to fight the fire for reasons that had nothing to do with the emergency at hand. And for that, they should all be on the hook for arson.

I expect the guy's insurance company will be asking questions from that very point of view. I'm confident that this is exactly the reason the fire department isn't saying a single word about it publicly -- it's doubtless already the subject of civil litigation and a criminal investigation.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[GameboyRMH]

The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it, and they refused, they just watched his house, his life's possessions, and his pets burn alive.

Yay glorious libertarianism! Praise be to Rand!

(No, seriously, all political BS aside, I'm amazed that those firefighters had it in them to do that. Just...WTF? Letting the animals die was really low. They can't help it that their owners are advanced enough to do something dumber than any animal would do in nature.)

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

"In this case only three dogs and a cat died. What if there were a small child or otherwise helpless person trapped in there?"

The firefighters would be answering questions regarding their contribution to manslaughter as well as arson.

There are already big questions: How did the firefighters on the scene know that there was no risk to anyone's life? How did they know for sure that the fee hadn't been paid? What if they got it wrong?

Because they responded to an emergency but then didn't actually try to fight the fire, they should be really worried about being charged with arson.

There is an insurance company involved, and I wonder if the insurer might take an aggressive stance on this.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

Fortunately, your opinions have no effect on the real world. They would be there to make sure that the fire does not spread to places where the people have paid the fee. If the firefighters were expected to fight fires for free when the owners "forget" to pay, then no one would pay in advance, and the entire arraignment would fall apart. In short, the guy needs to grow up and realize that he can't expect everyone else to bail him out for his own mistakes.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

So do you also think police coverage should be optional as well? That if you don't pay your fee they shouldn't investigate when you've been robbed or murdered?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

your expectation have no basis in reality. the insurance company may have an issue with the homeowner not paying for protection, but they would not expect a fire department to fight a fire for free. Sounds like you will have a lot of growing up when you leave your daddies house. Here in the real world, nothing is free, and stupid decisions can often have serious results.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Zerth]

My county tried doing that for a while.

A fair chunk of the time, after they saved the house, the person would refuse to pay. So the county would sue them, find out they couldn't pay, and then either took possesion of a fire-damaged house they didn't want or sued the insurance company(if there was one) to get a cut of the insurance money. Whereupon the insurance company would usually pull out a clause saying they only insured houses covered by fire service and refuse to pay anybody.

So they just got rid of the fire department and now the residents have to make a deal with the nearest municipal fire department, kinda like this one.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

I think you would want to be very, very certain that there is absolutely no risk of being exposed to civil or criminal liability if you are in a fire crew that is equipped to deal with a life- and property-threatening emergency and choose not to do so for whatever reason.

How certain were the firefighters that the fire wouldn't get out of control? Or that there was nobody in danger? Or that there is no law against intentionally letting dogs and cats die in a fire (my state has such a law, as a side-effect of dog-fighting laws!) Or that it's legal to stand there with firefighting equipment and not fight the blaze in the first place?

I'd want to be really sure that "following orders" wasn't going to land me in prison for 20 years... Come to think of it, who has ever met a firefighter who even *could* be ordered not to try to fight a house fire if they were already on the scene? We aren't talking about triage or a safety issue. We're talking about a fire crew being ordered to let a house burn -- and I wonder how sure the fire crew is, that they won't be in court explaining themselves to the insurance company, or defending their choices against charges of arson?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[RobDude]

Yeah - except for that whole 'land of the free' thing. But yes - there is no reason why the local government, without due process, should be able to enact new laws and taxes to force their citizens to do whatever they want.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

There is a world of difference between "no fire department" and a fire department that showed up and actively chose to let the house burn.

The former is a circumstance of limited resources. The latter is arson. The county cannot claim that there were no resources with which they could fight this fire. The firefighters have the Nuremburg defense. How sure are they that it's legal do do what they did? How sure are they that the fee wasn't paid? How sure are they that the fee issue releases them from liability? How sure were they that no person was in danger? How sure were they that it's legal to let dogs and cats die in a fire?

It looks like they showed up to the scene fully equipped to fight the fire, and then, cruelly for their entertainment, let the house burn.

I hope they are very, very sure that this won't be the thing that puts them behind bars. I'm calling it arson.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[IndustrialComplex]

That's how taxes work. If they didn't, no one would ever pay them.

No, that's not true at all. Only in certain circumstances. In my locality, unpaid taxes can become a lein against the property they were assessed against. Failure to pay certain taxes can prevent me from transferring the title to the property, but they do not carry any penalty of jailtime.

You can easily have penalties which do not include jailtime. Jailtime for something like a $75 is way over the top considering the harm which you would do to the person considering the harm caused by them not paying their fine.

Garnishing wages is a very common technique to extract a penalty from someone who is unwilling to pay that doesn't result in jailtime.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[JohnFluxx]

What about the running costs of the fire department? What about all the time the firefighters weren't doing anything but still on time?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[batquux]

Actually, he offered to pay the full costs. As did his neighbor. The offer was declined. Also, the fee had been previously waived in other cases in the same area.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[makomk]

They refused to put the fire out no matter how much he paid, on principle. The principle being, if you didn't pay the annual fee there's nothing you can do to stop them standing by and watching your house burn to the ground with your pets and possesions inside. I suspect the fire department think they can make a lot more money if everyone has to pay the annual fee than if they pay at the time of use.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ZFox]

"A lot of states" require you to establish financial responsibility. In my state, besides automotive liability insurance, this can be a surety bond or a certificate of deposit.

This is also where the whole argument that forcibly requiring health insurance is the same as is already done with auto insurance falls on its face.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[icebrain]

A person inside? Yeah, they'll go in and rescue them, then let it burn once they're out. They won't let someone die over $75. But property can be replaced. And as much as it may upset people, pets and property don't justify the same risks to firefighters' lives that people do.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ZFox]

There are other ways to establish financial responsibility for your automobile than just liability insurance.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Outlander Engine]

The only reason Hospitals don't let you "bleed out in the street" is because we have passed laws saying they can't choose to do that. Otherwise, they would. Because people will say or do anything to take care of a problem right now, including making promises they can't keep.

Hospitals would be out of business and bankrupt if they were weren't compensated by the rest of us for all the folks who show up in ER without insurance.

But that is different than how this system works. This particular system is set up such that there is no one else compensating for the lost revenue. You want to be frugal and not pay? Fine, on your head be it.

As for it being inhumane, you are right. Without pity or or compassion. The home owner made that choice. He has to live with it. It is NOT the firefighters fault.

And finally, what happens next? What is the result of changing this policy?
Does the counties insurance policy cover them for fighting freebies?
Do the firefighters assume personal liability and risk their lives and their families livelihoods for someone who "just forgot" to cough up $75?
And the next guy who decides not to pay? Do we take his land when he can't pay the emergency costs? Because liens don't pay the bills, you have to foreclose to get paid.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[mattack2]

No, it sounds like you're saying that people should be forced to have insurance to cover THE OTHER GUY's car (that they run into). I think even this requirement goes away with proof of enough cash.

I shouldn't have to insure _my_ car.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

It's far more likely that the more numerous residents in the cities/towns voted against county coverage because they already receive it from their town/city.

Usually rural communities consider fire coverage to be pretty important (because they tend to burn trash because there's no garbage pick-up) but rural communities also don't have the votes to pass things.

Not saying this is the specific case for Obion county, but it's as plausible an explanation as your own.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

I think it's far more likely that the more numerous residents in the cities/towns voted against county coverage because they already receive it from their town/city.

Usually rural communities consider fire coverage to be pretty important (because they tend to burn trash because there's no garbage pick-up) but rural communities also don't have the votes to pass things.

Not saying this is the specific case for Obion county, but it's as plausible an explanation as your own.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[nomadic]

Like when they stood around watching his house burn down?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[mattack2]

And 70% against the Healthcare Bill, but it too got passed.

If that figure is accurate, it's probably also counting people who were "against" it because it didn't go far enough in their opinion (i.e. single payer).

BTW, I was against it for the same reason I think the fire department did the right thing in this case (even though it sounded shocking to me at first too). The guy chose to not pay the fee, and got the consequences. (I do agree with the other posters who say instead there should be a retroactive HUGE fee, so everyone actually gets coverage.)

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

Are you actually so self important that you think it's some sort of honor and privilege to provide you your services? People do that because you pay. If you don't want to pay, you shouldn't get the services, and should probably move somewhere where you do not leach off of everyone else.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[losfromla]

This was a family that burned trash because they couldn't afford trash service or dump fees. Do you really think that paying up $20K (guess) on the spot was an option for him? Shit, his house is probably not worth more than $15K , $18K with the stuff in it and the animals. Nope, what he should have done was bought a hose ahead of time and put out the frikin fire himself right when it started. Small fires are easier to fight than big fires.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

Actually, in rural areas like this, the arraignment they have is about as good as you can get. There is no taxing authority in the extreme rural areas, and even if there was, requiring everyone to pay makes little sense, as someone who lives three hours away from a fire station would gain little advantage to having such limited coverage, compared to someone on the outskirts of town.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

>>>lot of states the government DOES force you insure your car.

Which ones? I'm not aware of any. They require you to insure the OTHER guy's car, but not your own. And neither should they. You should be free.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

The only really big question is why you are going to such an extent to try to excuse the guilty party for his actions. He had a choice to pay for fire service. He chose not to and has to live with the results. Just because some people think they are so important that the rules don't apply to them doesn't mean that the rest of us have to sacrifice anything for them. I hope you will figure this out before too long.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[honkycat]

It's not even remotely ridiculous to hope to accurately assess the cost of a fire. The direct costs are obvious, and it's straightforward to figure out the standing costs per month of the department and the number of fires in an average month. I'm sure they've already done this in determining the $75 fee, in fact.

The on-site cost will be far higher than the $75, but there's no reason not to permit it. Perhaps you don't make the same guarantee of ability to provide timely response, but it seems extremely shortsighted to refuse service to property within the general service area in the way they've done here.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[memnock]

The Bush Corporate Bailout Bill was not a progressive policy. It was a policy of a corporatist. Or whatever one would describe Bush as. I don't think "progressive" applies. Those "progressive" big banks that were crying for the money probably had a lot to do with the legislation as well.

i think the people on /. who are complaining about the opt in were thinking more like the type of folks who want to protect their property. i'm pretty sure that's not a strictly progressive plank.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[SoccerDad41]

No, the county government can TRY to raise taxes and TRY to tell their constituents that they MUST pay to have a Fire Department looking out for them. The voters can say NO, either by referendum or voting out incumbents. Tell a Tea Party member that he MUST pay to bail out GM and duck quickly - same kind of response expected in this case. People can be very touchy about taxes, even when the benefits are clear and price is reasonable. Unfortunate preventable situation but ultimately the voters put themselves in this situation.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anUnhandledException]

Arson really?

Since when is not fighting a fire on a property outside their jurisdiction arson?

As far as the insurance company. Well maybe this loss will cause them to tighten their underwriting standards. It is entirely possible that in the future the ins company will pay the $75 fee themselves (to ensure protection) and pass that cost on to the consumer.

If I were writing hundred thousand dollar policies covering destruction by fire I think it might be material to check to see if property being insured is covered by fire dept. Wouldn't you?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[mattack2]

Irrelevant because a fire crew did show up at the scene, but chose not to fight the fire for reasons that had nothing to do with the emergency at hand. And for that, they should all be on the hook for arson.

Not irrelevant, because they were there to protect the houses of those who DID pay the fee. If they were busy fighting the non-payer's house, what happens if the house next door (owned by a payer) catches fire?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[pugugly]

Except that by definition, if you think "making a public good like firefighting or police service an opt-in fee is stupid and results in dumb, avoidable tragic circumstances" you're not *actually* "all for the free market".

This is Ayn Rand in Practice. It is also the reason why these Balanced Budget, Socially and economically Conservative states (By and Large, an with caveats for the current recession) get more in taxes than they send to Washington and are being being subsidized by those stupid Liberal States.

Because that stupid liberal keynesian economics actually works. Although I swear to god, as near as I can tell the main insight Keynes made is that "Dollar for Dollar Poor and Middle Class People contribute to the Economy far more than the wealthy do"

Pug

Re:No, that's not it at all

[sorak]

I'm sorry your parents had trouble getting an antenna, but it's not really related to the question of whether your neighbor should be allowed to put your property, and the value of your property at risk.

As for the pursuit of happiness, that is not a constitutional right, and it was never meant to be absolute. If punching children makes me happy, then I am not allowed to pursue that happiness. If putting your neighbor at risk makes you happy, too bad.

And we do not have freedom in the sense that you think. You seem to be arguing that if we do not have absolute freedom, I.E. anarchy, then we have no freedom at all. No, we have limited freedom. In my home state, I am required to insure my car. It is liability, but the principal is the same as the one being discussed here: I cannot make stupid decisions, if those decisions will harm others.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

I suspect most people become fire fighters to save lives, not to turn a profit.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anyGould]

They turned up to stop the spread of the fire to a neighbouring property, then they stood and watched as the house burnt to the ground, killing the animals inside. The guy forgot to pay $75, offered to make good on it, and they refused, they just watched his house, his life's possessions, and his pets burn alive. I don't care who you are, that's callous beyond anything I wish to respect. Simon

Well, that's your Not Tax Dollars at work. Neighbor paid for fire service, he didn't. And as TFA mentions, if you could pay "on delivery", no-one would pay (and the implication is that it costs a damn sight more than $75 to put out a fire.)

Is it callous? Maybe. Was it necessary, and fair to everyone else who was paying their taxes? Yep. Maybe folks will remember this next time they complain about taxes being too high - taxes also pay for nice things like Fire Departments.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shutdown -p now]

Incidently, firefighters don't put out fires from the outside. If they fight it, they go in. There's no halfassing it.

Well, in this case the guy claims that spraying his roof with water would likely be enough, and it's what he asked them to do - and they didn't even do that, despite it not really costing them anything.

At that point we're back to private fire departments. Look where that got us (private firefighters were becoming arsonists)

The background in this situation is already quite sufficient to provide motivation for firefighters to become arsonists: they collect a fee for coverage, and they don't respond to emergencies of those who didn't pay the fee. Clearly, there is financial motivation to "make sure" that everyone signs up.

Setting the whole economics thing aside, imagine this. You are near someone's house on fire, with all their life's belongings burning inside. They beg you to help, you have equipment to do so, and you can at least try to do something that is not at all costly or risky to you that can possibly extinguish the fire, or at least contain the damage - namely, spray their house. Purely from ethical perspective, do you really think that answering "fuck off, we're not gonna help" in that case does not make one a complete asshole?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

Actually, it's more likely that the 0% fire coverage for the county was due to the votes of the more populous people (in the cities and towns with their own FD) than in the sparsely populated rural areas.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shutdown -p now]

They refused his $75 because on principal. If they allowed folks to pay them the $75 AFTER the house started burning, no one would pay at all.

Right. So you let the family's entire possessions, and their live pets, burn "on principle" to teach them and everyone else a lesson. Gotcha.

I take it you don't mind millions of $$$ that RIAA sues people for, either. After all, they also do it "on principle", since otherwise no-one would pay at all!

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

If the city started letting people pay the fee after they needed it, it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck. In other words, after a while, the only $75 payments they'd collect would be for the houses that actually caught on fire.

No, it would be like wrecking your car and having your pets trapped inside slowly and painfully dying, and watching the people with extrication expertise do nothing as they die a horrible, painful death.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

In the real world, everything is free, if you're strong enough to take it and hold onto it.

Of course that's a big if.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shutdown -p now]

Nowhere in TFA it says that the guy didn't pay for 20 years. It says that 1) the fee itself has been in effect for 20 years, and 2) the guy claims that he forgot to pay the fee. Indeed, I'd think that, if he didn't ever pay the fee at all, the FD would point that out right away.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Logic and Reason]

Failing to put out a fire is not arson. Please stop calling it that.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Shakrai]

Of course the bank might force you to insure your car if you want to borrow money for it but that's a private relationship that you are free to walk away from at any time.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[horatio]

As I recall the story, he and the others in his area (not sure what the actual geography is) voted to have their fire services established this way. Prior to the agreement of $75/year per home, there was no FD covering his or his neighbors' homes. Why shouldn't it be voluntary? You sound like you want to impose your idea of what is good for me - onto me. In most locations, emergency services are funded through taxes. I don't happen to have a huge issue with this. I think that emergency services are a wise way to spend tax dollars to create a shared resource.

However, if I live in a town where we decide that we want to fund our fire department a different way - or contract services from a neighboring municipality, then that is our choice. If you don't like it, I don't care. I'm sorry to say, but you sound like more of the "for your own good" nonsense that has created monstrosities like PelosiCare. I like what I have, if I don't want to buy health insurance, I shouldn't have to and the govt has no business forcing me into it. (Required car insurance is a) state mandated and b) liability only - if you're found to be at fault the person you hit doesn't get screwed)

Blame the voters of the town, who decided this was how they wanted to fund fire services. Blame the owner who didn't pay for the emergency service. There is no "system" that created the mess. The people decided this is how they wanted to do things.

I realize you're not advocating pay-as-you-go for FD services, but I have to emphasize what many others have pointed out -- operating a FD is not free. There are significant up front costs, as well as ongoing maintenance costs. The turnout coats wear out and need to be replaced. The pumper needs new tires, etc. The company I work for builds equipment for firetrucks. Should my company be required to provide our products and services for free? Should I not get paid for my labor, because fire trucks should be free? Let me assure you, they are not.

Further, it is impossible to build a firetruck while the house is burning down. If everyone decided not to pay until the house caught fire - no money before the fire to buy the truck, the equipment, pay the firefighters - there would be nothing to put it out with and not only would his house would burn to the ground anyway - so would his neighbor's.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[anyGould]

That ends up, on a moral level, not too far from firefighters-arsonists...

(worst case scenario - what would be the problem with billing the firefighting action?)

Realistically? One, they're likely not set up to even calculate the cost of putting out a single fire. Two, they're not set up to handle collections in that manner (it's supposed to be a pre-pay, after all). Third, the guy probably couldn't afford it anyway.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cayenne8]

"Because your burning pile of crap is too close to my flammable pile of crap. Because the situation endangered neighbors who paid for fire protection, and lowered property values for the entire neighborhood..."

I know it sounds a bit callous...but I pretty much ONLY feel poorly about the animals that suffered and died. It wasn't their fault. WTF didn't the owners make every effort to get them out?? Pets are NOT just a possession, if you think of them that way, you should not own them.

I think it would have been nice for the FD to accept offer of later payment, and helped, but that WAS the deal, and the family that didn't think the $75 was worth it...well, you do need to take personal responsibility for you actions/inactions.

But, I do feel bad for the pets...wasn't their fault, and no excuses for that!!

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to insure your car just for owning it, but if you want to drive on the road that other people park on, they have the right to expect you to be able to pay for damage you do to their legally-parked car if you hit it. I don't care if you lose your car, but insurance to cover damage that you do to others is (and should be) mandatory in most parts of the developed world. Just like your right to swing your hands around ends when it interferes with my right not to be punched in the face.

The same with your house. You don't have to insure it, but only on the understanding (in this case) that nobody will put the fire out when it is burning down. Personally, I think they should have offered him the opportunity to pay a $10,000 call-out fee to risk their lives and equipment to save someone who didn't think they were worth $75 a year, but that's just details.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

There is no such thing as "no fire department." There is only "not in their jurisdiction." This case is where essentially, the neighbor was in jurisdiction and he wasn't.

So what do you do? Require firemen operate at a loss by fighting all fires everywhere on the planet, regardless of jurisdiction? Or let them set their jurisdiction and anyone outside it needs to find their own solution?

Yes, it's bad to do what was done here, but certainly no arson, unless one of the firefighters set the fire himself.

They acted very cruelly. They did the capitalist thing. They weren't going to provide a service that wasn't paid for. Capitalism is cruel in all forms. But the county he lives in opted to not have socialism in the form of a fire department, and he chose to live in that capitalist area, and he paid the price. That's the price of the "freedom" from taxes.

I'm calling it arson.

And I'm calling it a chair. Those damn firefighters committed chair, and they should go to jail for chairing the homeowner. See, making up new definitions for words is silly. The point of a language is to communicate ideas, not to lie with the intent of giving the wrong idea because you are incapable of using colorful language to express your displeasure,

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cayenne8]

"Bullshit. That's the same argument the Housing Association gave when they refused to let my parents put an antenna on the roof (to get TV). The lawyer, who was quite good, dug-out the 1996 Telecommuncations Act which gave my parents the right to erect an antenna. He also noted several other laws the HA was in violation of (requiring a certain kind of grass), which eventually led to the judge dismantling the HA for multiple counts of abuse against citizens."

I've been fortunate enough to have never lived where there was such a thing as a required HA...and damned glad of it. I didn't realize they were so prevalent around much of the country!!

I don't see how they can be legal, I really don't...I guess you don't really buy property anymore, you just rent it....don't pay your property taxes or other fees (as may be required in your state) and see just how long you get to stay on said property, much less decorate it as you please.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[vlm]

I forgot to pay my taxes on time this year, and when the police who they fund saw my getting mugged they just sat there and let it happen. The fire department is an emergency service, they should not have a "we won't help you" option and their service should not be opt in.

Alternate interpretation, cops are a profit center because they can fine the mugger, so they should always act. Also they can civil forfeiture/steal whatever they want. Firemen can only be a cost center so proactivity is not necessarily required by the beancounters.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cayenne8]

"This is also where the whole argument that forcibly requiring health insurance is the same as is already done with auto insurance falls on its face."

Except for one BIG difference...in the case you gave for car insurance, it is the STATE that makes the rules, in the case of Obamacare requiring you to purchase health insurance, it is the FEDS trying to force you to do so...which likely is not one of their enumerated powers by the constitution.

One other slight difference...if you choose not to own a car (a choice) you are not required by any state that I know of to purchase car insurance. The same can't be said about healthcare...no choice is given.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

Were you there? Do you know the fireman said fuckoff?

or could they have possibly said.

Sir, we'd love to help, and if someone was inside we would. But you see our boss said that if we go in there to save your STUFF he'd fire us. And he's told what to do by the city council would would in turn fire him. And you see, we have kids and in an economy like this, we're not about to risk our jobs.

And Sir, as far as spraying the roof, all that is going to do is prolong the inevitable. The rest of your house is going to keep burning until it all falls left and you have nothing left but a wet roof on top of ashes. And then, we still loose our job.

I don't know that they said that, but since ALL the firefighters I know seem to be extremely dedicated to society, I doubt the said fuck off. Firefighters don't choose that job for the high pay and fame.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Gordonjcp]

No, it sounds like you're saying that people should be forced to have insurance to cover THE OTHER GUY's car (that they run into). I think even this requirement goes away with proof of enough cash.

So you've got $10M cash to drop on damages, if you have an accident?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[KDN]

Where did you read that he received a bill and a phone call? I'm not seeing that in any article I have read on this, except here.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

Someone mentioned that it is explicitly illegal for the county to collect the fee and send it along to the city. I don't know if it's true, but that's what someone else here said.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[gknoy]

The imaginary line around the city does not absolve people in the fire department from their moral obligation to help anyone who needs help.

Imagine that there's a man who is stuck, injured, in a mineshaft on your neighbor's property. Perhaps it's your neighbor. Surely, common decency would suggest that we'd do what we could to help them. At what distance does the cost/risk of going there outweigh the benefit you are willing to do? A mile? Ten miles? Across the continent?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[vlm]

I'd be pretty upset if a $75 fee was being enforced via a threat of jailtime.

$1 overdue library book fees are enforced by jailtime. You will be issued a bench warrant if you don't pay your overdue fees. Cops will take you to the station and arrest you. Happened to wife of a friend of mine, and I've read in the papers about this happening to other folks. Some weird bureaucracy thing about its easier to get an arrest warrant than to deal with contracting out to a debt collection agency.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cayenne8]

"BURN TRASH ON YOUR YARD"

Actually, in rural areas this is VERY common...how else are they to get rid of much of their waste? If you drive through the country much..often you see leaves, etc in a controlled burn.

Sounds like you need to get out of the city every once in awhile...

:D

Re:No, that's not it at all

[gcatullus]

From an interview on television the homeowner didn't pay the fee LAST YEAR or this year. He offered to pay the $75 once the fire started

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

South Fulton Mayor David Crocker said city officials don’t want to see anyone’s house burn, but he emphasized that South Fulton has a city fire department which is supported by city taxes in order to serve its residents — with a rural fire subscription service made available outside the city limits to county residents in the city’s designated rural coverage area.

“We’re very sorry their house burned,” he said.
Mayor Crocker said if the fire department operated on a per-call basis outside the city, there would be no incentive for anyone to pay the rural fee. As an analogy, he said if an auto owner allowed their vehicle insurance to lapse, they would not expect an insurance company to pay for an unprotected vehicle after it was wrecked.
Vowell said people always think they will never be in a situation where they will need rural fire protection, but he said City of South Fulton personnel actually go above and beyond in trying to offer the service. He said the city mails out notices to customers in the specified rural coverage area, with coverage running from July 1 of one year to July 1 the next year.
At the end of the enrollment month of July, the city goes a step further and makes phone calls to rural residents who have not responded to the mail-out.

“These folks were called and notified,” Vowell said. “I want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to get it and be aware it’s available. It’s been there for 20 years, but it’s very important to follow up.”

Mayor Crocker added, “It’s my understanding with talking with the firefighters that these folks had received their bill and they had also contacted them by phone.”

http://www.nwtntoday.com/news.php?viewStory=46801

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ishobo]

The county administrator said exactly that, since it is the county that gets the 911 call not the city. The county is the one that decides who gets the engine sent out based on who paid the fee. The 911 caller stated that there was nobody inside the proeprty. When dispatch said they would not send any help, the caller hung up and tried to fight the fire with his garden hose. If human life was at risk, the county would send help.

BTW, the county is currently in talks with several more city FD to help with coverage, but the annual fee would still required.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but they should've been able to come to an agreement on price. If you fail to purchase health insurance, and you get cancer or something, you can still buy the necessary treatments out-of-pocket. The doctors don't just say, "too bad, so sad, should'a paid up."

Certainly you wouldn't expect to pay the regular premium price, but there's no reason that there shouldn't have been a "buy it on the spot" price of, i'd guess a couple thousand dollars or so.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Yakasha]

It looks like this homeowner specifically declined to pay the $75. If the city started letting people pay the fee after they needed it, it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck. In other words, after a while, the only $75 payments they'd collect would be for the houses that actually caught on fire.

You mean, it would be exactly like Obamacare where insurance companies are not allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

Obviously, the voters want a fire service. They just don't want to pay for it. Progressives try to give people what they want. Conservatives try to give people what they want to pay for. Neither is interested in democracy.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

Why are "pay as you go" fire departments a good idea, but not "pay as you go" police departments?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Obfuscant]

Example: Over 55 plus a broken arm = "fly to trauma center" even if you're sitting up and chatting with the cops.

Only if you agree to it.

A conscious adult has the right to refuse medical treatment of any kind. They can't fly him anywhere if he says he refuses their treatment. He may have to sign a paper saying this, but it is still his decision.

We covered this in a First Responder class. If you come across a conscious patient who is bleeding profusely but still awake and alert, and he refuses your assistance, you are not legally allowed to touch him.

The "solution", as we were told, is to stand there and wait until he passes out, and then he's no longer able to refuse treatment and you can go to work on him.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

In many places, that's not the relationship. The county is more like a default city government if one is in unincorporated areas, rather than an overseer of the city. That's necessary because many cities span multiple counties, and the idea of "a city" would be invalid if there were drastically different rules depending on which county your part of the city was in. The act of incorporation removes some power of the county over the city. At least where I'm from (and my mother worked for the county, my dad worked for the county and city and my sister worked for the state and I lived in a city that spanned two or more counties).

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Paintballparrot]

I don't insure my car. Do you think you have a right to FORCE me to insure it? You don't. Neither do you have a right to force me to insure my house.

If you choose to not insure your car against damages thats your choice. However I should have the right to force you to have liability insurance if you wish to have the PRIVILEGE of using a motor vehicle on government controlled roads. This way when you rear end me because you were too busy texting to notice the light turned red, I don't have to worry about being stuck with a heavily damaged vehicle and a huge repair bill. This now becomes your insurance companies problem which gets passed along to you in the form of higher insurance rates.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just because some people think they are so important that the rules don't apply to them doesn't mean that the rest of us have to sacrifice anything for them."

Sacrifice like, a neighbor's house who might not have been attended to in time (this time, it was -- this time). Or sacrifices like the lives of his pets or (in my hypothetical above) the lives of others who couldn't do anything about it.

"He chose not to and has to live with the results."

And the FD chose not to do their job, and someone might die as a result.

Echoing my comment above -- fire is bad regardless of whose it is (or whose fault it is).

"I hope you will figure this out before too long."

Yeah.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Doctor Faustus]

At that point we're back to private fire departments.

How is this not a private fire department? Is it because 911 routes to them?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[alta]

It was the FD of a nearby city that does NOT service his area through taxes. They do allow people outside of the city to pay for fire coverage.

They where there to make sure no PEOPLE were killed, and his paying neighbor didn't loose his house.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Golddess]

Just the same as my car is not insured

I thought that was illegal in Maryland?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Yadyn]

If the city started letting people pay the fee after they needed it, it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck. In other words, after a while, the only $75 payments they'd collect would be for the houses that actually caught on fire.

Obviously we need to prevent these greedy fire departments from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions!

Re:No, that's not it at all

[lawpoop]

The county does, though. And they should have been collecting that $75.

Who do you think voted for those county commissioners? That's where the buck stops -- voters like this jackass.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[c0mpliant]

The arguments are bullshit I'm afraid. He paid his taxes for the county. Why did the county not have a fire department, or an agreement with the fire department of a city? Do you specifically pay a Fire Department Tax? If not then you can't say that he didn't pay the tax, because he did, same as you did, except someone said lets hold people after this line to ransom. We wont help you unless you pay us. The fact they arrived at the scene, with the Firetruck and saved a neighbors house is proof that the idea of "the cost of getting the firefighters out there needs to be covered", it already was.

Once again Americans seem to have the wrong priorities. In Europe, we send our Firefighters where they're needed. It makes no sense to argue about cost when there are lives at stake. Regardless of national borders, county borders or city borders. If this happened in any country in the EU there would be uproar, not the murmurings of discontent from some people and stead fast adherence to a policy of economic ransom of others, while the majority seem content that it doesn't effect them... for the moment

Re:No, that's not it at all

[tftp]

Uhhh...in a lot of states the government DOES force you insure your car.

Perhaps you are thinking of the mandatory liability insurance. That insurance is not insuring your car, it insures *you* - specifically, your liability to others in case of an accident that you caused. That insurance won't pay for repairs to your car; it will pay for repairs to other people's cars, if necessary.

The only relevant case I can think of is when you don't own the car; then the owner, be it the bank or the rental agency, may insist on you insuring their car.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[horatio]

Why are "pay as you go" fire departments a good idea, but not "pay as you go" police departments?

They're not? Maybe I used the wrong phrase. By "pay-as-you-go" I was referring to the idea that when the FD shows up to put out the fire, then you pay them $75. The second half of my post was about how completely unworkable of an idea that is.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

The were at the scene with firefighting equipment, and chose to ignore the life- and property-threatening emergency at hand.

If an EMT crew arrived at the scene of the accident and purposely allowed someone to die (apparently for their own entertainment), they would be on the hook for negligent homicide.

Emergency responders are and ought to be held to a higher standard than the general public.

Point of information: Very few of the firefighters who died on 9/11 were on duty or even within the jurisdiction of the WTC. Apparently we are to pick and choose matters of "jurisdiction" as they suit us.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[MichaelSmith]

As for his pets, those were his fault. They were his responsibility and he failed them.

If this guy was setting fire to animals in his house he could be reported to the police for animal cruelty. So why is it okay for anybody to let the pets burn to death?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Golddess]

If I were to sue you for not protecting my home, and I wasn't paying you, I'd get laughed out of court. Why should this be any different?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cptdondo]

His insurance company may dispute the claim, especially if he got lower rates because he had fire coverage. Insurance in no-coverage districts is expensive; how much you want to bet this cheepskate lied and told them he had coverage?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

>So what do you do? Require firemen operate at a loss

Expect emergency first responders to respond to emergencies without any considerations aside from public safety.

I've known quite a few firefighters in my life. I know none who would stand there with a hose and not put out a house fire.

That's exactly why I point out the difference between a fire crew who is AT THE SCENE who INTENTIONALLY chooses not to act, as opposed to a location that doesn't have the resources in the first place. World of difference between these scenarios, and the people in the article do have some responsibility for property loss, for allowing the public to be be endangered, and possibly for torturing domestic animals.

They were at the scene with firefighting equipment and actively chose to stand down. I'm not convinced that isn't a crime.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[MichaelSmith]

Actually I know a guy who had a crash when his insurance payment was overdue. He called the insurer immediately and paid up. They may have known he wasn't covered at the time of the crash, but its better in the long run to keep a customer. Arguments which say "nobody would pay if the $75 had been accepted on the spot" don't apply if most people would pay anyway, and this guy is an exception.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Golddess]

My state doesn't have a county government

Also just wanted to add, what?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

You seem "very, very sure". I'm fairly sure you aren't one of the people involved in the incident.

I wish I could get an opinion from the insurance company's lawyers on whether the firefighters are immune from civil or criminal liability here. There are plenty of scenarios where willful negligence is a crime, such as failing to stop and render aid at the scene of an accident, or a peace officer who purposely ignores a violent crime, or a landlord who intentionally chooses not to report his tenant's meth lab. I think this is that kind of scenario.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[DinDaddy]

Rochberg's post above covers this:

http://idle.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1810528&cid=33810384

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Firethorn]

You're a fuckwit without any clue about ESSENTIAL CIVIL SERVICES.

Is it really an essential civil service in a rural area? Sure, it's a good idea, but in this case nobody died. Some pets did, but that's possible even in the middle of the city, since firefighters will undertake much less risk to save animals, and even less for property.

For my old house, which was cheap, it's quite probable that any major fire would total it. My personal belongings are of types likely to be quickly ruined by fire or the water used to put it out. My real valuables are in fire safes.

At which point 'let it burn' becomes a real option.

To take a completely different tact, I could build my house to a fire safety rating well in excess of national home standards. To the point that setting a couch or something on fire will result in a clean up job, not major repairs.

I could go even further and get my own firefighting equipment, perhaps install a water tank, pump, hose, and nozzle for my own firefighting.

Or be like this guy and do nothing. Well, sucks to be him right now.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Obfuscant]

Actually, it's more likely that the 0% fire coverage for the county was due to the votes of the more populous people (in the cities and towns with their own FD) than in the sparsely populated rural areas.

Nonsense. The people in the city won't be voting on a rural fire protection district for the county. They can't vote 'no' on a tax on county residents anymore than they can vote 'yes' on one.

If the city residents aren't getting the service from the county, they won't be voting on the tax to pay for it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

Sorry, completely missed that...*rubs eyes* after awhile all the posts on this thread tend to blend into one pulsating mass.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Firethorn]

I saw somewhere that there's a law that restricts callout charges, even without 'insurance' to $500, which isn't enough to cover costs. Collection ability is also extremely limited, so they're back to being lucky to see $100 out of every $500 billed.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

Around here you can post a 100,000 bond, but I've never met anyone who actually does that. Normally they just claim as an excuse to avoid paying for insurance and then expect everyone else to pay when they mess up.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

I doubt even the volunteer firefighters pay for their own equipment.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

No different then letting your life insurance policy lapse, then you die, and your spouse tries to collect $1 mil by paying this months premium.

The guy is a dork for not paying the $75, it is a community of dorks for not approving a standard tax to avoid this type of situation, but the situation is nothing like your analogy.

Paying off a one million dollar life insurance policy to a spouse who did not make monthly payments on a policy is absolutely nothing like a fire crew arriving at a fire with all their equipment and prepared to fight a fire if it spreads to the next house and then playing the spectator while the other house burns down.

I am astounded that nobody in the fire crew took a stand and said "fuck this shit, the point is proven, lets put out the fucking fire and deal with this stupid bullshit afterwards!" Instead of proving their point in a humane manner they chose to take the lowest inhumane, pathetic, dishonorable and disgusting role of a petty and selfish ideology.

As has been stated in many previous posts, this is a perfect example of the rabidly insane and callous theory of libertarians. In the utopian capitalist fanciful world of libertarians everything will simply take care of itself out of their pure and sane logic but the truth is more complicated and real result will be far from utopian and instead people who fall for this insanity will find themselves in dire straights when they make stupid mistakes and will be viewed as dead wood by their libertarian society. Left for dead.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

Huh? Yes, of course city/town residents won't vote yes for county fire services if they already have them provided by the city/town. That's what I said. Not sure why you think it's nonsense, because it sounds like you're agreeing with me.

As for not getting a vote? Why not? Just because you live in a city doesn't mean you don't get to vote in county elections and referendums as well. You are both a resident of the city and the county.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

Not sure why they couldn't go old school and use a bucket and a spigot if they didn't want to use their fancy equipment. I mean this was a mobile home, and the fire took 2 hours to just make it up the lawn to the house...as a matter of fact, I don't see why neighbors or the residents didn't do this, futile maybe but they could've at least tried...it's just sad.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

You can choose to insure your body, or not. [...] C64_love - Pro-Choice on everything.

I'd be fine with that, if you weren't also anti-consequences.

Troll64 stating they would like to game the healthcare system by not buying insurance until they need it.

Troll64 calling me a liar while further admitting that they would like to game the healthcare system.

Maybe I should start calling you Leech64.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Mr. Slippery]

in the case of Obamacare requiring you to purchase health insurance, it is the FEDS trying to force you to do so...which likely is not one of their enumerated powers by the constitution.

PPACA -- the health care reform act (using the word "Obamacare" marks you as not to be taken seriously, BTW) -- does not "force" you to purchase anything. You have the option to pay a higher tax and not purchase insurance.

Congress most certainly has the Constitutional power to tax anything it pleases. That's not to say it is or isn't using the power wisely here, but if paying a tax penalty is "forcing" you to buy health insurance, then you are also being "forced" to have kids, buy a house with a mortgage, and run a business at a loss -- if you don't do any of these, your tax bill will be higher as a result.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't insure my car. Do you think you have a right to FORCE me to insure it? You don't.

Uh yeah, where I live. It's illegal to drive without insurance in IL.

Note that operating a vehicle around the rest of us is not a right.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[definate]

Legally, you might find enforcing that contract hard, since it was made at the very last moment, and could be considered that one party had too much negotiating power. I'm doing a lot of commercial law at the moment though IANAL, and everyday I read heaps of cases where one person helped another for an agreed sum, and the other person just didn't pay in the end, and it was thrown out.

He knew there was a risk that his house would burn down, so he should have paid. If you want to be the dick who doesn't pay, then I am behind them 100%. Hopefully this will serve as a painful and valuable message to those in that community.

However, I hope they at least kept it under controlled and limited to just his house. Where I live (South Australia), letting one house burn is extremely dangerous for all of the houses around it. That shit spreads so quickly, and could end up setting fire to houses that are paying. If my house got burnt down, because they let his house burn, I'd be pissed and filing a suit. However, I am sure this would have been taken into account.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[omnichad]

And on average, it sounds like most people want to pay $75, but would love to pay less than $75. If getting everyone on board lowered the prices for everyone, it shouldn't be hard for that majority to pass it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[tompaulco]

Or alternatively, they could have put out the fire, and a large number of people would have observed that even if you DON'T pay the fee, they still will put out your house if it is on fire. So they don't pay, the fire department goes under, and EVERYBODY whose house catches on fire loses everything.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[definate]

I agree that he should have paid, and that why would the risk their life, if you can't even give such a small amount.

However, the private fire departments creating arsonists isn't really a problem. Though it did happen, it also happens with public fire departments. In fact, it is rife (relatively speaking) within the fire fighting profession, because arsonists are just drawn to it, as are people with hero complexes and similar.

Either way, whether it's public or private, you're going to have these problems, but we've got pretty good investigative methods to handle that now, and I think they might even process these people like they do police (eg, finger prints, DNA, all of file).

Re:No, that's not it at all

[blair1q]

I formerly, and I still have friends who, 12,000 miles to kill your enemies. The pay for that large enough to be an actual factor in the desire to do it.

If someone needs help and there's nobody else to give help you help them.

As a society we pool our money and hire professionals so we can have a well-trained staff that can do it efficiently, so we don't have to get involved.

But when that staff stands around gawking instead of PUTTING OUT THE FUCKING FIRE then it's our responsibility to step in. But, really, it was their responsibility regardless of their status as professionals to step in, too, because clearly the thing wasn't going to get put out without them.

So all they accomplished is to demonstrate to the rest of their market that your house will burn down if you don't pay for the service ahead of time, even if they're standing right next to it with the equipment to make short work of it. Which is one of the more inhumane things I've ever heard of.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Golddess]

Also, the fee had been previously waived in other cases in the same area.

Citation please. The article is rather lite on specific details (Had he previously paid the fee? For how many years?) and something like what you're claiming could definitely help illuminate the situation better.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Mr. Slippery]

Still - they should have the choice. It should never, ever, never be taken away from them. Freedom is too precious to be not free.

They should also have the freedom to change their choice, and should not suffer easily-correctable grievous loss for a minor mistake.

When they say "I'll pay anything!", put out the damn fire, charge them a whopping fee (say, $100 per hour per fire fighter on the scene, plus expenses -- which would be more that your $1500, but still in the same order of magnitude I think) afterward. This is humane, respects their freedom -- they can still say "No, let it burn"[*] -- and gives proper economic incentive.

[* I'm ignoring for the moment the fact that animals were killed here. If you have a dog or cat, you ought not to be allowed to withhold paying for their rescue, and firefighters who stand by and allow them to burn to death should be charged with animal cruelty.]

Re:No, that's not it at all

[blair1q]

"I formerly, and I still have friends who, will go 12,000 miles to kill your enemies. The pay for that is not large enough to be an actual factor in the desire to do it."

There. I fixed that for me.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll notice most conservatives here are saying that his house burning down was his fault whereas liberals are saying that the fire department should have saved his house even though he chose not to pay the fee. The problem is that liberals don't seem to understand that if you start offering services for those who don't pay for them, pretty soon, no one will be paying for the services that everyone is entitled to.

That's a bit of a straw man. I think most liberals on this thread would agree that the fee payment should never have been optional in the first place.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[jbeach]

So as others have said, charge the homeowner for the full cost of the fire. Say around $5000-10000, let's say, for a full team and equipment, etc.

A lesson learned to the homeowner, who now still owns a home. Win/win.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an issue of "cost upfront" versus "cost later". The "cost later" must account for the per-use costs, but it also has to account for the cost of maintaining standby units, which is where it gets really expensive if there are very few fires to fight (a good thing).

If it costs the town $100,000 per year (I'm sure it is higher than that) to keep a fire station with trucks idle waiting for the next fire, that is a sunk cost per year that everyone else is eating with the subscription fee. It would be highly unfair if this guy got the benefit of a battalion of trained professionals and trucks and equipment waiting around all year long while the faithful subscribers had to pay for it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[slashqwerty]

Your signature:

Name one time government did any good.

I think fighting fires is an excellent example of the government doing some good (although, obviously not in this case).

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a very liberal guy, and I was not at all sympathetic to this bozo, just for the record, if you really cared to retract your b.llsh.t blanket statement.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

You are making incorrect statements. The crew on site did not choose to not act. I can't effectively respond to your comments on the matter when they do not match the facts and you leverage those inaccuracies as the basis for your arguments.

They were at the scene with firefighting equipment and actively chose to stand down.

That is a false statement.

I'm not convinced that isn't a crime.

But the crime wouldn't be arson. Not to mention that your logic to get to that is based on false assumptions. So I can't address your conclusion when your premise is provably false.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[definate]

Yeah, except that fire fighting is not exclusively government (as this article shows). Perhaps I should add that caveat.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no, it's not. No request from other departments was made, because there is no fire department there.

The residents of the rural area could have set up their own volunteer fire department if they didn't want to pay for services from the nearby city. They didn't.

Either pay, start your own volunteer dept, or go it alone. This guy gets no sympathy from me.

( I'm from a family of volunteer firefighters and chiefs of fire depts )

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a way to bring down the cost of health care. If you don't pay the fee to the hospital, then show up having a heart attack, they just sit there and watch you die. In fact, I have a better idea; if we pay the doctor an extra $25, maybe they can kick the guy while he's dying.

I wish we could separate into two countries. One where we pay taxes and have a civilized society, and one where it's every-man-for-himself.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[CyprusBlue113]

Personally I'd like to shake the prosecutors hand. Some things are defensible. This is not one of them. If anything, he should go punch his relative for being so downright stupid to be burning things in the yard while refusing to pay $75 for fire response coverage.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[CyprusBlue113]

For the record, I'm very liberal, and I still think this guy deserved his fate. If anything, they should fine him for calling 911.

If you vote not to have (pay for) government protection, then you shouldn't get to demand the government (pay to) protect you.

Note: I live in Tennessee and have to deal with the crowds of people demanding both no taxes, and 10x better government education, and yes, generally the TEA Partiers are indeed angry at state / county services as well.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[moortak]

They were human beings first and a collective pool of resources second. If they were worried about free riders they could have a system where if they come across someone who hadn't paid they can agree to be billed some percentage of the department's annual cost, something that would actually prevent leaches without leaving the only option of soryy dude.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[moortak]

Yet you can pay to get your car repaired. He offered to pay their costs, well beyond the $75.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[tgrigsby]

The only practical way to do it is to enforce the fact that when someone opts out of paying for a service, they have opted out of receiving that service.

Please tell me you aren't a hospital administrator.

Fortunately, there are laws that force hospitals to provide emergency services. Emergency services shouldn't be a betting game any more than health care. In the case of house fires, I would argue that the only practical way to prevent this situation from happening again is to levy taxes at the state level and pay fire personnel from the state coffers. Allowing a city to refuse to render emergency aid where no other aid is available is criminal.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[russotto]

So do you also think police coverage should be optional as well? That if you don't pay your fee they shouldn't investigate when you've been robbed or murdered?

If I get robbed they won't investigate it anyway. Take a report and maybe return the less-saleable bits of my stuff if they happen to catch the criminals later on; they won't specifically search for them.

If I get murdered, I'm really not going to give a damn whether they investigate.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

>>They were at the scene with firefighting equipment and actively chose to stand down.

>That is a false statement.

Is it? I've read news reports that made this claim. If it's not the case, then as I have said, the situation is *completely* different.

My whole premise rests on the fact that the fire crew was at the scene and chose not to do anything about the emergency. That's *totally* different from a situation where there was no fire crew involved in the first place.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

Teabaggers hate taxes. Teabaggers don't like them, local, state or federal. They still want the services, like fire, but they don't want to pay for them. Teabaggers don't like government at all. The Teabaggers are currently aimed at the feds because it's an easy target. But don't be confused, if the Teabaggers got real power, we'd have increased taxes for school vouchers while the public schools and roads rotted.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

I've done the same, and you know what? They actually paid. State Farm insurance, if you were wondering.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the issues with this is that you cannot enter into a contract if you are under distress. I think that an court in the land with agree that your house burning is under distress. This would void the contract to pay whatever the cost, so he would not have to pay anything. Not even the $75.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

From what I read, he offered the second and it was refused. There was no amount of money he could pay that would start protection at that point in time.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

The firefighters at the scene did not make that decision. The fire chief, not on the scene gave that order. They were at the scene and ordered by management to not fight the fire. That's not the same as being at the scene and deciding to not fight it. The decision wasn't made by a fire fighter, but the chief, a paid administrator. That's a separate issue from what you are making it out to be.

My whole premise rests on the fact that the fire crew was at the scene and chose not to do anything about the emergency.

The fire crew at the scene was ordered to not do anything. They didn't decide whether or not to engage the fire. They had that decision made for them, and they followed their boss's orders.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't insure my car. Do you think you have a right to FORCE me to insure it? You don't. Neither do you have a right to force me to insure my house.

So you have the right to refuse to pay taxes, insurance, etc... we, however, have the right to pay for putting out a fire in your house even though you exercised your right to refuse to pay a red cent towards the upkeep of the fire department? To tell you the truth, as long as the firefighters make sure nobody burns to death, they can drink soda and eat popcorn while they watch your house burn for all I care. The same pretty much goes for the healthcare services you exercised your right not to pay for.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that liberals don't seem to understand that if you start offering services for those who don't pay for them, pretty soon, no one will be paying for the services that everyone is entitled to.

I don't think anybody here is debating the fact that the direct cause of the man's house burning down was his refusal to pay the $75 tax. Call it personal irresponsibility if you will. What most of the liberals that you're pooh-pooing about are truly saying is that unadulterated capitalism is a harsher reality than most people realize -- in this case... if you don't pay your $75 fee, when your house catches on fire, firemen will come to your house, outfitted with all the tools needed to fight the fire, prevent the fire from spreading to houses that have paid the fee , yet stand and do nothing but watch as your pets die, as well everything you own is destroyed.

From a non-emotional, economic perspective, of course it makes sense. Nobody should deny that.

However, most people should understand (I hope conservatives as well as liberals) what a horrifically callous thing these men did. I'm at least thankful that no person was stuck inside that house during the fire, because I'm not sure these men would have really cared.

The lesson here, I believe -- while I may appear to place the blame on the firefighters -- is not to force these men to fight fires within houses that have not paid their fees. Instead, require everyone to pay the insurance, so that when a fire does occur, there is no question about whether this person has paid or not.

"But that's socialist! I don't want to have to pay for things unless I ask for them!"
Well, that may have been what this unfortunate man said as well, and you can see how that turned out. Being forced to pay for insurance is a nasty idea and one that's hard to swallow. Essentially, you're paying for nothing -- that is, until something bad happens to you. If we want to avoid more horror stories such as this one (not forgetting that there's a chance that it could happen to you), it's a necessity.

Universal Insurance policies is an idea that I support, including universal health care. Without them... well, to quote Mark Twain:
"History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes."

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

That sort of ridiculous accounting always gets me. It reminds me of the King of the Hill episode where Hank gets a haircut from his friend who is a barber on a military base and the base sends him a $900 bill for it. The reasoning basically boils down to charging him for the cost of the facility, for all training his friend had received over his military career, etc.
In this case, let's say you have 10 guys working for 5 hours at $200 an hour each. That's $10,000. And let's say there are two tanker trucks holding carrying say $2000 worth of foam (or less for water). Let's throw in $1000 worth of fuel, so that brings us to $13,000. So far, things don't look so bad. Trouble is, then we come to the really big costs: We've got the two tanker truck at say $1,000,000 each over their lifetime (including maintenance) of say 15 years, so about $133,333.33/year. Other vehicles, whether or not they were used in this particular fire, say $30,000/year. Then let's say that the firehouse costs around $2 million every 15 years like the firetrucks and throw in $20,000/year in utilities and fuel. Then $800,000/year for the firefighters salaries/benefits and training as well as support contracts, etc. So, that gives us about $1,117,000.00/year to operate the fire service. Now, the actual fire this guy had only cost an additional $13,000 or so on top of those operating costs. In other words, they're sunk costs whether they fight his fire or not. So, the question is, does he owe 1/1753rd of that (percentage of a year that he used up in those 5 hours), which is an additional $638, or does he owe an entire days worth of that for about $3,060 more, or does he owe an amount equal to that divided by the number of fires that year (let's imagine five), for $234,000, or does he owe an amount equal to that divided by the average number of fires/year over say the last 5 years (let's say 6.6) for about $169,243, or does he owe their entire operating cost for the year and so does the next guy? Clearly, he owes something, but what? What does it cost, for example, when the fire engines are used in a local parade? Or when they're using it during training? Or when they use it for personal uses, such as for a romantic proposal, or to trim a branch overhanging their house, etc. We all know reasonably that those are negligible instances, especially if the firefighter springs for filling up the fuel tank, but they do raise the question of what the real costs should be when the public needs to make use of the equipment. After all, even when you hear about firefighters getting in trouble for using the equipment for non-work purposes, you never hear about them getting a $100,000 bill for using the truck for a few hours, usually a slap on the wrist of some kind. So, should the public just pay a reasonable rental fee, or should those random individuals unlucky enough to have a house fire essentially pick up the tab for the entire public full of people lucky enough not to have a fire?

In other words, the argument that it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to put out a house fire only holds water if you ignore the whole public good thing. Otherwise, the cost is expensive, but reasonable for what's actually being done, not raising the price above the cost of the house being saved.

Part of the problem is that there's a whole social contract around services like firefighting and police work. If there's an emergency, you're expected to stand aside and let the professionals work. In many cases, there are even all kinds of laws preventing you from doing their job. Try to do the job of the police and you'll end up going to jail yourself. Try accessing rooftops, getting yourself a key to override elevators, etc. and once again, you'll end up going to jail. Run into your burning house just to save your own stuff and you'll be charged with reckless endangerment if firefighters have to risk their lives to save you, etc., etc. Once upon a time, this guy and his neighbors probably would have all joined together, brought buckets of water or sand or dirt or wha

Re:No, that's not it at all

[fishbowl]

>The fire crew at the scene was ordered to not do anything. They didn't decide whether or not to engage the fire.

They certainly did. They chose to follow an order that I'm not fully convinced was legal.

If someone had died as a result of this decision, they would still be responsible for manslaughter.
Maybe it is legal to be an emergency responder at the scene of a fire, equipped to fight the fire, and choose (e.g., if ordered) not to fight the fire, but I'm not at all convinced that it's a total defense for responsibility for the property loss that results.
I want to hear from the insurance company on this.

The Nuremberg Defense isn't doing a thing for me.

I know some firefighters. All of them would have done something to control this fire *anyway*, and I expect at least one would give the chief a punch in the nose after the incident.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I can accurately assess the cost of this fire. The cost is that your fire service is now unique in the first world. Congratulations on letting the USA step a little closer to third world status.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[vistapwns]

... Read the story or read the other comments, or read SOMETHING. The town DOESN'T have a fire dept., they decided not to have a fire dept. and instead have citizens pay $75 if they want protection from a different town's fire dept. that has NO obligation to protect people in other towns. But yes it's pretty retarded I'll agree there, but if the town decided that's what they want to do then you need to pay or else stfu when your shit burns down.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Having come across numerous posts from you on this topic, I've come to the conclusion that you are either brain damaged or have some sort of genetic retardation. Either way, you should get off Slashdot and see a doctor.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[BoberFett]

Are you mentally challenged?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[BoberFett]

Tennesee and Kentucky and the rest of the southern states already tried that, remember? You had your chance and blew it.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[BoberFett]

I'm not seeing the problem here. It sounds like democracy at work. I'm a libertarian but I'm more than happy to pay for local government and the services it provides. I'm very happy with the local police, fire, water, sewer, parks, etc. and I pay for that in property taxes.

What I don't approve of is spending trillions of dollars to kill a bunch of people in a country that did nothing to us. Every human organization has as much capacity for evil as it does for good. The same massive government with vast powers than can do great good can just as easily to great evil, as we've recently seen. I prefer my government to be small and close to me where I have at least some semblance of control. If I don't like my city government, I know the city council meeting is the first and third Thursday of every month at 7PM. Oddly, I have yet to be invited to speak in front of the US congress to air my grievances.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[BoberFett]

You're gullible enough to believe he would have paid the $11,300?

Also, I haven't verified it personally, but people elsewhere have said that a federal law limits fire departments to $500 bills for fighting fires.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[BoberFett]

How did liberal change from a word with it's roots from the word "liberty and freedom" to one which means "do what we tell you to, you have no choice"?

Republicans didn't sully the word liberal, liberals did that on their own.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[sznupi]

So why save some property when its owner has paid $75?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[AK Marc]

There exists no duty to assist. Anywhere. Cops have sued to get official court rulings that they have no duty to stop a crime in progress, nor prevent a crime they know will happen. Since cops have sued (and won) the right to never do anything (even while witnessing it on duty in their jurisdiction), I don't see how you'd hold firefighters outside their zone to a higher standard. Democracy, where the people get the government they deserve. You are the one talking about what's legal, so stop bringing morals into it. They are not well correlated, and at this point are more likely to be negatively correlated.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't insure my car. Do you think you have a right to FORCE me to insure it?

Yes
'Cos is you injure my partner and are unable to pay for her lifetimes loss of earnings, care etc, then I will personally come around there and FORCE your car up your rectum, one piece at a time.

How's that sound ?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

I should hope the SPCA instigate proceedings against the Fire Department officials who stood by and allowed animals to perish in the blaze. That is absolutely appalling.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, because it looks to me like the conservatives are the ones saying "he should have been allowed to pay" and the liberals are the ones saying "haha, serves that idiot right".

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Subscription Fire Dept have been around for many years. This is not a new concept at all. This one just made the news. I live in Arizona, we pay $350.00 a year for fire protection and I think this is cheap insurance. Get a full time paid Fire Dept from the city and see what your taxes are then.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[JohnFluxx]

No, like that 99% of the time when they aren't doing anything.

Someone has to pay for that too.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[sznupi]

Shouldn't you also recall how absolutelly fabulous are places with essentially nonexistant systems of governance?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[definate]

Name one, and I'll show you the governance in those areas. There have only been pseudo proxies for a government less system.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[sznupi]

"Essentially nonexistent" meaning something quite removed from what many people typically criticise in the comfort of decently well-off societies...

Re:No, that's not it at all

[definate]

Good argument.

Because a known system has some properties of the proposed system, and the known system is worse than ours, therefore the proposed system must be bad.

Q.E.D.

I can tell, you're a thinker! Can't fault that logic. You're a modelling genius. People should stop studying this topic, and just ask you. You'll set 'em straight!

Ah, you talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded.

If you're interested in this topic, go back to Uni, study economics, particularly the foundations of the various schools of thought.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[sznupi]

Yeah, because obviously "down with the gov!" stalinist libertanians (that's the most apt description...) think about all kinds of them...

Look, in case you don't realise - organized systems of governance are an integral part of any pleasant society with even moderate population density (what would you like to see done with the excess of people BTW?), they are indeed a direct reflection, one of the facets of any given society.
You demand is basically equivalent to "name anything good in societies!" or "what did the Romans ever do to us?" (if not for few decades too late, one could think you're not retarted but just trying to be funny via hiding a reference to Monthy Python...)

Re:No, that's not it at all

[definate]

Stalinist Libertarians is a weird description, though it does describe them quite well. The hordes on TV that I see are insane, they argue for less government and more government in the same breath. There is almost no logical consistency.

Though they are integral, that doesn't mean they should be. In fact the scope of government being this large, and being enforceable is a reasonably new phenomenon. Since roughly the 1900's.

It's at this point that someone says "Look how bad it was back then!", which at first seems a valid statement, but we've progressed technologically, population wise, education wise and similar. Such that, the removal of government would not result in us going backwards and to that time.

Organized systems, certainly. I'm not arbitrarily arguing against voluntary organization, I'm arguing against a centralized authority with the "right" to initiate physical force. Hell, I would be content if the scope of government were just dramatically reduced, from the nanny state we currently have.

Additionally I'm not arguing that people shouldn't be able to voluntarily join a group and agree to their rules, or that some group which owns the area, isn't allowed to impose their own rules, given it doesn't violate the non-aggression axiom.

This is the point where the argument becomes far too deep for a Slashdot thread, and more so, consumes far too much of my time. However, as I said before (or I think I said it), if you're really interested in this subject, a good background in maths & economics is essential. Hell, even a little philosophy/law/accounting helps. Though these studies start off a little dry for most, by the honors/PhD level, you start getting into the real interesting stuff, where you can get into different economic ideologies, and the basic logic which each is based on. Then you really get into it, and it's fascinating. Also, if you've got the drive to stay in there this long, there's awesome money to be made.

You seem sincere and interested, so I am sorry I disregarded you as another troll and basically just mocked you.

Have a good one. Cheers!

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, congratulations. You are really great at contradicting yourself. First you blame the guy for not taking resposibility for his actions, and then you end with saying that having the fire departement save your house is something everyone is entitled to. Which is it?

How would you feel if you were on fire, and the guy standing next to you refused to hose you down because that wasn't his job. That's the real case here. Wether you agree with the system or not in this case is irrelevant. If your neighbour, or his house, is on fire, you throw water on it. That is a basic human sentiment that even preceeds the formation of society.

The firefighters were ordered to save the neighbours house because he had payed the fee, and therefore that was part of their job description. While this guy forgot/decided not to pay, and therefore saving his house was not within their job description. Not to mention that the neighbours house probably caught fire in the first place because they refused to save the first house.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cerberusss]

If you come across a conscious patient who is bleeding profusely but still awake and alert, and he refuses your assistance, you are not legally allowed to touch him. The "solution", as we were told, is to stand there and wait until he passes out

Can't you just accidentally trip over him, with your hands full of disinfectants and bandages? That by some bizarre coincidence, the guy comes out of the tripping accident completely disinfected and bandaged?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[wangerx]

...it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck.

Yes, what do people think the word insurance means? It is like getting a health insurance policy after you are already sick, with like a pre-existing condition, and still expecting to get coverage... oh wait... nevermind

Re:No, that's not it at all

[cayenne8]

Trouble is...they didn't call it a tax...it is a penalty/fee to be paid if you don't participate. That's what's gonna get them.

The didn't set a tax in the legislation....they tried to call it that after it was passed, but that isn't in the language.

And Obamacare..is a very common term for what was passed...both sides know what it means, and use it.

As a side note...I don't agree at all with using tax rebates/deductions as a manner of regulating or steering behavior. I don't think there should be deductions for having kids (hell, they actually use MORE resources), or homes, buying an eco friendly car...etc.

If they had more of a fair tax, that basically covers everyone (not necessarily the Fair Tax as in the movement of the same name), but just straightforward taxes that funded basic infrastructure needs, defense...etc...we'd all pay less and be more free to do as we wished with our earnings.

Taxes are for basic support of things we as the general public all need (infrastructure, etc) and use...not for steering behaviors.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

>>>Your are Damn right that you should be forced to insure your car.

(imitates John Wayne). "Hey Pilgrim. Maybe you'd like to rephrase that?" --- I may have to insure Your car in case I hit it, but I don't have to insure my own car. And forcing me to do so makes you a bastard and a tyrant
.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[batquux]

To be honest, I don't remember where I saw it. Of the half dozen Internet articles I saw on this, I think it was in two of them. I believe he mentions it in the video at the bottom of the linked article, but that's just the victim's word (which may be where the other sources are taking it from). I also wondered if he had paid the fee before, but haven't seen any info regarding that.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[commodore64_love]

Not the same thing. A house is an object, and maybe I don't give a shit that my shack burns to the ground. I'll just buy a new one.

But police protect my person which is obviously far more valuable (there's only one of me).

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Unkyjar]

I'm not trying to equate firemen to police officers. I'm just taking the whole "it's a democracy and thus its their choice to make government services optional" a step further to see if that theory can apply emergency services.

The other reply to my comment obviously does believe that police can be made optional. You on the other hand do not. You'll need to find a third friend to break the tie.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

EXACTLY.

This proves only one thing: freedom is risky. The guy consciously, knowingly chose to take his chances, and he blew it.

The entity that was offering to sell him fire protection service had no obligation to provide it to him. He had no obligation to take them up on it.

This whole situation is mere optics- had his neighbor also been foolish enough to do without fire service, or had his neighbor been far enough away from him that their house wasn't threatened by his fire, the scene of firemen standing by while they guy's house burns down would not have happened, and the tut-tutters around here would be tut-tutting about something else.

For me, I'd rather have the option even in cases where one option is plainly stupid.

I do agree with another commenter that there should have been a mechanism in place for the man to pay for fire protection a la carte. But some people wouldn't be happy with that either- when he was driven into bankruptcy by an unplanned-for $20,000 bill from the FD, the tut-tutters would still be tut-tutting.

By the way, both sides of the libertarian/statist divide have access to the reductio ad absurdem argument... it's therefore pretty meaningless. I'm a libertarian conservative, as opposed to a social conservative. That doesn't mean I don't want a stop sign on my street or I don't want police protection, any more than your opposition to my position means you want a political/compliance officer stationed inside your home. Let's try to have a THOUGHTFUL discussion instead of an exchange of throwaway lines.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[richlv]

ok, usa americans probably won't get it... but you should stop being stupid with your "capitalism or death". because the second option might arrive too soon. there are basic services in europe that are paid for from taxes, and everybody pretty much expects them to organise in the best way to help _everybody_. sure, there are asshole firefighters, but in general they do a mighty great job and moving out to another region if there's a problem and local team can't deal with it (or there's no local team to begin with) is not only considered a norm - if somebody ordered to let a house burn down because it was out of their jurisdiction... well, there probably would be no lynching, but most likely that person would be prosecuted, and i would also expect everybody who obeyed such an order to lose their job immediately as the minimum reaction, and possibly more than that.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[easterberry]

what is that an alternate interpretation OF? My statement was that no emergency service should be opt in by the very fact that their service can be described as for "emergencies". I said finances should not be a factor at all. Police can't go on strike (they can work to rule where they don't hand out tickets or fines but they can't just NOT arrest people who are committing felonies) and emergency rooms can't refuse to treat someone who gets sent there just because that person can't pay. What if someone had still been in that building and the family were too disoriented/uninformed to realize? (their son had his girlfriend over or something but passed out from smoke inhalation and was carried out before he could tell anyone for example)

You can't compare the fire department to an insurance company because insurance companies don't provide a service which can mean the immediate difference between life and death or the establishment of the fundamental rule of law in our society.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[publiclurker]

The insurance is on your car in case you hit anyone or anything. Unless you expect people to insure their mailboxes against your incompetence. Please don't try sophomoric word tricks to excuse your undeserved sense of self importance. I don't by such puffery from children so I certainly don't tolerate it from supposed adult wannabe's

Re:No, that's not it at all

[MysteriousPreacher]

If someone had died as a result of this decision, they would still be responsible for manslaughter.

And if the firefighters had sexually assaulted the man then they'd be responsible for sexual assault, but that did not happen, and in this case there were no people trapped in a burning house.

It is a silly situation that should have never come about. Hopefully it will provoke a debate about how these services should be paid for and provided.

Given the current set-up, it's like living in a Sweden and expecting the Danes to come around and slap a tarp on the roof when a storm blows it away.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. If I don't pay for health insurance (an option) I expect service if I go to a hospital and am sick, but I expect to pay the full bill. It is a gamble, but I shouldn't be denied treatment if I haven't purchased health insurance and could reasonably pay. Yes, bill me for it by all means. But don't leave me on the side of the road just because you don't know if I have insurance (or even if you know I do not).

Also, the firefighters did allow the loss of life, and we're not talking about wild animals or rodents here. Granted, it was animal life, but it was the kinds of animals our society values as being close to being people and semi-intelligent (yes, YMMV). These lives did not have the choice to pay for the service on themselves.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a very good idea. If he didn't pay for 15 years, charge him for 30 years on the spot. Of course, he'll later sue you and argue that he was forced to do it by the circumstances, and that he actually does not agree with that value, but it's still worth a shot. If he was stuck in the house and you suddenly jumped in and saved him without asking, and then you charged, he might be enough of a bastard to later claim he didn't even ask to be saved.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Golddess]

So you think paying for cops should not be optional because they protect your person. But, what if someone doesn't want their person protected?

Did you ever stop to think that maybe I WANT to die, and not buying insurance is a way to make that happen? Can't commit suicide (illegal)... so instead you just get sick and die.

And just to head it off, I know you are talking about a hypothetical "I", I'm just trying to understand why you think the hypothetical person who wants to die by not buying health insurance should not also be allowed to opt-out of paying for police coverage.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a good reason they wouldn't let him pay the fee on the spot. As mention in the article, if they allowed that then the only ones that would pay the fee would be those doing it on the spot. I support them for sticking to their guns and adhering to policy. The idiot homeowners "forgot" a simple fee that I would wager had several reminders. How do you "forget" something that has been policy in the entire area for 20 years? They knowingly rolled the dice and came up short. Sucks to be them but society needs lessons. I wonder how many people in the area are going to be paying their late fees in the next few weeks.
AC because i cant remember by password and im on a public system.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Kral_Blbec]

Do you rally think there would have been a difference if the firemen had given him a $100k bill on the spot? In theory that works but in reality the check would bounce and the firemen would be coming up short again.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Kral_Blbec]

If they were balking at the 75 price do you really think that they could come up with 11 grand? Think about who lives in rural Tennessee and burn rubbish in their backyard. Its not about their willingness to pay whatever it cost. Its about their ability to do so.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Kral_Blbec]

Side note, I wonder when the last time they paid the fee was.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[mr_mischief]

The town is in the county. There are probably other towns in the county. Rural county residents often get caught out when the more populous town and city dwellers vote to keep county taxes low because those in towns and cities pay their town or city taxes for most local services anyway. However, municipality or county are not the only options. There are tens of thousands of special taxation districts around the country. My local school district is separate from the county or city, as is the public library. There are rural fire, water, and levee districts that raise taxes to pay for rural services outside the city. Some areas near here get their electricity, their telephone service, their livestock feed, or their LP gas from non-profit cooperatives, which are another option for rural areas.

Many of us in town and out have private companies providing utilities like electricity, natural gas, LP gas, trash pickup, telephone service, Internet service, road cleaning and maintenance (even in towns some subdivided areas have privately built and maintained roads), and private security. Often this is in addition to using government services, sometimes even ones which are partially redundant.

Let's have an anecdote. My parents' road is private. The highway it's connected to is cleaned of snow and ice by the county since that's a county highway, and sometimes the state helps if the state is ahead of the game and the county is behind. The neighbors on my parents' road get together and pay to have the road cleaned after big snows that make it difficult for a typical four-wheel-drive pickup to get in and out. Sometimes the county will come out and clean it once the county roads are cleaned if there's extra money in the budget for diesel and manpower. Sometimes the county charges a fee comparable to what the private plows do if there's really just no money in the budget to clean private roads. I think that's fair enough, and so do my parents. They live on a road that was built privately and that goes nowhere except to the properties in the development. They have maintained the road as a private road so that the county can't suddenly extend it and route a bunch of traffic past their driveways (not without eminent domain proceedings, anyway) and so that only residents and their guests are allowed on the road. You give up something to get something else. Either you turn the road over to the county and it becomes public, or you keep it private and you're responsible for certain things yourselves. They pay for their own snow removal and their own fresh gravel and road leveling because they find it worthwhile.

The same neighborhood is part of a public non-town, non-city fire district that was voted into existence to provide funding to the mostly volunteer fire department. So they are not responsible for professional-level firefighting themselves (although we should all be responsible for fire safety and trying to extinguish small fires before they spread when possible).

Now that I mentioned those back to back, I'm just hoping the fire department never needs to get to ones of the houses before the road gets cleared in the winter. There's no guarantees how quickly the county roads would be cleared, either, though. The larger engines (there are some small tank trucks that are just heavy-duty pickups) shouldn't have as much problem with most snow drifts or ice as typical private vehicles, though, and it's rare that the road is drifted completely closed anyway. A tree over the road is just as likely to slow the trucks as the road being under too much snow for the fire engines.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nothing like that at all. You're comparing paying someone for a service vs. the cost of replacing a very expensive car. I don't see the connection at all.

How mods find this insightful, I have no clue.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the rub with that, though. Less than 50% of the people billed after the fact will pay. And putting a lien on a burnt down house is kind of useless. This is called freedom. The people of the community chose not to have their own fire department. A fire company in a neighboring state offered to sell fire putting out insurance. He didn't buy it. His neighbor did. The fire department, on a civil contract, did what they were contracted to do. Sucks for this dude, but really, his purpose in life is to stand as a warning to others.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Klinky]

I would really love to know what state you're in that doesn't require you to purchase any form of auto-insurance. So you don't have to buy PIP or uninsured motorist coverage even? Nor do you have to fork over a fee(e.g. $500/yr fee) because you choose to remain uninsured? Are you also sure your state doesn't come down harder on the uninsured(e.g. suspending your license for an accident over $1,000 in damages then requiring you to obtain insurance for at least the next year)?

Would you revoke fire or police coverage if you had the choice? Does it bother you that you can't?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

IF he wouldn't pay $75 in advance for protection, why do you think he'd pay $11,300 ... or any amount ... AFTER he got service? Or do you think he had that much cash in his wallet?
His community voted repeatedly to create this situation. It's just awful that the pets paid the price.
Again, as others have said, this is why fees for service don't work. Maybe a County tax fund to cover situations like this, where the local community is too small to afford services on it's tax basis or a residence is much better served by the neighboring community due to roads or whatever.
(not a coward, just checking out this RSS service before I join)

Re:No, that's not it at all

[ifiwereasculptor]

Common doesn't mean smart. But let's assume you have no other way of dealing with your garbage (which is highly implausible). If you absolutely must burn it, then secure the area around the fire. Wet the soil, cut the grass, surround it with stones, keep a hose ready etc. Especially - and I cannot stress this enough - if you know you don't have firemen to assistt you in case something goes awry.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shaitand]

This should not have been voluntary OR a fee. It should be a tax. Fees for government services are pretty much universally the result of politicians catering to wealthy individuals who want to pay an equal amount rather than pay for public services through the tax system which makes them pay in proportion to their disposable income.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shaitand]

how is this flamebait if the gp is not?

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shaitand]

Gov't personnel should be paid from the appropriate gov't tax revenues. There is no justification for charging a citizen for a public service, they already pay their share for any and all services they utilize when they pay their share of taxes.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shaitand]

Because it is a public service. In exchange for putting up with taxes and limitations in your freedoms for the common good you become part of the common and entitled to the good. This means you have a RIGHT to police protections, fire protections, health care (even if we can't seem to agree how much), education (ditto), roads, and other government services.

In exchange for paying a proportional share of the taxes which should pay for these services 100% (fees for public services are nothing but tax breaks for the wealthy) you get protection from the wouldbe local warlord who wants to rape and enslave your family because he is stronger and protection of your property. Everyone uses public services so it doesn't much matter if someone takes greater advantage or you don't use a particular service.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shaitand]

In most places trained medical professionals have a legal and ethical obligation to assist to their capacity when they see someone in need of emergency care.

The fire department might not have had an obligation to show up in the first place but when they are deployed at the site and there is an emergency service to provide it shouldn't be optional.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shaitand]

"As a side note...I don't agree at all with using tax rebates/deductions as a manner of regulating or steering behavior. I don't think there should be deductions for having kids (hell, they actually use MORE resources), or homes, buying an eco friendly car...etc."

These aren't to regulate behavior. These are a way to try to give the average person some of the advantages businesses enjoy. If you were a business you'd only have to pay taxes on the money that is left after paying all your utility bills, vehicle bills (no matter how luxurious or how many you have), mortgage/rent, food, medical bills, loan payments of all types, repairs on your home/car, any expense related to school, anything else you can claim could be a 'life expense'. Only what is left after your cost of doing business aka the 'profit' is taxed.

Children are expensive thus the deduction. Homes are expensive. Eco-friendly cars just cost society less money/resources.

Marriage on the other hand... there is no justification for that tax break. Or you could look at it as a penalty on the single.

Re:No, that's not it at all

[shaitand]

"Pets are NOT just a possession, if you think of them that way, you should not own them. "

What else would they be?

America

[Anonymous Coward]

lol america

Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

Load of shit? Ok, I have 200 people under this arrangement. 100 pay, 100 don't. One of the 100 who don't pay end up needing the service. I bill him $75 but the other 99 don't pay but, in effect, got the service.

What is the incentive for ANYONE to pay in this type of arrangement?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[mcvos]

Then charge him $7500 for needing the FD without having paid the fee. Still better than letting the house burn down.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

Basically you are now forcing firefighters to be bill collectors. What do they do, negotiate with the guy on the spot?

No, the real problem is with having a voluntary fee for a collective, necessary service. Don't blame the firefighters. Blame the government that set up a no-win situation.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[BobMcD]

Except now you're making assumptions about the value of the house, vs the value of the insurance on it. It is entirely possible that a 'totaled' home would be of a benefit to the homeowner that exceeds the value of a 'damaged home minus $7500'.

So long as no humans were allowed to die, I think the minimum standard was met.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[metlin]

You've essentially described one of the fundamental problems with public goods -- if it's provided for the benefit of all, how do you avoid free-riders?

While there are several solutions (and theories) in place, the fact remains that you'll always have a percentage of free-riders. Of course, in a purely capitalistic model, this is solved because every service has an associated cost with it, and those that don't pay the cost don't get the service (e.g. this case). In socialism, you pay a larger chunk (e.g. taxes) and you get a plethora of services, freeing you from the worry of particular services -- but then, you do not get to pick and choose.

Typically, life-or-death services (e.g. police/fire) fall under the latter, but I guess rural Tennessee is different.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[SatanicPuppy]

I'd be fine with something like this. Put out his fire, then charge him for the entire fee he would have had to pay (plus interest) from the last time it was paid, or from when he bought the house.

There is still a problem with the money coming in for equipment, though.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

How is that a no win situation?

Pay your service fees if you wish to receive your service.

It's a win-win.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[operagost]

That's a straw man. The man would be billed like he would for property taxes. If he didn't pay, then a lien would be placed against his house. What we're missing here is the consequence of the FD's decision not to put out the fire: it spread to a neighbor's field. It's fortunate that it didn't damage any structures, because if it had then the neighbor would have had a serious grievance. Fires should not be allowed to burn freely for any reason because they pose a threat to the community.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[characterZer0]

There is one problem - being the neighbor of the guy who didn't pay. Now your house is more likely to catch on fire.

If you are on vacation and his house catches on fire, he probably will not even bother to call.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[SatanicPuppy]

It didn't burn freely. The fire department showed up and made sure the fire didn't spread to the neighbors property...Because the neighbor had paid his fee.

Talk about getting your point across. Apparently the city that has the fire department doesn't have the legal authority to just charge the residents for fire protection, so it has to be voluntary.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[weiserfireman]

I hate dealing with subscription districts. One of the reasons why they still survive in my area is that we don't have authority to set and enforce fire codes there. Keeping the Ebil Goberment out of their lives is the goal of some of the people in the area.

That said, I think the solution to handling non-payers is to inform their Homeowners Insurance and/or mortgage holder about the requirement. Guarenteed if those people knew about the situation they would make sure the fee got paid.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[xaxa]

Since the fire was caused by "burning trash" I'm guessing rural Tennessee doesn't do household waste collection either...

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[clifyt]

"Blame the government that set up a no-win situation."

You mean, blame the people that voted for the gov't that set up the no-win situation. People blame the gov't all the time -- without realizing THEY ARE THE GOV'T. As a citizen, you are responsible for your gov't...not the other way around.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[alta]

Ok, good luck getting a binding sales contract signed when someone's house is burning down. Sure, ANYBODY is going to say Sure, I can pay it! But you can bet that anyone who doesn't have the money to pay the $75/year isn't going to have $7500 even if you do it over 10 years.

And guess what, fire departments pay a lot of money for disability/dismemberment insurance. In their policy they are bound to NOT service unnecessary calls, and these contracts have spelled out that people who don't pay first are considered unnecessary.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[alta]

People choose to live in the county. Imagine if someone lived out in BFE North Dakoda. Do you know how much it would cost to cover every single dwelling out there? The population is so sparse NO ONE could afford to live there. A fire department is an entitlement people expect now. Live in the city, sure, you get a fire department, but in no way is a fire department when you live out in the middle of fucking nowhere a God given right.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically you are now forcing firefighters to be bill collectors. What do they do, negotiate with the guy on the spot?

Then let them legally own what they save. It is analogous situation to salvaging wracked ships and cargo. The guy can negotiate them afterwards to buy his former property back. If they don't have an pre-arrangement (fire insurance fee payed), that is.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You would want to set the price ahead of time, based on a reasonable estimate of actual cost+convenience fee, just to avoid sleazy extortion setups; but it would be nice if there were a real retail cost in addition to an insurance option.

For most, risk pooling is a great function of insurance, and makes insurance worth it; but situations where the insured market squeezes out the retail market can get a bit dysfunctional(just look at the healthcare market, where the price paid by insurers is often wildly different from the price on the invoice, which is largely a fiction for anything much more expensive than basic drugs) .

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[iamhassi]

"Pay your service fees if you wish to receive your service. It's a win-win."

Are you nuts? What if all of government did this? Want police? Pay up front. Want to call 911? That's $5 a minute. Want to drive on the road? Charged by the mile via GPS. Want your kids to go to school? All schools charge, public schools don't exist. Want to walk on the sidewalk? Toll sidewalks every 100 yards.

No food stamps, no welfare, no Medicaid, no WIC for low-income pregnant women, no Section 8, no child or adult care programs, no free school lunches for children of low-income families, etc.

Of course this would have no impact on your taxes, your taxes would be just as high. Yes, the homeowner says he pays taxes so he's not getting a huge break here, sounds like he's just getting screwed with no fire department.

They should have done what hospitals do when a ambulance shows up: you get a bill in the mail, thousands of dollars for the ambulance ride.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

Fire dep't doesn't always arrive if there is nobody to call it at all, so what are you going to do? Many if not most fire departments have watch towers, but probably in this case the place was very remote and a call was needed.

If there was no call from anybody at all, some houses would have burnt, but again, how is that a problem of payment? It's a problem of notification.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[SatanicPuppy]

That's not uncommon in a lot of places down south. You stick your trash in your truck, and haul it to the county dump. Or, if you're uber-white trash like this joker, you just set fire to it in your backyard.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[richardkelleher]

He made a choice to let his house burn if it caught fire when he decided not to subscribe to the service. The home owner made the call before any of this happened. It was a conscious decision on his part to not pay for the subscription because he had something else he wanted to spend the $75 on. Because he failed to pay the fee, it was too expensive to fully insure his house, so now he whines about that too. It's that simple. They were not mean, or thoughtless or any of those things. They simply followed the rules that everyone who lives in a rural area knows.

Let me say it again, the HOMEOWNER CHOSE TO LET HIS HOUSE BURN when HE FAILED TO SUBSCRIBE. Who are we to deny him his right to choose after all?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Sarius64]

So, if any of the man's (or his family's) taxes were used to fund the fire department during the entire three generations that supposedly lived there does he have standing for a civil suit?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[alta]

I still don't think it's enough though. This $75 fee is effectively an insurance and it depends on everyone paying before they need coverage.

If he was allowed to pay 5 years in arrears + interest it's still going to be worth it for people to not pay up front. If ONE person gets away with this, EVERYONE (ok, 75%) is going to stop paying.

What people aren't considering is that the FD's insurance coverage more than likely prevents them from doing this. Insurance coverage for a fireman is a VERY critical part of being a fireman. If they respond to a call that doesn't meet what's spelled out in the policy and DIE, they could be denied coverage. I doubt that homeowner is willing to pay out $500k to a widow.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[b0bby]

There is one problem - being the neighbor of the guy who didn't pay. Now your house is more likely to catch on fire.

In TFA, the neighbor's property did catch fire, and the firefighters fought it up to the property line. IMHO, paying taxes for firefighting services for the whole community is a better idea, but in some areas I guess the collective decision is to let everyone make their own choice. It's the way that things used to be - you can see the "fire marks" (usually a metal star or suchlike) on older buildings; you'd get the mark from your insurance company, and their private fire fighters would only put out fires at properties with the right mark.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[srussia]

Typically, life-or-death services (e.g. police/fire) fall under the latter, but I guess rural Tennessee is different.

Apparently, urban Washington D.C. is different as well: Warren v. District of Columbia

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> What do they do, negotiate with the guy on the spot?

This is what firefighters did in ancient Rome.

They have a *very* strong bargaining position.

Realistically, what they should do is put a lien on the person's house, if they save it. They are preserving the person's house, it's fair that they get paid out of the capital. That also bypasses liquidity problems.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[c6gunner]

That's not usually an issue for these areas - the nearest neighbor is probably a mile or more away.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

Bingo.

So instead of pointing at the big bad nasty firefighters, go point the finger at the "government is evil" crowd who insists that any tax is bad and that we would be better off living in a libertarian utopia.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[tiberus]

In a small town we used to live in if you didn't have your sticker (they put a sticker in your window each year if you paid), the fire department would roll out and keep the fire from spreading if there were covered houses near by.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[SatanicPuppy]

There isn't a fire department where he lives. It'd be like you suing the fire department in the next town over for problems with the fire department in your own town.

And if he paid any substantial amount of taxes, his county'd probably have a fire department (it's generally considered a critical service). Tennessee doesn't have a state income tax, so no money from there either.

People want really low taxes, but this is the result: really poor services.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[iamhassi]

"You've essentially described one of the fundamental problems with public goods -- if it's provided for the benefit of all, how do you avoid free-riders?"

What about the guy that burns his house down every 3 years? Or the guy that burns his house down because he was a smoker and dropped a cigarette? Should I pay the same $75 as the guy being neglectful? If I don't smoke or don't have a fire in 10+ yrs or have a newer up-to-code house or have a alarm system that automatically calls the police shouldn't I get a discount? Homeowner's insurance gives discounts on all of those things, so why is the fee the same?

This $75 thing is just a huge can of worms.

Also why didn't the home owner's insurance pay the $75 a year? After all they're the ones getting screwed here, not the guy. They should have automatically paid the $75 and just added it to his insurance policy just like mortgage companies will often pay the personal property tax (even if they're not escrowed) if the homeowner doesn't and add it to the monthly payment.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[alta]

How rural does a place have to be to be not worth covering? Badlands of south dakota? Yukon Territory? Death Valley? All of these places are IN a county somewhere and I bet they don't have fire coverage. The population is sparse here that people that live in these places (and there are some) couldn't afford the tax associated with paying for a fire department.

Look at it this way, at some point, no where in the US had fire coverages. As municipalities sprung up they decided it was in their best interest to give their citizens a fire department, but they can only afford to cover a certain range. The areas not supported just haven't been reached yet because their population is not dense enough to support a fire department. The only way the badlands and death valley are ever going to get covered by a FD is if we have a federal FD. Well I for one think we have TOO MANY government programs we're paying for and do NOT want to be taxed so someone can be a hermit and have fire coverage.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[countertrolling]

No food stamps, no welfare, no Medicaid, no WIC for low-income pregnant women, no Section 8, no child or adult care programs, no free school lunches for children of low-income families, etc.

Just another day in Libertarian paradise

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[spasm]

"No, the real problem is with having a voluntary fee for a collective, necessary service. Don't blame the firefighters. Blame the government that set up a no-win situation."

I think you mean "Blame the voters who are so anti-tax that they refuse to provide the necessary funds to even cover collective, necessary services."

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

You really are preaching to me? I am against all gov't intervention into economy, this includes everything you mentioned, you can check my earlier posts, which I have conveniently provided links to.

I am against gov't owning any assets and providing any services except Justice system and minimum military to protect against foreign invasions.

Clearly I am against IRS, FED, FDIC, Freddie/Fannie, income taxes, regulations, wage laws, price fixing, providing any special interests with any special treatment no matter who they are and what they can and do pay.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Idarubicin]

No, the real problem is with having a voluntary fee for a collective, necessary service. Don't blame the firefighters. Blame the government that set up a no-win situation.

Missed it by one.

Blame the people who kept electing county officials who promised lower taxes. Blame the people who couldn't see that putting an annual $75 charge on everyone's property tax bill would have provided coverage for all the rural properties. Blame the people who didn't clue in that they could probably negotiate a significant group discount if they paid for universal coverage (both because more people would be buying the service, and because the fire department wouldn't have to manage a parallel bill collection scheme). This sort of failure of private firefighting isn't exactly rare; why does the media portray it as surprising and shocking every time it happens again?

It's not some nebulous 'government' bogeyman who screwed up here; governments don't appear out of a vacuum. Entirely to blame are the selfish and shortsighted people who live in the county in question.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[SatanicPuppy]

Yea you're right. I thought better of it after I posted.

This, in a nutshell, is why necessary services should be mandatory. If it ends up costing taxpayer money to pay for this freeloader...Irritating.

Probably won't happen though. Good old Tennessee. They'll tell him to shove it.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[stdarg]

Of course this would have no impact on your taxes, your taxes would be just as high.

Why?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Magada]

Government would cease to be relevant and most people would be unable to afford basic commodities. Fact is, we're heading that way as we speak. The US of A are leading the stampede to oblivion and the final dissolution of the nation-state.

I, for one, wish to welcome our new corporate overlords.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Garrett Fox]

I'd rather live there than in the countries that've done the most thorough job of implementing socialism/communism; wouldn't you? Those crazy libertarians you snicker at don't massacre their own people or need to build a wall to keep their citizens from escaping.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[demonlapin]

If you can't afford $75 a year for fire protection, how the hell are you going to pay property taxes for that service?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[stdarg]

I wonder what the economics are really like. By the time the fire department is involved, the fire is pretty big and a lot of damage has been done, not to mention the water damage. How many houses that are saved don't have to be substantially rebuilt anyway?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[SatanicPuppy]

Like Sweden? Or Norway?

Come on man.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[spun]

You seemed to have addressed only one side of OP's post Besides reporting, which was a minor point, what about the issue of non response endangering legitimate customers? This is why a free market fire service will never and can never work right, and why all civilized countries, for the last several hundred years or so, have had socialized fire departments.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather live there than in the countries that've done the most thorough job of implementing socialism/communism; wouldn't you? Those crazy libertarians you snicker at don't massacre their own people or need to build a wall to keep their citizens from escaping.

Yes, France has built this Great Wall of Marcoux. They use it to keep everyone in. Since retirement age is 60 (slowly raised to 62), all they do is actually line them up against the Great Wall of Marcoux and "send them to The Island" for retirement.

Oh wait, do you actually *read* what you write? Or does it somehow makes sense to you? Or are you reaching towards totalitarian examples like Stalin for your definition of "socialism"? Can I then counter with Hitler and his nationalistic ideologies? Or Somalia as a great example of Libertarianism?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

You are simply wrong, because the fire department stopped the fire from propagating to the house of a neighbor. WTH are you on saying things that are clearly not the case?

As to your 'socialized fire departments' BS, it's also clearly not true, this is case in point.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[rhsanborn]

Read the article, the fire department isn't from the same town as the guy. They don't have any authority to place liens on his property.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[weiserfireman]

I am glad I fight fire for a municipal fire department. We have hydrants, we have big pumps and we have short driving distances.

Even as a volunteer department, we are typically on scene within 6 minutes of the 911 call. Which is damn good for a volunteer department

We mutual aid into rural areas and those departments have a heck of a time.

1. No hydrants, they have to shuttle water with Water Tenders. Almost never enough water to really hit the fire hard.

2. Long travel times. It isn't unusual to have 15-20 minute response times. By the time they get on scene the fire can be 2x-3x bigger and hotter than it would have been with a 6 min response

3. Narrow driveways, low weight limit bridges, poor access etc make getting to fire even harder.

More than 1 rural fire department has a tongue in cheek slogan that says " xxx fire department, saving foundations since 19xx"

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[edmicman]

People want really low taxes, but this is the result: really poor services.

It depends on how you look at it. They got exactly what they paid for. If people don't want to pay taxes, and they're ok with the consequences, then what's the problem?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[aenea]

It's pretty likely his insurance policy was based on fire services being available. That $75 he saved may end up costing a lot more.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[RobDude]

Ummm - it's not a no-win situation.

Pay $75 if you want protection or come up with your own solution. Don't want to rely on the local fire-department? Why should you have to?

Maybe I've got amazing insurance that covers fire and, hey, if my house catches fire - who cares? I'm just getting a brand new one.

Maybe I've installed some state of the art sprinkler system in my home. Maybe I've built my house out of metal. Who knows.

If I don't want or need fire protection, I shouldn't have to pay for it.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

And maybe fairies fly out of your ass and put out the fire.

The reality is your insurance isn't going to cover you if you decline firefighting services. Your sprinkler will only delay a fire, and you all-metal house isn't a panacea either.

The reality is that spreading the costs over the population makes sense, and this Libertarian nonsense is worthless garabage.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[edmicman]

It's not uncommon in a lot of places anywhere. If you're out in the country you're not gonna pay out the ass for trash service. You burn it or bury it.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[richardkelleher]

Typically, life-or-death services (e.g. police/fire) fall under the latter, but I guess rural Tennessee is different.

Funny you should mention that, I was watching "House Hunters" on HGTV not too long ago, and they were searching for a home in Tennessee. They looked at homes both inside and outside the small city where they wanted to live and the agent pointed out that the taxes are much lower in the county than in the city. There are consequences for choices like that. This is a common practice in rural parts of the US. Having lived most of my life in Montana, I was actually surprised when I moved to Western Washington to see publicly owned fire houses in rural areas. Every couple years, the people in the counties opt to renew funding for rural fire protection through taxation.

When I was a kid (more than a few decades ago) in Montana, my family moved outside the city to get a bigger space (land and house). When we did, the only services the county provided were the county Sheriff and county road maintenance. I think they had a little equipment for fighting grass fires, but nothing to deal with structures (the costs for equipment and staffing are very different for the two). The county taxes were quite a bit lower than the city taxes and this was the result. For a lot of people who lived in the county lower taxes was a big part of their decision and they got what they paid for. My parents subscribed to a fire fighting service that served most of our county. (They also subscribed to a trash service because the city provided that only to tax payers as well.) We had stickers on every phone, and I think one on the window by the front door, with the number of the fire service, you called them directly back then. There were people in the county who decided they didn't want the protection and decided not to subscribe, but that was their choice and some of them lost their houses every year. Those that lost their homes one year had the reminder of those who lost their homes the year before, but they still chose not to subscribe.

Oh, and we had a burn barrel for burnable trash as well. The trash service charged by the number of cans you had and with 6 children, we produced a lot of trash. What would burn went into a 55 gal drum with no top on it and we threw in a couple of matches.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

Apparently he could afford it. He just "forgot" to pay.

And if you can't afford $75/year for fire protection, how do you afford to replace your house?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[espiesp]

Well, isn't that about all the Police are good for? Collecting money for the government?

Why can't the fire-fighters do the same?

Somebody has to 'Prevent Crime', the police don't refuse to help people who haven't yet paid their taxes or speeding tickets.

So this is ridiculous and you know it.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Jackdaw Rookery]

You're trying to reason with someone who believe that a fairer society is 'communist.'

After all all fair societies have a wall around them to prevent people from 'escaping', right?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[RobDude]

There is nothing in the constitution that says, 'The Government shouldn't let me do stupid things.'

Even if you want to argue that it's stupid NOT to pay $75 dollars to the local government for protection from fire; there is no reason not to give people the choice.

Of course, in this example, the choice was given only because these people are outside the jurisdiction of the government. Regardless, they were given the choice, they declined.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Khyber]

"Let me say it again, the HOMEOWNER CHOSE TO LET HIS HOUSE BURN when HE FAILED TO SUBSCRIBE."

Sorry, there's this little thing that puts the welfare of the citizenry SQUARELY upon the government's shoulders, and as such, they are to provide for the COMMON WELFARE of everybody. A *CIVIL SERVICE* such as fire-safety crews should be MANDATORY in every city and paid for by tax money.

That this isn't happening is grounds for RICO lawsuits. "Pay up or no service that we are legally and constitutionally bound to give you."

Yea, bull fucking shit.

South Fulton should have the living fuck sued out of them, as well as every other district that practices this shit. This is criminally negligent.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Lawrence_Bird]

People want really low taxes, but this is the result: really poor services.

Err! The service was excellent and his neighbor got exactly what they had paid for. For $75. I'm sure if I were to get a breakdown on my property tax bill I am paying way more than $75 a year for fire service.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[KriticKill]

And what happens when your house sets the house next to it on fire, because fire crews wouldn't put it out? Then your whole neighborhood is on fire. What happens if someone is trapped? Do they let the person die? This sets a dangerous and scary precedent. Whats next? Are the police gonna start saying, "You didn't pay us our fee last month month. We're not gonna bother trying to find the guy who broke into your house." This IS government extortion, pure and simple. Government, at a local, state, and federal have a responsibility to maintain order, and as far as I'm concerned they failed to do that. The people responsible for this should be fired, sued, and put in prison for arson.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[clintp]

They have a *very* strong bargaining position.

Which is precisely why it won't ever happen that way. The homeowner will never have to pay. Agreeing to a contract ("put out the fire, I'll pay you later") under duress or coercion is a surefire way of having the contract rendered void.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Yukon Territory, being in Canada, is heavily subsidized by the rest of Canada (roughly 70% of its budget), and has pretty decent fire coverage.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Svartalf]

No, but each and every one of the other Socialist countries HAVE done this very thing or are dismantling their operations because they can't continue.

Socialism works fine so long as you can find people to take money from or largely each and every citizen actually is on the same page and actually working towards the same goal. Sweden and Norway are probably almost the only places on the Earth that you see everyone largely being on the same page and the execution of the Socialist system is the "right" one for the people. It is WRONG to go and point to Sweden and Norway and say that they can do it, so everyone else can. That's not at all accurate. Environmental conditions, population, general cultural bents, etc. will dictate whether or not you can even make Socialism work for extended periods of time. With all the freeloaders we have in this country, coupled with the WAY we've implemented Socialist functions of the government, there is no way to implement it. In the end, you need harsh controls on what goes down in the Socialist system- and things aren't as efficient even in Sweden or Norway (How quickly do you get access to medical care? I'd posit that it was about like the Canadian story, which means hours waits in many cases unless you're in a triage situation from a trauma that requires an ER visit.).

In the end, just pointing to those two countries is insufficient for argumentation purposes. They're not facts unto themselves and will not end an argument with someone prepared to discuss it rationally with you or anyone else.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[alta]

You've posted a lot on this topic and so far I've agreed with everything you said, but I'm not sure service should be mandatory.

What's your opinion on fire coverage in ULTRA rural locations? Death Valley, Badlands, Yukon territory? Deep in the Smokey mountains of TN? If you say they are 'too rural' to bother covering, then where do you draw the line?

The way I see it, places like that can only be covered by a federal agency because they are SO sparsely populated the inhabitants couldn't afford to cover the cost of a FD.

And I don't think we should have a national fire department, who's job is to put out house fires. Sure, we have national agencies working on forest fires, but I don't see that as equal to a single house fire.

As an aside, there's a 99% chance the FD would have acted had lives been in danger.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[RobDude]

Those risk assessments are done by the companies in order to provide you a more competitive price. They don't *have* to do it.

In this case, with the $75 dollars, if you felt like it's too high because of your lowered risk; you could choose not to pay it. Or, you could start your own fire dept. and use a better risk assessment model and set your own rates and discounts.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[JDevers]

The only problem with your wild rant is that he DIDN'T pay taxes to the fire dept. He doesn't live in the town, where he would be required to pay the fire dept in taxes. Instead, he is in the county and it is a poor enough county that they don't have a fire dept, SO he has to pay a rural service fee for the fire dept to assist him...but he hasn't paid that fee, so he didn't pay for their service. Your scenario of billing him would work, but they will probably do what most people who receive those many thousand dollar bills do when they are broke enough to not pay $75 a year for fire coverage, declare bankruptcy or just not pay it.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of pointing at the big bad nasty firefighters, go point the finger at the "government is evil" crowd who insists that any tax is bad and that we would be better off living in a libertarian utopia.

Trust me, all the Europeans reading this and thinking "WTF?" are doing just that (sample size: everyone in my office).

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Cowpat]

How is this a case-in-point that fire departments who are paid for centrally and offer continous nationwide coverage are a bad idea? It seems to show pretty clearly that they're a very good idea.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

The case in point is that fire brigades are NOT all paid centrally. Nor should they be.

How the hell is the federal gov't supposed to know how many fire departments are needed and where they should be and how large, etc.etc.etc.

It's a local issue, it should stay a local issue, it's not a federal issue at all.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[danbert8]

Wait, is this sarcasm? Corporations are taking over and making the government irrelevant? Like I don't know, the government bailing out banks, buying GM, and creating a government healthcare mess? Yeah, that really sounds like corporate overlords, not government ones *sarcasm*...

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[fyngyrz]

That'd really suck if that window broke or blew out as a result of the fire prior to the arrival of the FD, wouldn't it?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Saint Fnordius]

Actually, the fee-paying neighbour's house was damaged thanks to the inaction of the fire department. Subscription fee or no, it was in the interest of the community and the fire department to extinguish the fire as quickly as possible, and in that respect it failed.

That in itself should be reason enough to make it a tax: your property, no matter how remote, still presents a potential hazard to others should it catch fire. A fire department's primary task is to save lives, and preventing property damage comes in second. You shouldn't be allowed out of paying for a community service. Selfishness is not a way to run things. Greed is not good, after all.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[NeutronCowboy]

Yes, we know you're not kidding. The reason no one can believe you is because everyone sees the clusterfuck that comes from your position. You're sacrificing economies of scale and preventative efficiencies for an ideology that is as idiotic as the pure communism preached by some bearded people in the figurative wilderness.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Skater]

How the hell is the federal gov't supposed to know how many fire departments are needed and where they should be and how large, etc.etc.etc.

If only we had some sort of national tabulation of where everyone lived...

(The state and counties use that information too.)

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[metlin]

What about the guy that burns his house down every 3 years? Or the guy that burns his house down because he was a smoker and dropped a cigarette? Should I pay the same $75 as the guy being neglectful? If I don't smoke or don't have a fire in 10+ yrs or have a newer up-to-code house or have a alarm system that automatically calls the police shouldn't I get a discount? Homeowner's insurance gives discounts on all of those things, so why is the fee the same?

This $75 thing is just a huge can of worms.

Also why didn't the home owner's insurance pay the $75 a year? After all they're the ones getting screwed here, not the guy. They should have automatically paid the $75 and just added it to his insurance policy just like mortgage companies will often pay the personal property tax (even if they're not escrowed) if the homeowner doesn't and add it to the monthly payment.

There are two distinct things at play here - liability costs and protection costs.

Typically, the cost of protection is very flat, but may change for certain neighborhoods based on supply/demand in that neighborhood, not on a per case basis. It is just not realistic for them to operate a fire unit with that model. Indeterminate costs are simply not easy to model, especially when you need a steady stream for operating costs.

The cost of liability takes into account the cost of protection, and that is often through insurance (e.g. to quote from your example, some home owner's insurance companies will lower your rates if you have a small fire hydrant in your home). And they can afford to do that because they're dealing with capital, not operations (i.e. they can just pay the money - they don't have to run a fire department). It's an entirely different beast.

But if I was the insurance company, I would accuse you of reckless endangerment and deny you the money for the house. True, they could have made the guy pay for the protection, but on some level, isn't your argument one for choice (i.e. if I am a better citizen I shouldn't have to pay more - by the same token, if I think I'm a safe person, I shouldn't have to pay at all).

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Gulthek]

Whoa, driving on the road charged by GPS? Hell yes please! Take that money and push it back into developing a modern travel infrastructure. Awesome.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[HockeyEngineer]

Even the Yukon Territory has fire coverage.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Asic Eng]

I understand the problem with the free riders, and in principle not providing a service when the premium wasn't paid is fair. The problem I have is this: I would help my neighbor if his house was on fire. I'm pretty sure my neighbor would do the same for any of his neighbors. That's just normal human decency. I don't get how you could be a fire fighter and then say "sorry, premium wasn't paid", in the same situation where any normal person would help.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Firehed]

That's just the nature of flat subscriptions, and insurance in general - the people that rarely or never use it end up subsidizing the heavy users. Same with any other kind of insurance. With my driving history, paying for insurance has been as useful as simply burning that money. But should I ever be in a situation where I need it, my previous payments in addition to the payments of others who are not actively benefitting from the service will cover what otherwise would have amounted to a massive cost to me.

This is a bit different since a fire will always cause a good amount of damage if it's to the point where you can't handle it with a kitchen fire extinguisher - enough that you'll almost certainly be making a claim with your homeowner's insurance company, so it's really a cost on top of a cost. As you say, it would make more sense for the insurance company to cover that $75 fee and bundle it into the costs. But if you're really going to miss that $6/month when it comes to protecting your single most valuable asset...

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[metlin]

Indeterminate costs are simply not easy to model, especially when you need a steady stream for operating costs.

I meant to say, "Indeterminate incomes are simply not easy to model, especially when you need a steady (determinate) stream for operating costs."

Also, another point is that taxes are not optional - they are mandated by law. However, paying for a service is optional, and the insurance company could be accused of "forcing" the homeowner to offset their liability (not necessarily a wrong thing, but it is a Class Action opportunity, especially if done on a larger scale).

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

Hi. Obviously you have the reading skills of a turnip.

I am suggesting that we provide services for everyone, and *gasp* expect everyone to pay.

If you want to put the responsible person in jail, it would be the community that set this situation up.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

The police generally don't go to other cities to respond to a crime. If you actually read the article you would understand this. Firefighters are then supposed to negotiate billing on the spot before fighting a fire? And I am the one who is ridiculous ? Sheesh.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[WindBourne]

That is the case. But, the community has to vote it in. They chose not to do this. What will be interesting is that Insurance rates are going to go up in this neo-con area. This situation is exactly what is going on in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The locals voted against needed taxes. So, what is happening is that the gov. is cutting things like streetlights, garbage collection and mowing at the parks. In fact, parks were not watered (for Colorado, that would have killed the grass). The real issue is that the gov. had some money left and had donations, but will have no extras starting in Jan. At that time, 1/3 to 1/2 of the Colorado Springs police force will be laid off. If you have a murder, they will come. OTH, if you were robbed, they will take information. If you were raped, they will meet you at the hospital to take your testimony. If you HAVE a current dispute, they will come. if you HAD a dispute, then come in. Likewise, they are going to make massive cuts to EMS. They expect that fire and ambulance calls could take 30 minutes or longer. But, hey, the neo-cons got their tax cuts.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[TheSync]

Look at it this way, at some point, no where in the US had fire coverages. As municipalities sprung up they decided it was in their best interest to give their citizens a fire department, but they can only afford to cover a certain range.

Actually in the US, early fire departments were formed by 1) government through public funds, such as Boston in 1679 and 2) by insurance companies in the 18th and 19th century (including Benjamin Franklin who in 1736 established the Union Volunteer fire insurance company)

Private fire insurance fire departments were pushed out by government-funded brigades, due to some extent of issues regarding who should fight a fire based on which private company insured a building.

Across the US, there are now government-funded professional firefighters, and a mixture of government-funded and charitable volunteer firefighters.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Sosetta]

"Pay your service fees if you wish to receive your service. It's a win-win."

Are you nuts? What if all of government did this? Want police? Pay up front. Want to call 911? That's $5 a minute. Want to drive on the road? Charged by the mile via GPS. Want your kids to go to school? All schools charge, public schools don't exist. Want to walk on the sidewalk? Toll sidewalks every 100 yards.

The situation here isn't a pay-as-you-go situation is a pay-for-access situation. I don't pay each time I need police service, I pay a flat fee (i.e. taxes) for access to as much police service as I need. Same goes for all the other stuff. I've never called 911, but I still happily pay for the service to exist.

To be honest, if you expect your house to catch fire more than once every 1000 years, then the $75/year fee is a win for you if your house is worth at least $75,000. The long and short of it is that the homeowner in this situation is a COMPLETE MORON with no sense of where the services that make up society come from and the fact that these services must be paid for.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[AtomicOrange]

This fire department and town DID that. Then they realized most people were not paying the post fire response bill. Fire departments should not be bill collectors.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[cptdondo]

You don't know the sticks, do you? How do you collect the bill?

These are the same people who chase government bill collectors off their property with shotguns. The "starve government until you can drown it in a bathtub" crowd. The Tea Partiers. Those people who believe that all government is evil, and they believe that paying taxes, any sort of taxes, is an imposition, and illegal to boot, and they have the right to shoot the damn tax collector.

So suck it up, you didn't pay, you don't get the service.

The only fair way to bill him would be to assess him at a rate that equals the entire cost of running the fire service, divided by the number of fires they respond to. How much you want to bet that's more than his house is worth?

Few people realize what a good deal government really is. We get a huge amount of services for a few pennies. If you refuse to pay the pennies, suck it up, shut up, and go to your militia meeting and bitch about how evil government is.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[PachmanP]

The reality is that spreading the costs over the population makes sense, and this Libertarian nonsense is worthless garabage.[sic]

No the reality is that "this Libertarian nonsense" just punishes morons pretty harshly. The system as it is spread the costs over the population of people who had foresight enough to pay the fee. It's all about being responsible for your actions and inactions.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[AtomicOrange]

They live outside of the city limits, they didn't not pay taxes in that city/county.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

They are preserving the person's house, it's fair that they get paid out of the capital. That also bypasses liquidity problems.

How?

Real estate isn't worth much, and forcing a sale via such a lien is NOT easy, which is why most liens get deal with voluntarily or during sale or refinance.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[TigerTime]

Of course this would have no impact on your taxes, your taxes would be just as high. Yes, the homeowner says he pays taxes so he's not getting a huge break here, sounds like he's just getting screwed with no fire department.

What are you talking about? Why would the taxes still be high? Where would that money that is collected actually go if it weren't being used by these services that are provided a-la-cart?

Obviously, you are ranting and not thinking logically. I live in Tennessee. We do not have a state income tax. The sales tax is slightly higher than most states, and the only other money collected is from property taxes, which in the rural counties is extremely low. My guess is this guy's tax rate is probably a third of that in a city like Los Angeles.

They tried the "billing method" before, but only 50% of the people actually paid up. Because these fires are outside of their district, they don't have jurisdiction to force payment or garnish wages or jailing them for failure to comply (darn consumer protection laws, right?). They don't have the time, money, or desire to hire a lawyer or collections agency. They are only a slight step above a volunteer fire department.

If anything should be different, it should be that they be able to accept cash on the spot. And that amount should be about $1000.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

And why oh why? WHY? Why have a bureaucracy on a federal level tabulating these things, when all that's needed is to let the private free market function and it would provide the supply? It's insanity, trying to outsmart the market by tabulating all of the factors, that's no better than predicting weather for one year from now for a continent.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[xavi62028]

Remember, this is a government run service, not private. A private company would see a big profit to be made in fighting the fire and sicking the homeowner with a huge bill.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[sjames]

Effectively, they are already involved in bill collecting, such as studiously avoiding putting water on the man's house while they protect the neighboring property.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[alta]

My point is, when people came across on the mayflower, some little county in the middle of TN did not have coverage then. Coverages spread as people became dense enough to pool their money and pay for a fire department. SO here we are today and this community has decided it's not worth it for them to pay.

Should these communities continue to vote to not give THEMSELVES a fire department, should the national government be required to cover them? I should hope not.

And I don't think you're disagreeing with the spirit of my post, just adding more history, right?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[JesseMcDonald]

People want really low taxes, but this is the result: really poor services.

This has nothing to do with quality-of-service. The service was available; this homeowner simply chose not to contract for it. The neighbors, who did purchase fire-protection, seemed to do all right. Complaining about not getting firefighting services one doesn't pay for is rather like a non-subscriber complaining about the quality of Netflix's service because they don't get any free DVDs.

Obviously one don't get what one doesn't pay for, but taxes are hardly the only (or best) way of paying for services, even ones deemed "essential".

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Vancorps]

I'm curious, so you also don't believe in public roads? How about the utilities? Electric? Water? Sewer? You don't want the government to provide any of these things? Tax payer funds paid for much of the lines that utilities use today with hundreds of billions just going in for phone lines let alone cable and other Internet options. I find it amazing that in this day and age people can be so cavalier in saying no government intervention into the economy when it has many proven benefits. I've yet to find a self-made person that thinks this is a good idea. Most realize that without basic necessities we waste our lives establishing the basics instead of moving on and doing bigger and better things.

I understand the need for limits and better management of existing assets but I don't think the approach is either fundamentally flawed or against the constitution. The pursuit of happiness for all is deeply engrained in American history and providing the basics for all greatly moves everyone in that direction. Without government intervention there wouldn't even be an Internet as it took much military funding to achieve the basic underpinnings when combined with private and publicly funded university efforts.

Keep in mind there is much history to support government intervention as the United States didn't originally collect taxes but ultimately had to for funding the military. Most all laws in existence today are the result of private parties behaving badly such as expensive toll roads and exploitive employment practices. Unless you have another way to address those concerns its going to be hard to argue that the government should keep out of economic affairs as the two are fundamentally linked.

If city taxes actually paid for fire service this family would still have their home and the fire department wouldn't have to waste funds keeping track of who's paid for service which is a waste of time at the most critical of moments.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Americano]

People want really low taxes, but this is the result: really poor services.

That's not entirely accurate. More correctly, the result is: "People who are irresponsible and don't pay their bills get really poor service."

As a "responsible" person, the first thing I did when I signed a lease on the apartment I live in currently, was to call my insurance company and take out a renter's insurance policy. Then I called to set up electrical, cable, and phone service. If I lived in an area like what is described, the second thing I'd do after getting property insurance would be to call and set up my 'fire insurance' by paying the $75 fire coverage fee.

Low taxes with opt-in paid services are possible, but it presumes both a high degree of responsibility among the people living under this system, and the financial wherewithal to pay market rates for the services / insurance / fees.

My biggest concern would be with that latter clause - if it's possible (*demonstrably so,* not just "of course the government can, we're the government!") that the government can do the job cheaper/better/faster/more effectively than a patchwork of independent providers, then it would make sense to make it a centrally-managed service funded by tax money. However, I would not say that "requiring your citizens to be responsible for themselves" is necessarily a bad way of running things, and I'd say it's not entirely unreasonable to expect it.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Firethorn]

I just moved OUT of BFE North Dakota(had to look up what BFE stood for).

North Dakota has fire coverage. It might not be that fast, depending on where you live, but it has it.

Mine would have been rather quick. I was a member of the volunteer fire department and lived about a block from the fire station. We had three tanker trucks of varing size. (350gal, 3k, and 5k). The small one wasn't a 'proper' fire engine, more a converted F350. It could reach spots the other two couldn't, though.

Of course, we got money from county, state, AND occasionally federal. We provided universal coverage and had mutial cooperation deals with all neighboring counties and towns. We mostly put out grass fires while I was in.

If the fire station is too far away I'd suggest providing at least some of your own solution - bury a 500 gallon or more tank deep enough that it won't freeze, hook it up to your well, and get a heavy duty hose and pump. Lakes are good in the summer, but up in ND freeze too deep for a FD to tap. Fighting fires depends on water, the more the better. If we don't have to send that tanker back to get more water, that's another hose or two on the fire.

Keep in mind that when fighting fires the more water you can put down in less time the better off you are. Firefighting nozzels can easily break 100gpm.

So you might get 6 minutes of spray from a 500 gallon tank backed up by a residential water pump. We come with pumps, so a bigger well and a hookup(essentially your own private hydrant) will assist us greatly. If you allow us to use it for the neighbors, you'll gain both the neighbors and our gratitude.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[NiteShaed]

In the end, you need harsh controls on what goes down in the Socialist system- and things aren't as efficient even in Sweden or Norway (How quickly do you get access to medical care? I'd posit that it was about like the Canadian story, which means hours waits in many cases unless you're in a triage situation from a trauma that requires an ER visit.).

Firstly, you appear to admit you have no idea what medical care is like in Sweeden or Norway, so you just go ahead and assume that it's bad. I've needed care in Norway, and even as a foreign visitor, I noticed no particular problems or deficiencies in the way things worked there.
Next, where the hell are you that you just walk into a hospital and get immediate care? I live in the NYC area, and wait times can be hours before being admitted or meaningfully treated. The last time I was at the hospital, the person I brought in spent 11 hours waiting to be admitted. How is your "Canadian story" any different, aside from either getting a co-pay, a bill for a few thousand dollars, or both in the U.S.?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[JesseMcDonald]

Agreeing to a contract ... under duress or coercion is a surefire way of having the contract rendered void.

That's only if the other party is contributing to the coercion—which doesn't describe a fire anyway, unless you're claiming arson. Contracting with someone to protect against an unrelated third-party's coercion is a voluntary act.

You can't coerce someone into a contract, but you can contract with someone who is being coerced.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anpheus]

It's also a ransom. I wouldn't pay under those conditions because just because they could roll up and say "We'll save your house, but you have to sign this paper that you owe us $50,000." This is a pretty clear slippery slope sort of deal, and if I recall, the Roman firefighting groups often went right on down that slope until it was plainly a protection racket.

Nope, that sort of thing should be nipped in the bud. The city should ask the state to enforce it, and if any of those people in the county are paying state taxes that go toward the city's firefighting budget, well, they'd likely have a lawsuit on their hands.

If the state isn't ensuring its citizens have adequate protection, then it isn't doing its job.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[becker]

I've kayaked in the Yukon.

About 3/4 of the population lives in Whitehorse, which is a still a small town.

Only two or three other villages have more than 1000 people. And they are counting people that are a few miles from a road.

When the population and population density is that low, the only feasible approach is to accept that preventing fires, keeping them from spreading, and getting people out is the only approach for most of the area.

And with a population that low, they aren't going to be paying their own way. The territory is like an empty woodland lot. It's value is in its future use and the natural resources that may be discovered.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Americano]

Arson would require that they set the fire, and did so deliberately.

I think the crime you're looking for would more aptly be termed 'neglect' or 'negligence,' but then, you have to prove that there was an expectation that their job *would* entail providing services to everybody, and while your expectation may be that they should, apparently the state & local laws in Tennessee do not create that expectation for government at all.

It's an argument for changing the laws, and putting new people in place to write new / change existing laws, but you'd have a hard time proving neglect and negligence against people who are simply enforcing & upholding the laws as they are written there today.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are saying you would have not paid the $75 "tax" and would be in the same boat as the guy in TFA.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Firethorn]

This is more a rural area, so not as *big* of a concern (though they did end up responding when the blaze threatened a neighbor who HAD paid).

In the cities, well, they got really socialistic at one point, the fire departments even had the authority to tear down buildings to make fire breaks if they felt it necesssary.

Cities had the first mandatory, city paid for fire departments for pretty much this very reason - you couldn't afford to let a fire blaze because it could easily take out the whole block, even spread beyond. You had cities that lost double digit percentages of their buildings from a single fire.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Americano]

Yes, and there is probably a county police force / sheriff's department which provides policing services to this guy, or some sort of jurisdiction sharing between town / city officers and the county surrounding their towns. Perhaps supported by state founds, or perhaps supported by funds that towns pay to the county government.

There is no such arrangement for firefighters today in this area. The firefighters *COULD* operate in similar fashion, but the laws are not currently written to make that a requirement.

As far as police not refusing to render assistance if you have unpaid speeding tickets, you're right - they won't refuse to aid you. But they will arrest you and haul you before a court that has the authority to extract payment from you after they render assistance.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[espiesp]

The Police don't typically negotiate or even discuss price (in jurisdictions I'm familiar with). They don't do anything but hand a person a ticket. The court decides what the fee will be. Same should apply here I would think for lack of a better solution. However, in the greater scheme of things the real correct way to deal with this is to roll it into property taxes instead of being opt in.

Fire-protection should be a common right for all. The mere fact that a fire response would be held up even for a second to check whether a resident had 'paid up' sickens me to no end.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[blair1q]

If the fire department wants to act like a business, it has to operate like a business.

Inform the caller that there will be a $75 fee to fight the fire.

Have your accounting department send an invoice in the mail to his home, after you FUCKING SAVE IT.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[blair1q]

You ensure those who can pay do pay, and anyone who can't pay but still deserves the benefit is the whole point of "the public good".

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[guspasho]

You've essentially described one of the fundamental problems with public goods -- if it's provided for the benefit of all, how do you avoid free-riders?

By embracing the concept of a public good you reject the concept of a free rider. It's either/or, (that's twice in two separate topics I've used that term now...), if you try filter out free riders, you aren't providing a public service for the benefit of all.

We decided to reject the idea of free riders with certain taxpayer based services such as fire protection. When your house is on fire nobody questions you about whether you deserve to have your fire put out, your application for having a fire put out isn't processed by adjusters trying to find ways to avoid providing services. Except in Obion County. The real tragedy is not the homeowner that didn't pay the fire department fee and received no help from the fire department that stood idly by while his house burned down, because this guy is obviously a freeloader. The real tragedy is that people think this sort of system is acceptable, that we've gone back to a system where people's houses can burn down and most people are callously indifferent because the guy should have paid his fees.

There's a commenter around here with the sig "I like paying taxes, with them I buy civilization". Every time I read that I think of how stories like these are examples of how we are becoming less civilized, and how solidarity is dead.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

If I pay for services, it's my choice to pay or not to pay, what is your point?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Firethorn]

Agreeing to a contract ("put out the fire, I'll pay you later") under duress or coercion is a surefire way of having the contract rendered void.

So how do emergency rooms and hospitals do it? Often the person isn't even concious when they come in.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[richardkelleher]

The citizens are the government and they have elected not to provide this service as a taxpayer funded service. The citizens of this county have CHOSEN to have this service only by subscription. This person was not in danger, nor were any members of his family, so this was not a public safety issue and the government is not under any obligation to protect a persons property from damage the person chooses to inflict on it. If the citizens of the county were to enact a tax to cover the expense of providing county wide fire protection, then they would not have to subscribe to a service. It's quite simple really.

I just can't understand how people can assume the government has unlimited resources. Tax and spend only works when you implement the tax side of the equation. Spend and spend is not viable long term.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[KriticKill]

If I go to the hospital with a knife in my stomach, they take the knife out, treat me, and send me a bill. If I don't pay the bill, they (presumably) send a bill collector after me. They don't leave me on the ER waiting room floor to die. The analogy isn't true in every case, cause the US hospital system is crap, but in immediately life threatening cases I expect to get treated then billed (and thus is my point served). Granted, the victim, in this case, lived in a rural area and thus was probably of less danger to his neighbors. But it is more serious, when its in a city. At any rate, I don't agree with a fire department being able to put a fee on their services, but if that the way their gonna do it they need to put the fire out first and hire a bill collector (potentially raising the original fee to pay for the collector). The people would be best served by just accepting it as a tax.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

Did you even bother to read any of the rest of the threads? Who in the HELL would pay $75 up front if they could just pay $75 if and when they had a fire? Heck, I would be GLAD to pay a life insurance policy premium AFTER that person died. Basically, you would have to run your fire department on $1500 to fight the 20 fires they had to deal with that year.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[metlin]

You've essentially described one of the fundamental problems with public goods -- if it's provided for the benefit of all, how do you avoid free-riders?

By embracing the concept of a public good you reject the concept of a free rider. It's either/or, (that's twice in two separate topics I've used that term now...), if you try filter out free riders, you aren't providing a public service for the benefit of all.

You're missing the implicit assumption that a public good needs to be paid for by the community, and a free-rider's actions are detrimental to the community. Hence, filtering out a free-rider is perfectly acceptable since quite obviously they do not have the society's best interest in mind.

We decided to reject the idea of free riders with certain taxpayer based services such as fire protection. When your house is on fire nobody questions you about whether you deserve to have your fire put out, your application for having a fire put out isn't processed by adjusters trying to find ways to avoid providing services. Except in Obion County. The real tragedy is not the homeowner that didn't pay the fire department fee and received no help from the fire department that stood idly by while his house burned down, because this guy is obviously a freeloader. The real tragedy is that people think this sort of system is acceptable, that we've gone back to a system where people's houses can burn down and most people are callously indifferent because the guy should have paid his fees.

I don't think the system is necessarily acceptable - however, I do think that given that this is the system, this guy made his choice. He wagered and he lost. That is one of the best parts of taxation - in its absence, you get alternatives such as this. A libertarian wet-dream I am sure.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the next town over - here's how it works. Until 1990, South Fulton FD did not serve any area outside the city limits, period. If you weren't paying SF property taxes, no fire service. In 1990, they decided to offer this as an expanded SERVICE for people outside the city limits within a certain distance on a subscription basis. Mr. Cradick does not live in South Fulton, he does not pay South Fulton taxes, so the only way the town of South Fulton can offer the service is for this small fee. He declined the service, until he needed it, at which point it was too late. SFFD has no authority to bill him for a service rendered without subscription, and they run on a minimal budget as it is, so they simply cannot incur the cost of fighting his fire pro bono.

Obion county does not have rural fire service. Several years ago a small "fire service tax" was proposed as a ballot measure to fund a rural volunteer fire service for those outside any city limits and was shot down by the tax payers. Thus these rural subscriptions to the municipalities are the only other option. The vast majority of property taxes go to fund the schools, some for the sheriff's office, and that's about it. There is no money left for rural fire service without adding a fire tax.

To add injury to insult, after returning to the fire house, someone showed up and cold cocked the fire chief. Charges are pending.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Americano]

Better example would be, you move to a location where there's no hospital, and they specifically tell you, "There's no hospital here, so if you get sick... well, you have to make your own arrangements." You "forget" to make those arrangements, and then demand that a nearby city send an ambulance to your house to transport you to the hospital.

The people *in* the city have fire service. This man doesn't live within the city limits, and has no county fire service available for him. As such, he has two choices: Pay for service from the city, or opt to spend nothing, but take his risk that a fire will destroy his house and he'll be unable to get help.

You may feel that the citizens are better served by accepting a tax to pay for fire service (and I would tend to agree with that assessment, personally), but clearly the citizens of South Fulton, TN disagree with that assessment, because they've put in place a situation where you can opt to NOT pay the tax, and bear the costs of your own risks.

It's a very clear tradeoff: "Pay less taxes, but you're on your own if you need fire services," or "Pay higher taxes, and have these services available." It's likely a prime reason many people move outside city limits. It saves money, but it increases your risk of catastrophic loss, too.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the outcome of this situation bad? Its the same as if he didn't buy Health Insurance before he got sick: He would be limited to what he could pay if there wasn't a charity associated with his illness. This is what the libertarians see as a good thing. It was his choice to not have fire insurance, so he now has to live with the consequences, which is much better than an authoritarian government forcing you to buy anything. This situation was ideal: he had his freedom to do with his house as he chooses, period, no ifs ands or buts.
    It's called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, and not government responsibility. Is the government to also give him a house if he doesn't have one as "living insurance" or something?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[JustAClam]

This wouldn't have been set up by a government. It would have been set up by VOTERS, probably including this guy. People who don't pay their fire protection fee tend to vote against having it be part of the taxes that they HAVE to pay.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States would be an infinitely better place if people would realize that Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard were both peddlers of *fiction*. And, as such, their works should not referenced as a means to better shape reality.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[JustAClam]

Garrett, Socialism and communism are not the same thing, not even close. Communist countries have a secret police and political prisioners. Socialist countries may or may not. Capitalist countries may or may not. "Those crazy libertarians" run which country? You might read "Coventry" by Robert Heinlein.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[shutdown -p now]

Ah, a new catchy libertarian slogan: "burn the poor!".

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[blair1q]

Okay, so take his $75 then send a bill for $75 to his 20 closest neighbors who are also not paying.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[alta]

What? He was burning trash? How did I miss this one?

This was HIS fire!! So he was stupid enough not to pay for fire coverage and then he lit a fucking fire in his yard? He SHOULD have gotten killed so he could have won a darwin award.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pointing to Norway or Sweden (or Denmark, The Netherlands or Britain) IS a valid argument against the assumption that socialism = communism or that they are synonyms. As far as medical care goes, I would bet that you haven't ever needed any serious health care in this country. Have you been to Norway or Sweden? Can you really compare? -- I was born in Texas, but I remedied that as soon as I could

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[jbssm]

Those crazy libertarians you snicker at don't massacre their own people or need to build a wall to keep their citizens from escaping.

Yeah, like those poor, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, Danish ... Oh the humanity.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[mcvos]

How the hell is the federal gov't supposed to know how many fire departments are needed and where they should be and how large, etc.etc.etc.

It's a local issue, it should stay a local issue, it's not a federal issue at all.

So? You've got local governments, don't you? Why accept unnecessary damage by running it as a private business?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

are you telling me this guy was poor? What was he doing owning a house? House needs maintenance, taxes must be paid, things must be fixed, there are many costs associated with owning a house.

You are poor? Sell the house and rent.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

watch your economies of scale leave for cheaper labor because it works great for them, after years of enjoying special privileges from the gov't, that turned them into monopolies so they became economies of scale, so that no amount of regulation could stop them from doing anything they wanted and only served as a deterrent against newcomers into the business, thus killing any competition preventatively. The economies of scale - just the way big gov't likes it.

So watch these economies take your money in bailouts and now in stimulus and with 0% interest from the Fed and lend it back to the Fed by buying the bonds (that will become worthless soon anyway) and making the spread.

Watch these gov't created monstrosities destroy your economy. You think you have an economy of scale on a gov't level and it'll save your ass now? No you don't. What you have is a bunch of gov't created monopolies that enjoyed all the privileges while killing off all the competition and they'll take the last money there is and will leave. All because you wanted gov't to take care of you rather than doing it yourself.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Xarin]

What do they do, negotiate with the guy on the spot?

It's been done before by Crassus where the word "crass" comes from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassus

Most notorious was his acquisition of burning houses: when Crassus received word that a house was on fire, he would arrive and purchase the doomed property along with surrounding buildings for a modest sum, and then employ his army of 500 clients to put the fire out before much damage had been done. Crassus' clients employed the Roman method of firefighting—destroying the burning building to curtail the spread of the flames.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[roman_mir]

I'm curious, so you also don't believe in public roads? How about the utilities? Electric? Water? Sewer?

- no and no.

You don't want the government to provide any of these things?

- no.

Tax payer funds paid for much of the lines that utilities use today with hundreds of billions just going in for phone lines let alone cable and other Internet options.

- I am against all such actions by gov'ts.

Keep in mind there is much history to support government intervention as the United States didn't originally collect taxes but ultimately had to for funding the military.

- I am keeping it in mind very firmly.

Most all laws in existence today are the result of private parties behaving badly such as expensive toll roads and exploitive employment practices.

- no, most laws in existence today to attempt and negate the terrible negative results of other moral hazards through laws and subsidies and regulations that the gov't has provided, case in point FDIC provided a moral hazard and Glass Steagall was 'regulating' it.

Unless you have another way to address those concerns its going to be hard to argue that the government should keep out of economic affairs as the two are fundamentally linked.

- yes, I have addressed those concerns, links are provided.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[clifyt]

If you can't afford $75 a year, then your taxes will be much lower...just like the millionaire pays a lot more in taxes than you do...in theory.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I hate dealing with subscription districts. One of the reasons why they still survive in my area is that we don't have authority to set and enforce fire codes there."

You hate those you can't control?

"That said, I think the solution to handling non-payers is to inform their Homeowners Insurance and/or mortgage holder about the requirement. Guarenteed if those people knew about the situation they would make sure the fee got paid."

This is called a protection racket.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[demonlapin]

Property taxes, which fund local services, don't care how much you earn.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[anyGould]

What we're missing here is the consequence of the FD's decision not to put out the fire: it spread to a neighbor's field. It's fortunate that it didn't damage any structures, because if it had then the neighbor would have had a serious grievance. Fires should not be allowed to burn freely for any reason because they pose a threat to the community.

Oddly, you're missing a point in the chain:

• As the property owner, he is responsible for everything that happens on his property.
• If there's a fire, it's his problem.
• If he was a smart homeowner, he would pay for fire coverage (since it's not included in his property taxes). Then the FD would come and handle such things.
• Since he didn't, the fire is still his problem. The neighbor would be quite reasonable in pursuing a claim against this guy for damages - he started a fire which damaged other's property.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[alta]

I just got a burn barrel last month. Wasn't really necessary, but really nice to have when we have a lot of boxes. We don't produce a lot of trash. Not trying to be environmental, just not wasteful. Dinner scraps go to the chickens. Yard waste goes to compost. Boxes get burned. We almost never put a full can out to the trash.

Actually got the barrel because the pharmacist my wife works for asked me to burn the personal-info type stuff. It's all paper. No, not HIPAA compliant, but not nearly as bad as throwing it in a dumpster.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[anyGould]

You would want to set the price ahead of time, based on a reasonable estimate of actual cost+convenience fee, just to avoid sleazy extortion setups; but it would be nice if there were a real retail cost in addition to an insurance option.

Sure there is - buy yourself a tanker full of water, some hoses, and a bunch of ladders. Ta-da, you have your own retail fire department. (Staffing not included.)

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[syousef]

"Blame the government that set up a no-win situation."

You mean, blame the people that voted for the gov't that set up the no-win situation. People blame the gov't all the time -- without realizing THEY ARE THE GOV'T. As a citizen, you are responsible for your gov't...not the other way around.

You're talking as if the choice when you vote isn't between a pair of clowns that both once they're in government enact legislation that the people don't want.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

By definition, utopia can never be achieved unless only one living being resides within it (which that fact in itself might negate it being utopia for that living being).

Anyone pining for utopia would be much better off finding a way to live with others in the world the does exist.

Even in Communist Russia, someone had to be the ultra rich Czar that got their head cut off.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[couchslug]

"They should have done what hospitals do when a ambulance shows up: you get a bill in the mail, thousands of dollars for the ambulance ride."

Another bill to ignore. People don't obey rules unless there are painful consequences for not doing that.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[couchslug]

"You mean, blame the people that voted for the gov't that set up the no-win situation."

It wouldn't be a no-win for me, since I'd PAY MY FUCKING BILL. Some folks exist to be examples to others. Now idiot boy can dig through the ashes of what he was too lazy to protect.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[jsepeta]

don't blame the government. blame the idiot republicans who believe that taxes are evil and who would rather see no government than good governance.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

no WIC for low-income pregnant women

It's amazing how fertile those low-income women are. I'm fine with giving them welfare if and only if they are required to have their tubes tied prior to any welfare check being issued. I'm fine if the surgery was also taxpayer-funded, in the long run it would be much cheaper for everyone. Any low-income woman who does not wish to be surgically sterilized has four options: a) keep her legs closed, b) use one of the 14 or so forms of non-surgical birth control available to women, c) work to support the children she plans to have [holy shit, that one might even imply refusing to have children with a father who has no intention of helping her to raise them! imagine that!], or d) find a church or some other source of private charity that will voluntarily help her.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Nyder]

Of course this would have no impact on your taxes, your taxes would be just as high.

Why?

I see from your UID it's low, yet you are asking a question of someone who was born yesterday. So how much did you buy your UID for on ebay?

But to the question, it's the basis of capitalism. Once you establish a fee someone pays, you never reduce it, no matter what extra money your able to nickel & dime with other charges later.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Nyder]

There isn't a fire department where he lives. It'd be like you suing the fire department in the next town over for problems with the fire department in your own town.

And if he paid any substantial amount of taxes, his county'd probably have a fire department (it's generally considered a critical service). Tennessee doesn't have a state income tax, so no money from there either.

People want really low taxes, but this is the result: really poor services.

Are you smart enough to realize that not all states have a state income tax? I live in Washington State. We don't have a state income tax (though they are trying). Why? Because we pay taxes on stuff we buy. retail tax.

Do you understand the concept? Tenn will tax something else to make up for the no state income tax, it's how the governments work. The fact that the state, or the county the person lives in is too cheap to get basic firefighting infrustructure going is part of the problem. It seems they are relying on the city, who in turns decides to charge a "subscription" fee.

The sad part is, I get blasted because I have no respect for the dead. When someone is dead, they are dead, move on. Yet, I find people treating the living like this as a poor excuse for fellow humans, and somehow it's all okay with everyone?

What, it's someone else's problem? As long as it doesn't affect you, it's okay?

It's fucking stupid is what it is. I'm in a nation where we are supposed to give a fuck over peeps who died in the 9-11 thing, yet's it's okay to let someone's house & pets burn down because he never paid a $75 fee?

Seriously, fuck off most of you, you are the problem.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[darthdavid]

So basically what you're saying is you've never cracked a history book open and live in a magic fantasy land where corporations don't fuck people over at every chance, laws are made in arbitrarily in a vacuum and there's no such thing as a market failure.

Thanks for proving your complete and utter idiocy, I now know I can safely ignore any and all of your posts without missing anything of value...

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obvious troll is obvious but...

Isn't it lovely when libertarianism and religion come together?

Seriously though, if you libertarian assholes and jesus freaks weren't fucking over education in general and sex-ed in particular she might actually fucking know about all that birth control and in any event would have the skills she'd need to get an actual job to support herself. But noooooo, fuck the poor. Goddamn leeches. It's not like we've had religious douchebags encouraging them to breed, libertarian assholes fucking up the schools and deregulating the economy at every turn (which means that all the low qualification jobs have been shipped over seas or taken over by illegals held in virtual slavery and there's less jobs for any level of qualification because all those ponzi schemes created great short term profit, until they tanked the whole fucking economy).

In short, you're an amoral monster, and you and yours will be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes. If you're lucky someone will waste a bullet and give you a quick death, it'd be more than you deserve...

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[BoberFett]

I'm an anti-government libertarian and even I understand the value of local services. I'm more than happy to pay for local water, sewer, police and fire, etc. The key here is that they are local services that, if ineffectual, I can go down to city hall every other Thursday night at 7PM and complain to city council.

On the other side of the coin is massive federal bureaucracy which consumes a vast portion of the national GDP, and when it's services are ineffectual, or even downright evil (read: Iraq war) what are my options? When was the last time Joe Average was invited to speak in front of congress? Oh sure, you can vote every couple years and choose whether you want to have TweedleDee or TweedleDum screw things up for 300M+ people, but that's about it.

Libertarian does not necessarily mean anarchist. In my case, it's about having responsive government close to the people it represents. Some of us call that democracy.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[iamhassi]

"Sell the house and rent."

I did, but then the landlord didn't pay the $75 and the apartment building burnt down, killing 11

I asked them to put out the fire and save the people but they said that wouldn't be fair

Wonderful administration we're living under, isn't it? Wish Obama would chime in here like he usually does on popular news events.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[iamhassi]

"Take that money and push it back into developing a modern travel infrastructure. Awesome."

Whoa! Where did you get the idea they'd use it for a modern travel infrastructure!?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[iamhassi]

"Where would that money that is collected actually go if it weren't being used by these services that are provided a-la-cart? "

Where it always goes... not sure where, but politicians always figure out a good use for excess money. Maybe they'll just give themselves $800,000 salaries and 12% yearly raises.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[icannotthinkofaname]

Pay your service fees if you wish to receive your service.

This is supposed to be called taxes and the government is supposed to collect them in order to provide adequate public services, like fire departments.

I'd rather pay taxes for a fire department that never needs to rescue me than watch a fire department refuse to rescue me when I need to be rescued.

Stories like this are ultimately caused by the Republican philosophy of small, non-interfering government. If this county commission (which I read in a different article is 100% Republican) hadn't decided that lowering taxes was worth not having a fire department, Cranick would still have his house.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[sznupi]

That's basically a broken window fallacy.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[sznupi]

If only we could opt, sometimes, for quite quick & easy solutions to problems instead of pointing fingers...

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[sznupi]

Hm, considering how now there's basically just enough left merely for public debt management...

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[CarbonShell]

Moral question:
You arrive at a site of a fire (as a fireman none the less) and see that people's prized possessions and animals are burning.
* help them
* obey a stupid rule

It is always easier to blame someone else, better if that 'someone' is not really a physical being or concrete body.
Never EVER take responsibility for what you do.

The firefighters were there, they could have helped and been heroes, this time beyond the call of duty.
Yet they chose to use an excuse to leave the people to suffer.
Yeah that leaves a great flipping example.

Not to mention the animals that died, which you could even define as animal cruelty.

What ever happened to 'do the right thing'?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right - It's like Microsoft licensing. The rest of the world doesn't pay but gets to use the software. I have to pay a huge fee for the right to use it and all the development... (Rule 1)

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Magada]

You poor deluded soul.

The gov't of the US is outsourcing the military, raping what's left of the already measly public health system you had to create another massive windfall for private healthcare providers, throwing taxpayers' money into banks' coffers, never to be seen again, propping up GM, which would otherwise have gone up to auction...

And from that, you conclude that your government is actually bossing around all these corporations. Hah.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[nomadic]

Those crazy libertarians you snicker at don't massacre their own people or need to build a wall to keep their citizens from escaping.

You want to see what a libertarian country looks like? Look at Somalia in the late 90's and early 00's. Of course, the average slashdot libertarian slashdotter, a pasty, effeminate suburbanite who wouldn't last five seconds in a real libertarian utopia, wouldn't have lasted long in Somalia in that day and age.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[clintp]

Agreeing to a contract ("put out the fire, I'll pay you later") under duress or coercion is a surefire way of having the contract rendered void.

So how do emergency rooms and hospitals do it? Often the person isn't even concious when they come in.

In the US, Emergency Rooms are required by law to stabilize you regardless of your ability to pay. This is part of the EMTALA Act of 1986 and very often hospitals don't get paid for ER services.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[Firethorn]

In the US, Emergency Rooms are required by law to stabilize you regardless of your ability to pay. This is part of the EMTALA Act of 1986 and very often hospitals don't get paid for ER services.

And this unfunded mandate is part of why hospitals are having financial difficulties and have to charge so much for OTHER services.

Personally, I'd set up some sort of federally funded default insurance, but it's still a rock and a hard place for the hospitals.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MyLongNickName]

I agree with your "do the right thing" mentality. I really do. What happens when "do the right thing" gets you chewed out by your boss? The reality is that the folks who decided to make this a voluntary decision (to pay the $75) set the firefighters to be in an awful position.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[joebagodonuts]

Blame the government that set up a no-win situation.

While you're at it, why not blame God?

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[sjwt]

you are only 'the goverment' for one day, you dont controll what they do after that one day..

Sure you can think your complans and pertitiosn realy get listend to ,but they dont.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[MartinSchou]

I'm no economist, and I'm not trying to preach, but how, pray tell, do you plan on having an economy without government intervention?

Without a government, you cannot have currency, as they are the ones settings its base value (which can the be influenced from outside).

So, without government intervention, you'd have to use the barter system, and I dont' know about you, but I don't have space to raise chickens in my two bedroom apartment on the 4th floor of an apartment building.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[mr_mischief]

I think what people really mean is "don't blame the town that pays their taxes for their fire department and asks in return a small annual fee for people outside their town to get coverage from the town's fire service. Blame the county or the portion of the county that doesn't have any other fire service but the one graciously offered to people outside the town that pays taxes to support it if only the rural residents will chip in a little bit. Shame on those rural residents for not forming a taxing board to collect the $75 per household to either put together their own fire service or contract that of the town of South Fulton for all residents in the area."

You see, the town has a tax-paid fire service. This area outside the town is outside the town because they didn't want to be inside the town, and they are not paying the taxes that the town residents pay. The town's fire service asks that they get a little something for leaving their taxed area (thereby even exposing their tax payers to more risk because at least part of the fire department is now out of town) to fight fires in areas that pay no taxes to support the department.

The people outside the town are responsible for their own government, and their own government is responsible to them. It's true that almost every city and town in the US is within some county or parish (there are a few exceptions, like St. Louis Missouri which seceded from its county decades ago), and therefore the people in the towns can vote in county elections and help keep county taxes really low since they tend to outnumber the sparser rural populations. However, those rural residents of the counties can still vote locally for an extra governmental body like a fire district, water district, levee district, or other special taxing body to collect a tax for a particular purpose.

My parents, for example, live miles from the nearest town and pay into a rural fire district. Many of the firefighters are volunteers, but there is some staff and the taxes pay for the equipment. Instead of blaming South Fulton, Tennessee for not fighting fires for people outside the city limits without some incentive, blame the people outside the city for not organizing to pay for the service collectively. If South Fulton is willing to share their fire department for such a reasonable fee and the problem is just that people forget to pay or refuse to pay, then a fire district could be put together to collect that fee from everyone and contract with the town of South Fulton for the coverage if the county or fire district can't support its own department.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[mr_mischief]

I don't have public electricity or natural gas now. I have Ameren. Most of the country has Ameren, Commonwealth Edison, Nicor, or some other privately provided gas, oil, or electric utility of some sort. I do have city water, and I've lived places where I had city electricity. I do have city water and sewer. I also have city trash and recycling pickup now, but I've lived places where that's a private business.

You do realize, of course, that billions of those dollars the taxpayers paid into the government that then paid to the phone companies never paid for the upgraded capacity and rural service the phone companies promised, right? If you live in or travel through many rural parts of the US, your best bet for Internet access with high bandwidth is the privately funded satellite companies that rented their spectrum from the government and rented capacity on government rockets to put up their satellites (although until about now a government was needed to put things into space). Your best bet in those same areas for low-latency access is tower-to-tower wireless from either cellular providers or specialized wireless Internet providers that pay for their own towers or rent space on the towers of others and pay the government for spectrum.

I do believe police and fire should be public services. I don't believe you have a true grasp on what is private and what is public now, so arguing about possibilities in contrast to your ideas is a little silly.

I also don't believe the town of South Fulton, Tennessee's publicly funded town fire department should be expected to respond to fires outside the town for nothing. The taxpayers in the town should be their priority. If the people outside the town want public fire service, they should pay for it. If they don't want a subscription service then they need to set up their own taxing body that collects their own taxes. Rural fire, water, levee, LP gas, electric, telephone, and other services and utilities are often provided by either a special taxation district that is not a city or county or by a cooperative.

I see no reason this part of Obion County, Tennessee, gets to blame South Fulton for not throwing their fire department into every noncontributing flaming hole that comes along. South Fulton is responsible enough to have a fire department. They are kind enough to offer its services to those outside their town who will chip in to help cover the costs.

If Obion County or some portion of the county wants its own fire department or wants to contract the South Fulton department for universal coverage, then it's their job to raise a tax and either start a fire corps or pay South Fulton some compensation for taking their fire department on trips out of the town to fight these fires.

People like you who blame the city when every fucking article about this fire on the entire fucking Internet that I can find says the city goes above and beyond by offering to help with rural fire coverage just make me want to fucking puke.

A county's rural population pays no city taxes, period. Quit blaming the city that does have a governmental fire department for the county not having one. You need to learn to fucking read a fucking article.

Re:Nope, not kidding.

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Per the above post they could not bill enough (a mere $500) to cover the costs involved, or to establish a reasonable fee that would encourage the $75 annual payment. If the cost is just $500 for a single firefighting job, everyone would act as a free rider, and the fire department would not recoup their expenses, leading to the nearby town's taxpayers subsidizing the rural area's firefighting costs even more than they already do (the $75 is already below cost).

Who cares

[Drakin020]

Seriously this is stuff that does not belong on the front page of a technology website.

Re:Who cares

[godrik]

Since you are a registered user of slashdot, you can filter what you want or do not want to read. This story was in idle. It often contains stuff that don't matter.

Re:Who cares

[Drakin020]

Actually no, you can't filter out Idle. It's never worked right for me.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that its the most commented on article on the frontpage shows that it does in fact belong on the frontpage of a technology website.

Re:Who cares

[godrik]

That's weird, It works for me. You might want to fill a bug report.

Re:Who cares

[TheRaven64]

I did filter idle, but I still see this story. It's actually the first thing in Idle that I thought was worth reading. Given the number of libertarian Slashdot readers there are, I'd imagine quite a lot of people are interested in seeing a concrete example of what happens when libertarian policies are put into effect.

The Better Policy

[WED Fan]

Perhaps the better policy would be to go ahead and fight the fire and then put a lein on the property. So, you pay the yearly fee, or in case of fire, you pay a fine.

Re:The Better Policy

[roman_mir]

And go through the legal costs and time? Why? No, the correct thing was done.

Re:The Better Policy

[lsommerer]

??? fine = fire department budget / # of fires ???

I've been thinking about this, trying to come up with what the "fine" should be. Obviously it has to be something substantial or no one will subscribe to the service. My thought is that the true cost to save his house is the entire budget for the fire department / the number of fires that they put out. Because the number of fires can vary, you'd probably want to use a running average for the number of fires.

Fine in theory (I'm guessing) but does anyone know what type of actual numbers this might produce?

Re:The Better Policy

[Albanach]

And go through the legal costs and time? Why? No, the correct thing was done.

There are pets who are dead. There could have been children in that house.

Seriously, you think it's okay to stand and watch a property burn down and lives be lost because someone has the misfortune to be poor and live on the wrong side of an invisible line some politician created?

If his county won't provide fire coverage, they should be paying the neighboring one for service. The idea that you have entire counties without fire cover is astonishing. What if you're in a car accident there, do you not get emergency help?

In the meantime, the fire service should have a fixed fee for fire fighting where the $75 insurance hasn't been paid. Even if it was $1,500, at least folk would have a way of getting cover. The idea that in the event of a fire, some jobsworth can say no coverage is available is crazy. For firefighters to actually be on the scene and stand and watch a house burn is sickening.

Re:The Better Policy

[Anonymous Coward]

A local radio commentator presented what I believe to be a reasonable solution: if you don't pay, you don't get insurance/protection. If you have a fire and want protection, you pay a large fee (potentially the full cost of the fire fighting activity).

This is better than just fining people who don't pay and have a fire. First, they're *already* fined by the fact they've had a fire, so it's not really necessary to fine them again. Second, they may actually choose not to have the fire put out - maybe an old house burnt down to make room for a new house. Third, there is a mechanism to get emergency response even when the original insurance isn't paid. Fourth, the price of the emergency response is significantly enough higher than the insurance that it avoids encouraging people to not pay at all (it's silly to not pay for insurance but expect coverage).

Re:The Better Policy

[Myopic]

Yeah, okay, but a couple points. First of all, the firefighters would have saved any humans in the house. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and we draw it around human life. Outside the line is animal life and personal property. Second of all, "even if it were $1500" isn't right -- it would be more like $15,000. Fighting fires is expensive.

Re:The Better Policy

[svendsen]

This issue has been beaten to death on a lot of other sites but just in case you missed it:

It was stated by the city IF there had been people inside they would have rescued them. That is their SOP. However, since there was no one inside (and animals != people under the law) they couldn't do anything.

Another issue that was brought up was fire departments insurance. Assume the fire fighters had gone in and gotten hurt (which on a lot of fire you have some) would the insurance have covered the injuries with a non contracted house outside of city limits?

As for the fixed fee would the owner pay it? If not does the city have any recourse? I mean the person didn't bother paying $75/yr for a service. You think they will pay the cost of putting out the fire?

Re:The Better Policy

[twistedsymphony]

good luck collecting those fines... people who have survived a home fire always have tons of money right? especially those who are so cheap/poor they burn their trash to avoid dump fees and refuse to pay dirt cheap fees for fire protective services.
If the fire department was guaranteed that money it would work, sadly they'd probably end up spending twice the fine fighting to collect, then the home owner would just file for bankruptcy and go kick dirt for a few years while the fire-department gets more broke.

Re:The Better Policy

[alta]

I like the lein idea better than trying to just charge them the $$ ahead of time.

But it still doesn't solve the problem of how to get a NEW fire department started with no $$ up front. No bank is going to lend you money to buy, even a heavily used, tanker/ladder/pumper if your business model is pay-per-fire. Chicken-egg problem. You can't buy a truck till you have some $$. Yuu can't put out a fire until you have a truck.

Re:The Better Policy

[roman_mir]

I don't care for the dead pets.

Unfortunately the fire brigade would have been obligated to save the people in the house if there were any even if the house owner didn't pay the insurance.

I absolutely think it is OK to stand and watch as that property was burning down, because watching is necessary to make sure that the paying houses were not affected.

Emergency help is provided if you are in an accident, but it's provided to the people, NOT TO CARS.

Fire department is not a collection agency, they don't need the hassle of hunting you down if you decide not to pay for the services previously provided.

Re:The Better Policy

[Wonko the Sane]

The idea that you have entire counties without fire cover is astonishing. What if you're in a car accident there, do you not get emergency help?

You've never set foot outside a big city, have you?

Re:The Better Policy

[geekoid]

yes, a destroyed home is far better the 20 minutes of paper work.

NO, the correct thing was not done. The legally justified thing was done. There is a difference.

Re:The Better Policy

[demonlapin]

The idea that you have entire counties without fire cover is astonishing.

Do you not get that rural areas are, well, rural? You live out there, you're on your own.

Re:The Better Policy

[digitig]

There used to be a system much like that in the UK a couple of centuries ago. It resulted in rival fire-fighting companies fighting in the street over who got to put out a fire (and get the profits from it).

Re:The Better Policy

[g8oz]

While not having his home burned down would be a big tangible good to the owner its also of some benefit to society at large. That benefit is larger than the cost of filing a lien of say $5000 and sending it to a collection agency. This is America, the cost of debt collection is low and there is plenty of competition in this area.

The real argument for letting the house is burn is unstated: a lot of Americans get off on disapproval of irresponsible people. It makes them feel good. Compassion would just get in the way of that. Interestingly many of these people also call themselves Christians.

Re:The Better Policy

[roman_mir]

No, this was the correct thing. If you don't pay for your insurance you can't expect the insurance company to cover your losses. Hello, this is the real world, where things do have to be paid for and not by some magic Obamafairy and Helicopter Ben, who can just wish the money to appear out of thin air.

Though money appearing out of thin air is a neat trick, realize that it's a tax, it takes away purchase power from all other existing money, thus the huge inflation, thus the inflation of other currencies, who are trying not to get too much behind and thus the gold is going up. Hip hip, hooray.

Re:The Better Policy

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

Ok, for once and for all:

The fire department is owned by the city, who has no jusirdiction outside the city limits, so no lein can be placed. If a firefighter were to be hurt fighting this fire, his firefighter insurance would no cover it, because it would have been considered an unnecessary service. Finally, even if the FD has some sort of "pay now" contract, it would never hold up, as the homeowner would sign it under duress (let alone be able to pay for it)

This man decided that his stuff and his family are not worth a yearly $75 for fire insurance

Re:The Better Policy

[roman_mir]

Well no, now the insurance he had would pay for a new house - bam, you have another house sale, and looks like that's what they want in this market - houses to be bought. So it's arguably 'good thing', but of-course I wouldn't call it that. But it is the correct thing.

As an atheist, I have little respect for Christians who do not follow their own moral teachings though.

Re:The Better Policy

[anUnhandledException]

"folks" do have a way of getting coverage it is called $75 per year for non residents.

The firedept is part of the town. The house is OUTSIDE the town. The town has no legal authority to compel payment of either the $75 or $1500 (more like $10,000) cost.

If the guy is such a stupid cheapstake to avoid paying the $75 what makes you think he will ever pay the $10,000?
So when he doesn't pay after the fact (and why would he) other responsible residents pay for his free coverage.

No it is pretty simply. Want fire protection
a) raise taxes so you have your own fire dept
b) pay the $75.

win-win.

Re:The Better Policy

[Khyber]

"A line has to be drawn somewhere, and we draw it around human life."

BZZZT WRONG!

Try being a firefighter, even a volunteer one (as I was for Memphis, TN and Olive Branch, MS.)

Our job is to stop that fire and prevent loss of ANY LIFE.

I have saved many an animal from a fire.

Don't speak about that which you obviously do not know.

Re:The Better Policy

[anUnhandledException]

Why would expect someone who opts out of paying $75.would pay a $5,000+ bill.

The town has no legal authority to tax or fine non-residents. Period. Thus that $5,000+ post-fire bill will simply become an uncollected debt.

There is a reason why many services are prepaid. Hell even my cable bill is prepaid. I stop paying I stop getting cable. If cable company allowed me a lifetime of cable service and then tried to collect $10,000 at the end how successful do you think they would be? How many people would simply not pay? How many broke individuals would file bankruptcy if necessary to avoid payment.

Re:The Better Policy

[sloveless]

Once upon a time, about 20 years ago, I lived in a rural part of Missouri. Our fire protection services were provided by a nearby town's volunteer fire department. They charged us a $50 annual fee. If you paid the fee they'd fight fires on your property, no questions asked. So far, a lot like Tennessee. The difference was if you didn't pay the fee and your house caught on fire. If you said "yes, please, put out the fire," it was a minimum $300 just to roll a truck. Then, when your insurance agent showed up with a check for the damages, someone from the fire department would be there to collect. And if that wasn't enough they'd put a contractor's lien on your property. From what I gathered, the local courts backed the fire department damn near every time. It's not a pretty situation, but it seemed to work out nicely for everyone involved.

Re:The Better Policy

[Smauler]

Our job is to stop that fire and prevent loss of ANY LIFE.

In the words of someone with more wit than I ever could muster, BZZZT WRONG!

Where were you when I baked a couple of potatoes over a campfire last night?

Perhaps you were referring to animal life... but you didn't do such a good job stopping that moth self-immolating in my candle the night before.

Oh... did you mean cuddly animal life?

A line has to be drawn somewhere, right?

Re:The Better Policy

[LinuxAndLube]

How do you know that they would have saved human life?

Re:The Better Policy

[fyngyrz]

First of all, the firefighters would have saved any humans in the house.

There's no way to know if there were humans in the house. A neighbor kid could have slipped in to visit little Johnny. A tramp may have been sleeping under the porch. The local religionist may have been upstairs, in the toilet, as part of his visit to make magical incantations over sick aunt Sally. A burglar could have been in an upstairs bedroom. Etc.

Bottom line, that kind of rationalization is idiotic.

Re:The Better Policy

[fyngyrz]

Thanks. :)

Re:The Better Policy

[Vancorps]

That would be great if the fire department actually had the ability to do that. They don't and I think it's a waste of money to keep track of all that. A fire department should not need much in the way of accounting. It could be done fairly efficiently though again assuming they were given the ability to do it.

Re:The Better Policy

[Myopic]

I'm going to state the plainly obvious here: you clearly operated under different rules than the fire department in this story, because nobody has been sitting around accusing them of breaking local laws with respect to animal life.

Now I'm going to ask a question to which I'm genuinely curious of the answer in your specific case: where did you draw the line for "life"? I presume you weren't saving the bacteria on the poop stains in the toilet; did you save fish? pet mice? a snake? Would you have rushed in to save a hamster from a burning building, just exactly the same as a human? Was it a sliding scale of worth for different kinds of life (like, human is most important, then pet mammals, then other pets) or was it a threshold above which all life was exactly equal (like, a baby is in one room and a dog is in another, and you go save the dog)? I presume it was the former but I'm curious what the rule actually was, and how it was put into action.

Re:The Better Policy

[Myopic]

I'm presuming based on everything I know about the law and ethics of American emergency workers. Are you willing to state that you honestly believe they would have watched humans burn alive in a trailer home and done nothing? If you aren't willing to say that, then we can happily agree on this point.

Re:The Better Policy

[natehoy]

No, the better policy would have been to have the $75 fee added to everyone's property tax bill in the small town, and have the town pay on behalf of all citizens so they don't forget and so the fire company in the larger town isn't in the collection business.

But, if you want to operate in a mode where you have freedom, then you have to take personal responsibility. The dude didn't buy firefighting insurance, and the fire department is not obligated to risk their lives and expend their resources trying to save his house.

Bet the paper delivery guy would drive right by his house not leaving a paper if he hadn't subscribed, too.

Re:The Better Policy

[LinuxAndLube]

Comparable things happen in ER.

Re:The Better Policy

[Myopic]

I disagree. There are lots of ways to know whether there was a human in the house. None of the several stories I read mentioned that there was ever any doubt.

Re:The Better Policy

[shutdown -p now]

There is a reason why many services are prepaid. Hell even my cable bill is prepaid. I stop paying I stop getting cable. If cable company allowed me a lifetime of cable service and then tried to collect $10,000 at the end how successful do you think they would be? How many people would simply not pay? How many broke individuals would file bankruptcy if necessary to avoid payment.

You do understand the fundamental difference between losing cable service, and having your house burn to the ground, right?

Re:The Better Policy

[fyngyrz]

There are lots of ways to know whether there was a human in the house.

You think? Little neighbor kid slipped in to visit Johnny. Overcome by smoke on the back stairs. Doesn't make it to Johnny's room, Johnny doesn't know he's even there. House is burning, neighbor kid is insensate on the steps. Everyone else is out. And before you say "can't happen", I used to go see a friend just this way almost every day. It can happen.

So how, exactly (in other words, not "lots of ways"), does anyone know neighbor kid is collapsed on the back stairs? You know of a "human detector" the firemen had and could employ? Explain, please.

Re:The Better Policy

[anUnhandledException]

There is no fundamental difference in the fast that the unpaid debt will need to be collected (via higher taxes & fees) from the responsible citizens.

Collection of large unsecured debt after the fact is abysmally bad. If lucky large entity equipped with significant collection resources might get $0.02 to $0.05 on the dollar.

The lost money will have to be made up by the parties who did the right thing (either voting/paying higher taxes or paying $75 fee for coverage).

Re:The Better Policy

[shutdown -p now]

I find that arrangement to be vastly preferable to the one where emergency services have a list of paying customers, and will only respond to calls from those, and not anyone else. It practically invites abuse.

Re:The Better Policy

[anUnhandledException]

How does it invite abuse?

You pay you are covered. Given the media spotlight it is entirely possible than insurance companies will make $75 fee a requirement for coverage. While the homeowner lost the real loser was insurance company. They insured a property against fire when in the event of fire no fire service would be provided.

In essence the town's residence have the same arrangement (pay for service) however they simply have no option to opt out. The cost is collected as part of their taxes.

The town sent him a letter when his coverage lapsed, and then called him to inform him he wouldn't be protected. There is no free lunch.

Re:The Better Policy

[shutdown -p now]

It invites abuse same way paid private fire companies always did - it gives them financial incentive to ignore real emergencies for the sake of "teaching a lesson" (as in this case), or, worse, to create their own to scare people into paying.

Re:The Better Policy

[Varuka]

According to national statistics ( http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/statistics/departments/index.shtm ). Nationally, it's 1,451,500 fires across 30,170 fire stations, for an average of 48 fires per station, per year. My town of 32,000 people pays $6,362,437 for their fire service, and has 4 stations. That's about 200$ per person, on average. If they were charged the 6 million divided by the number of fires per year (200, for this rough estimate) it would be approximately $30,000. So, on the order of tens of thousands of dollars. You really might as well not have the option, as anyone with that kind of cash wouldn't care about the 75$ fee.

Re:The Better Policy

[Myopic]

Nope, the standard isn't absolute sureness, it's beyond a reasonable doubt (or something like that, I'm not trying to make a legal argument). There was no reasonable doubt that the house was clear. That is my assumption based on the fact that the firefighters didn't act, and also based on my assumption that firefighters wouldn't allow a human to die in a fire no matter what the fee.

It's fine, you can attack my assumptions, because that's all they are -- and I wasn't there at the fire myself (were you?). If my assumptions are totally wrong, then my conclusions could be too.

I read about a half dozen stories about this fire which give some additional details, and those details are part of my understanding. You could be better or worse informed than I.

Yeah, heck, maybe this was a rare cadre of psychopathic firefighters hell-bent on doing their best to kill neighborhood children under the pretenses of a fee dispute... but I doubt it.

Re:The Better Policy

[fyngyrz]

If my assumptions are totally wrong, then my conclusions could be too.

Yes, and they are. "Reasonable doubt" isn't a sane standard for fighting fires.

Libertarian Paradise

[Tablizer]

Nuff sed.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a libertarian Paradise. And I love it. Don't make people pay for services and they soon figure out which services they really need. Am sure their neighbors will be paying their fees from now on.
Honey, you think we should pay the fee?
Well, remember what happen to uncle Clarks house?
Oh, yeah. I'll send the check.

Though I have to question the wisdom of letting people burn general house hold trash. That's just asking for all sorts of pollution. Most people aren't aware of the dangers of pressure treated wood when burned.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[roman_mir]

Unfortunately no, it's not paradise for libertarians.

Paradise would be this: no gov't intervention into anything beyond setting up the Justice department and minimum military to protect against foreign invasion, and all of these services would be paid by taxing sales of some, mostly luxury items.

That would be close to the libertarian paradise - a place where no amount of special interest money can influence the gov't and private interest economic outcomes in any way + ability to control gov't growth through control of personal purchase choices - you don't like the size of gov't? Don't buy things that are taxed by the gov't, so that it would have to reduce itself in size.
--
Now, the actual word 'paradise'... it's loaded. There is no free lunch and there is no paradise, there is just a system that works economically and a system that doesn't work.

The system that exists today doesn't work. Communist or a fascist or a dictatorial system doesn't work. The closer to the 'libertarian paradise' you get, the stronger the economy will be in total, the more progress would be achieved, 19th century is a good showcase for this.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I was thinking: "What would the market do?", based on this quote:

"South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire."

So, obviously it should be a $75 fee if paid annually before the fire, and a $75000 fee at the time of the fire, or whatever price the market will bear. With that arrangement the $75 a year is a clear bargain. And all sorts of rival "last-minute fire-fighting" services could spring up if thousands of dollars are on the line.

The same logic would apply to healthcare, police, military defense, etc. Before a crime occurs: $200 a year. Before an illness, $500 a year. Before a war or invasion, only a bargain $1000 a year. As or after a crime is occuring, once you are sick with a critical illness, or as an invasion is occurring: 10-1000x as much (it isn't cheap maintaining services on "standby" just in case the event happens). It would be an arrangement where you could spend your money however you wanted, competition between service providers would keep prices down, and you could freely make your own decisions which service(s) to purchase regardless of the wishes of the "nanny state", including none -- a true paradise where everybody would be happy about how their money was being spent, because only they get to choose.

Well, until you didn't have enough money to pay, but that's supposedly not my problem, and I'm apparently not supposed to care about it.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yeah, I think it is.

And I would love to live there. I'd probably pay for basic fire service--$75 isn't too bad, and you know what? I'd be happy to watch someone else's house burn down because they refused to pay for the service. The only sad thing about this to me is that the Cranick's weren't responsible enough to get their pets out.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly and Precisely.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy dogshit. Is it /painful/ to be so stupid?

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[CAIMLAS]

From what I've seen of Libertarians, this is pretty anti-libertarian in approach - but not for the reasons you state.

Libertarians want government, they just want "small government", particularly as the seat of power is far. Jurisdiction over an area is managed by the smallest form of government which covers said area. Federal government should be very, very small. State government would be (proportionately) somewhat larger. Larger still would be your city and municipality governments, with township councils also being larger and more significant in peoples' lives.

As it stands now, the opposite is true. Local governments are disregarded as ineffectual and useless; state government are viewed as handymen for the Federal government. Anything which impacts a person is typically seen as coming from the Federal government (unless you're living in a micro-country like California or NY, which views itself as the end-all, be-all, and treats you like they must provide every single service, disregarding the fact that you also have to pay out 30%+ of your income to the Federal government).

* Roadways? Local, county, or at the most state, managed.
* Police? Why would funding for police come from the Federal level, when it is by definition a local issue? Do most places (by area) even need "policing"? Certainly not.
* Healthcare? Under no uncertain terms, this shouldn't have government involvement at all. The "common good" clause is bullshit in this regard (as evidenced by the decreases in services AND increases in costs for those who need them when the government gets involved with regulation of said healthcare).

Government's role should not be one of authority, but of coordination. At the local level, this is easier to enact than at the Federal or State level, because you can actually hold government accountable and it is easier to be involved.

Hell, where there is no functional government, the community has to pick up the slack, anyway (community watch groups and cooperative fire departments, for instance). When the government is not saying "we are here to help", people realize they are on their own - and band together to help themselves (and by coincidence, others) in the process.

I have a friend who is a fire fighter in some of the most rural land in this country. It is, in essence, a "militia fire brigade": he and others have pickup trucks with water tanks, hoses, and the like (many of them on removable beds which can be quickly swapped out with, say, a welding bed). If (when - this is very dry country) there is a fire within the community (I believe it's a cooperative fire department in this regard, with dues), everyone gets a call and anyone able to respond, does. The responders get paid for their time on the fire, as well as a monthly stipend for maintaining the coop equipment. It's quite amazing to see the response to one of these fires: a half trucks with 300-500 gal or so (such as this: truck water tanks) each show up independently within a fairly short (30 minutes - many traveling at over 60mph down gravel roads to get there) period of time; each truck is blazoned in different colors, brands, and door badges ("JD's Welding and Fire Control", "Mike's Metal Works", "Jimbob Double-C Ranch").

If the burden of self reliance is there without the false impression of government help, then people will step up. There will always be fools who do not heed the call - but then they get billed and (if not paid) sued. Not putting out the fire, as this city did, is pretty much par for the course of government: "we can't help you because you didn't pay". Well, gee, thanks. An individual - a human - is more likely to rely upon his judgement and respond in a humane fashion: we'll take care of the problem, but your ass is mine afterwards if you fail your obligations at this point.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[xavi62028]

Except that this was a government run service, not a private one. A libertarian paradise would have a private firefighting service that would stick you with a huge bill if you didn't pay yearly dues. Not enough incentive / bad legal structure with this government run fire protection.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[HappyEngineer]

Only for extreme Libertarians.

Not every Democrat is Ralph Nader. Not every Republican is Sarah Palin. Not every Libertarian is Ayn Rand.

As a moderate libertarian I think certain services need to be provided for by the government in situations where the market simply will not work properly. The fire department is certainly an obvious example of that.

Just because I believe that does not mean I've jumped to the other end of the spectrum where I'd love an HOA on every block telling me what color my fence can be.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[fiannaFailMan]

Libertarian Paradise

I think it's called Somalia. They have no government there at all. Sounds like a tropical paradise, going by what the libertarians say about the evils of government.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen this meme pop up 20 times in the last couple weeks - "libertarianism is bad, just look at somalia lololol" on various boards. What, did dailykos put out a talking point memo or something? Even a 5 year old can refute that statement.

You can't have a free market without rule of law. Anarchy != Freedom.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[fiannaFailMan]

And you can't have the rule of law without a government, dipshit!

And no, I didn't see it written anywhere else. What do you think I am, some sort of Fox News-watching sheep?

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that works fine until the sparks from your neighbors burning house fly over on your roof an light your house on fire.

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[Anonymous Coward]

Only hardcore libertarians would take it this far, and as far as I know they don't exist. Are all conservatives like Glen Beck?

Re:Libertarian Paradise

[amiga3D]

Right on. This is the way it should be. Dead beat can't part with $75 but expects everyone else to pay to support him. His place burned down and he's got only himself to blame. If you want to be free you have to be self supporting.

Government In Action

[Mr. Foogle]

And ... everyone will see this as an obvious flaw in libertarianism.

Except these guys worked for the government.

Re:Government In Action

[MyLongNickName]

Uh, no. this is the perfect example of why libertarianism is mentally bankrupt. Firefighting is a perfect example of a shared good where the public MUST be taxed to ensure fair and equal access. Instead, libertarianism wants to privatize everything.

Libertarianism works for those who already have money and would only serve to collect more and more wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer.

Re:Government In Action

[Anonymous Coward]

If he had enough money to buy/build a house and maintain three dogs and a cat, he certainly had enough money to pay $75 for fire insurance. This is a great example of Libertarianism -- someone who tried to mooch off other people (by not paying their $75) got burned. I love it!

Re:Government In Action

[characterZer0]

I think most libertarians would be happy to vote to have their taxes support a fire department. Maybe the actual operations would be contracted to a private organization, but that is not the issue here.

What you are imagining libertarian means is really anarchist.

Re:Government In Action

[Idarubicin]

And ... everyone will see this as an obvious flaw in libertarianism.

Except these guys worked for the government.

Yeah, and in this case they were running their government service like a business -- just like the libertarians want them to.

Re:Government In Action

[darjen]

They clearly weren't running it like a business. If they were, they would have accepted a higher fee to put out the fire, which still would have made them a profit. As usual, people are straining to blame libertarianism when the opposite is true. This is clearly a failure of government.

Re:Government In Action

[Idarubicin]

They clearly weren't running it like a business. If they were, they would have accepted a higher fee to put out the fire, which still would have made them a profit. As usual, people are straining to blame libertarianism when the opposite is true. This is clearly a failure of government.

They were operating like a business that preferred to sell service contracts and deliver their services on that basis. They did not, at that time, wish to offer a fee-for-service model, and their front-line servicepeople weren't empowered to change company policy and invent new products on a whim.

Given the peculiarities of their particular line of business, I can even see why. Is the sales team ready to negotiate a contract in a couple of minutes, so that a timely response to a fire can still occur? Can the accounts department, in the middle of the night, actualy run a credit check or confirm that the home's resident has clear title to the property, so that the fire department would be able to place a lien in the event of nonpayment? Will courts be comfortable with enforcing the terms of a contract which was signed while one of the parties was watching his house burn, and which he wouldn't have time to read?

Businesses are free to choose the manner in which they offer their services. Moreover, there is nothing that prevents another entity from establishing a competing fire service aimed at people who can't be bothered to pay in advance for a service contract. (The fact that no service has appeared to fill this particular niche suggests that a) the market isn't very big and may not be worth servicing, and/or b) the people who lack the common sense or financial ability to buy fire insurance, and who may have just lost a substantial fraction of their physical assets in a serious fire, may not be a good group to whom to sell big-ticket services.)

Dow Corning won't sell me two ounces of silly putty; they only do hundred pound lots. If I want a smaller quantity, then I have to go through a different supplier. Since Dow isn't willing to sell me their product in the manner I choose, does that mean that Dow isn't being run like a business?

Re:Government In Action

[Mr. Foogle]

No. They were running their government service the way the government runs a business. That is, badly, and without regard for making a profit.

Re:Government In Action

[Mr. Foogle]

They were operating like a business that preferred to sell service contracts and deliver their services on that basis. They did not, at that time, wish to offer a fee-for-service model, and their front-line servicepeople weren't empowered to change company policy and invent new products on a whim.

We're all informed by our experience. I did work for a small-business man who offered 'IT solutions' to other small businesses. He wanted to make his company work on a subscription model, and do a lot of preventative maintenance.

In the long run, this would cost the customer less.

He had to give up on that model: too much of his business was coming from guys who had an IT version of their house burning down without coverage from a fire-fighting company.

He had no problem sailing out in the middle of the night, or day, or weekend to put out fires. But we live in a smaller town and you know pretty much in advance if a guy is going to pay up or not.

Re:Government In Action

[Mr. Foogle]

Firefighting is a perfect example of a shared good where the public MUST be taxed to ensure fair and equal access.

And yet, fire-fighting works really well as a volunteer function in many smaller cities and towns.

Re:Government In Action

[darjen]

The mere fact that they wanted to sell subscriptions to people who would pay voluntarily doesn't mean they are "acting like a business". There could be a million other ways they weren't acting like a business. You can't reasonably expect an industry that has been monopolized by government for 100 years to turn around on a dime and all of a sudden be successful in business.

This is why governments who try to act like a business almost always fail. It takes a LONG time to unravel the mess that government has caused. Not only that, but we don't even know what kind of regulations and restrictions are in place in that county that would apply to potential competitors.

They undoubtedly still have a government mentality in their fire department. That clearly shows in this case. Letting a customer's house burn when they were willing to pay a large amount more than the subscription is not only bad business but the kind of pure douchebaggery we have come to expect from politicians and their bureaucratic lackeys.

Re:Government In Action

[Idarubicin]

If you're not going to read or respond to the points I have to made, do you really think that it's a constructive use of anyone's time for you to just rant about how much you hate government?

Instaed of considering some of the reasons I gave for why it wouldn't be appropriate for a well-managed business to do on-the-spot, on-demand work, you've decided that - in the absence of evidence - you prefer incompetence as your explanation. That's fine for you, but it's not rational.

What about the neighbor?

[nicedream]

He *did* pay his $75 fee, but they didn't do anything until the fire had actually spread to his house. I'd be pissed if I were him. They wouldn't do anything to *prevent* his house from catching fire in the first place? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that uncontrolled fires usually spread.

Re:What about the neighbor?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

According to last night's Countdown, they hosed down the fenceline, which would prevent the spread of the fire, but not the house.

Re:What about the neighbor?

[nicedream]

Even more ridiculous. So they not only were on the scene, but they also had their hoses out and were spraying water, just not *at* the fire.

Re:What about the neighbor?

[ilsaloving]

The firefighters did protect the neighbours house. The fire reached the fence line, and the firefighters stopped it from going farther.

Re:What about the neighbor?

[alta]

The story I read (not the linked article) was they sprayed down the neighbors house sufficiently to prevent damage.

Why not just bill him?

[mark-t]

Okay... so he didn't pay the money right then and there. What's the problem? If he doesn't pay it by a certain date, they can tack it onto his property taxes (plus interest), which if he doesn't pay, he loses his home. Seems simple. Actively *choosing* to not respond to a situation such as this, that was well within their ability to attend to, *REGARDLESS* of whether or not they were getting paid properly for it shows an absolutely horrifying level of poor ethical values among those firefighters, IMO.

Re:Why not just bill him?

[Idimmu Xul]

He gambled that his house wouldn't catch fire in order to save $75, he lost.

If you're ever in charge of a casino or lottery, please give me a bell because I swear I would have bought those numbers I just wanted to wait until the results came in ...

Re:Why not just bill him?

[SoTerrified]

Okay... so he didn't pay the money right then and there. What's the problem?

I didn't buy car insurance, but yesterday I totaled my car. So I walked into the insurance company, offering to pay the money right there and then. And they turned me down. I tried to say "Hey, this makes perfect sense to mark-t!" but for some reason, they still thought I was an absolute idiot. They explained to me how insurance works, how the cost is distributed among many because the assumption is that most people won't need the service. If they let you buy it after you need the service, they would need to charge me an amount equal to what I would be receiving. Well, more actually, because the company has overhead. So they just shook their heads, said to tell mark-t that he lives in some fantasy world and that any business who did what mark-t suggests would soon be bankrupt.

Re:Why not just bill him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent hits the nail right on the head.

Seriously...how can you just stand by and watch thousands, possibly a couple million dollars worth of stuff be destroyed? I'm sure the family would have been so thankful that you might even have gotten a tip beyond the $75. I don't want my society ruled by feudalistic terror.

There's a huge difference between this situation and gambling. The House wins your money (no pun intended) when you gamble; society conserves the amount being gambled. No one wins when a house burns down; society permanently loses the hard work that went into the house and all items inside.

Also not analogous to the car insurance. In a car wreck, the deed is already done, and you want magic money that you didn't earn to fix it. The burning house still isn't a done deed until it's ashes.

Re:Why not just bill him?

[goodmanj]

They can't tack it onto his property taxes because he doesn't live in the same town as the firefighters. The fire company's only recourse would be to sue him, which is a lose-lose proposition for everyone but the lawyers involved.

Re:Why not just bill him?

[mark-t]

There is a world of difference between refusing to insure somebody after the fact and deliberately letting somebody's house burn down because they won't pay a fee to stop it. The former is common business sense. The latter is blackmail. As it was, the lives of the family's pets were lost because of their inaction, but what if there had been a person in that house who died because the firefighters didn't do their job? What if the fire had spread out of control, and caused far more damage than just this person's property, simply because they didn't act on the situation as soon as they were notified?

Re:Why not just bill him?

[kaiser423]

I doubt that the fire department would have a leg to stand on legally to bill him. They had a legal setup on how to provide fire protection to the people, and it is voluntary. He chose not to participate. If they put out the fire while knowing that he chose not to pay for the services, even if he authorized for them at the time, he could always claim that he didn't know how much it cost, or that they're sticking it to him, or that he agreed to the contract under duress (his house was burning after all), and it's pretty easy to void things contractually that happened under duress.

If the fire department puts this out for him, and he decides to screw them, they'd be screwed.

Re:Why not just bill him?

[Anonymous Coward]

His property isn't in the town with the fire station. Whole different municipality.

What this boils down to: many people in Tennessee don't like paying taxes. Taxes, in most parts of North America, pay for things like fire departments and trash collection. Some people object to this, and would rather pay for services a la carte. But this is, ultimately, a game. Now, the odds of a fire destroying your home are pretty long. And you can save yourself, give or take, a few hundred bucks a year by playing the game. But the money this guy saved by not having fire protection and trash collection, in hindsight, looks like a very, very bad bet. But we aren't supposed to support those who lose bad bets, right?

Guy should've offered to pay, not the $75, but the actual cost of putting out the fire. Partly because his kid started it (and if the fire spread to his neighbour's place, the kid should've been busted for arson). And partly 'cause it would've been the right thing to do. No one, and I mean /no one/ could launch a reasonable argument against that.

Re:Why not just bill him?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they can not tack it on to the property taxes because this man lived out side of any city so there were no city property taxes to tack it on to. Those living in the city already payed property taxes to the city so they were automatically covered. I also understand that the city had tried to incorporate the land but the owner refused. Remember the city has no ability to compel, tax or levee anyone living outside of the city limits. As long as he was informed about the lack of fire protection for his home he can not complain. Well, I guess he can but I don't give a flying fuck as long as the city had tried to make him aware of him being on his own. He could have setup a water tank with a manual pump to put out fires if he wanted, too. However, it was a pretty cruel way of sending the message to pay up for your fire protection but if the state had no law allowing the city to get a fee for fighting the fire, I can understand their inaction. Fire protection is not a basic human right. Also if your not paying your $75 dollar a year which is basically insurance, you should pay what it costs to put out that one fire probably a couple thousand dollars. Anyway I have a property outside the city and my closest fire station is 45 miles away. I know that I have to wait for the state troopers if I call the police, though the city has a police department. I love being in an unincorporated area(much more freedom, just make sure your neighbors are far enough way not to bother you) and would never want my land incorporated because most even super small cities frown landing helicopters in the drive way. I will however have to look into my fire protection. Wost, comes to worst I will have to (instead of just wanting to) install a fire sprinkler system into may home(planing major remolding over Xmas vacation) and some sort of protection for the outside.

The state government if it so wishes could organize to pay for fire protection for unincorporated property out of it's state property taxes, however. The main problem is figuring out which city or fire-station to pay. They would also need to check up to make sure that fire station meets some sort of minim requirements and isn't some sort of scam. (Note to self start "fire stations" to receive finding)

Re:Why not just bill him?

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

This has all been sorted out above, but I'll explain.

The man hasn't paid for this service in years. The mayor said that the SOP would have been to save the people, but nothing else. Pets are property, not 'lives'. The firefighters insurance would not cover them for fighting this fire, as it isn't in their jurisdiction. The city can't put a lein on his house or anything to force him to pay the full cost, as the city not only doesnt have the jurisdiction, its in ANOTHER STATE. Any bill that he would have agreed to pay at the time of the fire wouldn't hold up in court, as he had agreed to the terms under duress.

So there. Everything, EVERYTHING was done as it was supposed to be done. The only dick is the guy himself

Re:Why not just bill him?

[dcw3]

No they can't. He's not in their jurisdiction, so they have no legal authority over him. They can try to bill him, but good luck collecting from someone who's lost everything.

Re:Why not just bill him?

[mark-t]

He wouldn't have lost everything if they had just come to put out the fire. I find it bizarre to think that the _nearest_ fire department to where a person lives would not have the jurisdiction to actually fight a fire there.

However, I see only two positives here: 1) there were no human lives lost (they must of asked him if everybody was already outside the house, or else they would have come anyways), and 2) the fire did not grow out of control and spread beyond his property, possibly endangering others (this they could not possibly have foreknown, which is why I believe they probably should have come).

Re:Why not just bill him?

[mark-t]

Okay..... so let's say that you're this person's neighbor... and you've paid your $75 fee this year for fire protection, and you see this guy's house on fire. You call the fire department because you don't want the fire spreading to your house too, what are they going to do? Tell you "No, we can't put out the fire on that guy's house because he didn't pay his fire protection fee"? Odds are, you aren't going to give a f**k about whether your neighbor paid his fee, you just don't want them waiting until YOUR property has started to catch on fire before they get off their asses and do the job that you *ARE* paying them for.

I am compelled to agree that the guy should have paid this fee in the first place, but what I think is the real mistake here is that this was actually supposed to be an optional service that one could opt to pay for or not, because fire can be dangerous not only to the person whose property may be on fire, but to anyone else who may happen to be nearby. It's wholly unfair to endanger the lives of people who *DO* pay such fees solely because of people who did not. To that end, it should probably be incorporated into their annual property taxes, so that everybody pays it.

Re:Why not just bill him?

[Ramahan]

How is there a world of difference? Since he didn't pay the Firefighters would not have been covered by the Fire companies insurance if they had been injured.

As to the idea of it being the Firefighters fault if someone died in that house because they hadn't been doing their jobs. It would have actually been the Homeowners fault because he had never paid anyone to do said job. The Firefighters were doing their jobs in that they were protecting the properties where they had been paid to do the job.

yup

[nomadic]

In case any of you are wondering, this is exactly the reason why a lot of us detest libertarianism, and refuse to vote for Ron Paul not because they think he can't win but because they think he would ruin this country.

Re:yup

[IndustrialComplex]

You need to believe more than you just read on the internet about what some guy told you these other guys believe.

Re:yup

[j0nb0y]

*Yawn* go read up on federalism. Sadly, so many Americans know so little about how this country actually works...

Re:yup

[nomadic]

What if what I read on the internet was Ron Paul's official website?

Re:yup

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see your argument. If instead of being expected to pay for fire protection directly, there had been a tax covering it, this guy would have instead been in jail for failure to pay taxes, or had his house seized and sold anyway. If you think you are getting fire protection for free you are deluding yourself.

          Going pure libertarian, well, I don't think that radical a change is viable as quickly as someone like Ron Paul would like, but that's what checks and balances are for -- he wouldn't be able to eliminate the income tax and blah-de-blah like the hardcore libertarians want, but he'd get the government to shrink SOME (or at least quit growing the way it is).

Re:yup

[Anonymous Coward]

In case any of you are wondering, this is exactly the reason why a lot of us detest libertarianism, and refuse to vote for Ron Paul not because they think he can't win but because they think he would ruin this country.

We would have let a house burn down. You send attack drones to kill women and children in Afghanistan. Oh I understand, this was an American house, so it's a tragedy, killing Afghanis is just a necessary part of bringing hope and change, or spreading democracy, or something.

 
"I would rather be exposed to the inconvenience attending too much Liberty than those attending too small degree of it." Thomas Jefferson

Most libertarians don't believe in utopia. All political systems will have imperfections.

Re:yup

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of you want services without paying for them, and would prefer to use violence to force others to pay for you. The alternative is to go without, as in this example.

Re:yup

[Anonymous Coward]

In case any of you are wondering, this is exactly the reason why a lot of us detest libertarianism, and refuse to vote for Ron Paul not because they think he can't win but because they think he would ruin this country.

OK, you do realize this was a failure of statism, correct? This was a government-run fire department, not a private one. A private one would have put the fire out because they could have profited by transacting with the owner. In addition, a private department would have put out the fire because they wouldn't want to upset their customer base and ruin their reputation.

Re:yup

[amiga3D]

I know a lot of you feel that it's everyone's responsibility to care for the deadbeats of the world. A lot of us are tired of paying for other people. This guy figured he wouldn't pay and the firemen would have to come help him anyway. I feel no pity for him.

Re:yup

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt you'll find many libertarians who think that fire, ambulance, and police services shouldn't be paid for by taxes. Now, if you're talking raving fanatic libertarians, maybe, but once you add the "raving fanatic" to anybody, sense has left the building.

Re:yup

[Wilson of Waste]

This is a local issue. Most of what you pay in federal tax actually does not pay any of the regular government shit you think of. Federal government doesn't pay for your fire, it doesn't pay for your police, and it doesn't pay for local facilities of any sort in the USA. I believe the federal government should practice it's right to tax imports/exports, regulate interstate trade, and insure that states can not take away the rights of their citizens as presented in the constitution. Ron Paul being president would not change your cities fire and police services...

Re:yup

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to how well the current leader is doing...

Re:yup

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you were wondering, this is why many libertarians detest folks like you, who cannot tell the difference between anarchists and libertarians.

just plainly wrong

[hypergreatthing]

Volunteer fire department not doing their jobs because someone didn't pay for their booze bill. He should sue every single one of them for negligence. Not only that, but this "fee" they were trying to get probably isn't widely known as something you need to pay to get service.

Re:just plainly wrong

[Sprouticus]

Does this mean you dont mind paying the entire fire department tax bill for your city? Because if you allow people to not pay for the service, yet use it when needed, that is what you will get. No one will pay for the service, and everyone will use it.

This guy got what he deserved.

I do think it would have been nice to offer him a one time service for say $10k though.

Re:just plainly wrong

[hypergreatthing]

Does this mean you dont mind paying the entire fire department tax bill for your city? Because if you allow people to not pay for the service, yet use it when needed, that is what you will get. No one will pay for the service, and everyone will use it.

This guy got what he deserved.

I do think it would have been nice to offer him a one time service for say $10k though.

Emergency services are not optional. If your municipality doesn't have them, then you know for sure you can't call fire/police to help you when you need it. If a fire department is starting a racket to service an area outside their jurisdiction that is a problem. They shouldn't be allowed to offer optional service to a select few who pay their fee. You pay them indirectly through something called taxes. That's how the system works. The fact that they were out there watching it burn makes it worse. That would be akin to calling police when you get into a car accident when your on vacation and having no response from the police because your not a local who pays their fees.

Re:just plainly wrong

[silanea]

You may want to read the full article, not just the somewhat misleading summary. The place where the family lives does not have a fire dept. A nearby city offers a fire service for $75 pa. The guy did not pay, his house burned down, the fire dept. responded but did not put down the fire in his house. And rightly so. The only misdoing on their part that I can see is that they let animals die. That should indeed be brought before a court - not for the house owner's sake but for the animals'.

You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. Either you pay for public services - through taxes or through a voluntary insurance scheme - or you do not get them.

Re:just plainly wrong

[weiserfireman]

This fee was widely known. The homeowner received a bill in July and a follow-up call informing him of the consequences of non-payment.

It isn't the Job of the Fire Fighters of South Fulton to protect people outside of their community. Their Job is protect their town. They offered to extend fire protection to people who didn't have a fire department of their own for a modest fee. This homeowner lived someplace that does not have a fire department and intentional made the decision to not contract to get it.

Re:just plainly wrong

[alta]

Do more research before commenting. This was the nearest city's fire department. That city was extending their service to people out of their jurisdiction, but only for those who paid. They could have opted not to extend it to anyone, and not even respond to the call. And as for the $, no economy can survive by giving benefits to everyone in existence that doesn't pay. See the U.S. economy right now? It's not very healthy. Way too many entitlements (and a war or 2 doesn't help either)

Re:just plainly wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never actually called the police for a car accident have you?

911: 911, what is your emergency?

You: I've been in a car accident!

911: Is anyone injured?

You: No.

911: Okay, sir. Don't forget to exchange insurance information and file an accident report with the DMV. Have a nice day! *click*

Re:just plainly wrong

[TheRaven64]

Volunteer fire department not doing their jobs

There's some inconsistency in this, I just can't quite put my finger on it...

Re:just plainly wrong

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

Animals are property. Just like if someone stole your dog, and you take them to court, the judge can only award you the value of the dog, and not the dog itself

Re:just plainly wrong

[anegg]

Its not a volunteer fire department. It was a fire department from a different governmental jurisdiction. The guy chose to live in a jurisdiction that had chosen not to have a government-funded fire department. He had the ability to purchase (for $75/year) fire coverage from the other jurisdiction. He chose not to. He can't sue anyone for negligence. The only person who was negligent was him. Extremely negligent. There are some parts of the country/world where you could easily die by being as negligent as this guy was. Lucky for him, he doesn't live in one of those areas.

In these areas, it is extremely well-known that you don't have fire coverage if you don't pay for it. I'm not sure how he was able to get homeowner's insurance without showing that he had paid for the fire coverage.

Re:just plainly wrong

[silanea]

At least here in Germany animals are not just property. Firefighters and other emergency services are under obligation to save animals if possible. I am not judging whether the animals could have been reasonably rescued under the circumstances, but I would want a court to look into the matter.

Sue them blind

[spywhere]

I hope this guy sues everyone and everything that moves. Any decent lawyer would take this case on contingency.

Re:Sue them blind

[rcuhljr]

Any decent lawyer wouldn't be stupid enough to take this case. You choose not to pay for a service, you don't receive the service, enough said. There's no incentive to join into a risk/insurance prevent program if you can just wait until you need the service then try to pay the one time fee. The industry would collapse if it was designed that shoddily as tens of other posters in this thread have already explained more clearly then I.

Re:Sue them blind

[anegg]

No lawyer will take it, because there isn't any basis for a case. I can understand why people who have never lived in an area without certain governmental services can be surprised by them being optional, but in the area where this happened, it is well known that if you don't pay for the fire service, you don't have the fire service. I lived in an area like this (in Tennessee). It wasn't a mysterious circumstance, it wasn't a surprise to him or anyone else. He had a choice to make, and he chose poorly.

service payment

[roman_mir]

"Anybody that's not inside the city limits of South Fulton, it's a service we offer. Either they accept it or they don't," said South Fulton Mayor David Crocker.

- sounds like they are not paying taxes then, so they must buy the service. If they don't pay for the service, it's not provided.

Nothing to see here.

The roof,

[craash420]

the roof, the roof is on fire.

Re:The roof,

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need no water

Re:The roof,

[Wilson of Waste]

He didn't pay his fees and they let the mutha-F*er burn. Burn mutha-F*er, BURN!

I wonder if they have ever read this...

[LWATCDR]

Yea I know bible stuff doesn't go over well here but I do wonder if this will be what is taught in the churches of that county this Sunday.
Just wondering if how many will people will like being goats?

  "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

  "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

  "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

  "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

  "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

Re:I wonder if they have ever read this...

[alta]

And I can assure you that had anyone been in the home they would have gotten them out. But this was a house, a physical asset of value, which Jesus has no love for. Jesus would NOT ask a fireman to risk his life to save the property of others. It now lies on the community to invite them in, cloth them and feed them.

Your passage is not analogous.

Human Life > Property

Re:I wonder if they have ever read this...

[LWATCDR]

Wow is all I can say.
Really not helping out someone that will lose everything they own two a fire including letting their pets die?
Wow you have a very different version of charity than I do.
Of course I love that this is getting modded down.
The extreme right will do it because.
He should take responsibility for his actions.
and the extreme left because I dare to use a biblical text.

Re:I wonder if they have ever read this...

[anegg]

Those who might be in church listening to such a sermon fervently believe that if you fail to ask the Son of God to save you, that you won't be saved. You will burn in hell for eternity. Just because you didn't ask to be saved.

How such a belief is reconciled with the message you quote above is an exercise for the reader.

When you think about it in that light, its no wonder that the people in that area don't see a problem with a house burning to the ground because the homeowner specifically chose not to pay his $75/year for fire protection services.

What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rape

[Joe The Dragon]

What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay the cops will just stand there as you get raped as you did not pay the fee?

fireman and cops should be payed for with taxes!

also will the fireman pass up a burning car as they don't know if the people in the car payed?

This what the republic want for health care but with health care buying on your own can cost $1000+ month with a big list of stuff not coved and if you are sick then it can be hard to get it at all. Some job only have that min med that cost about $700+ year + copays with $2000 MAX YEAR PAY OUT AND that is joke care.

A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

There's a lot of libertarians here on Slashdot. Well, this is what a libertarian utopia looks like, kids. If this strikes you as unjust and cruel, you'd probably better stop listening to Glen Beck on the teevee, and start voting for candidates who believe that government is a useful thing.

(If, on the other hand, you're happy with the outcome of this story, that's cool, you're not a hypocrite, and, we can agree to disagree.)

As for "why not put out the fire and then bill him", the $75 fee is not to put out the fire, it's to keep the fire department running when there *isn't* a fire. You can no more pay the bill after you need the service than you can wait until after you get cancer to start paying for medical insurance. The system can't work that way.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not at all a Libertarian utopia. In a Libertarian Utopia, there are multiple competing private firms that will compete to provide a service. In this case, the firefighters (a state controlled monopoly) stood by and did nothing even as the owner pleaded to "pay any price" to acquire their help.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Rhaban]

Maybe they could have billed him the full price of getting the fire department running since the previous fire.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of libertarians here on Slashdot. Well, this is what a libertarian utopia looks like, kids. If this strikes you as unjust and cruel, you'd probably better stop listening to Glen Beck on the teevee, and start voting for candidates who believe that government is a useful thing.

(If, on the other hand, you're happy with the outcome of this story, that's cool, you're not a hypocrite, and, we can agree to disagree.)

As for "why not put out the fire and then bill him", the $75 fee is not to put out the fire, it's to keep the fire department running when there *isn't* a fire. You can no more pay the bill after you need the service than you can wait until after you get cancer to start paying for medical insurance. The system can't work that way.

Then replace the system.

Re:A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

Remember, they're not *his* firefighters, they're from the next town over. His nonexistent local government has no fire service: I bet it would have no objection if you wanted to buy yourself a tanker truck and set up your own private fire company.

But nobody does this, because fire protection is an absolutely shitty way to make a living in the 21st century. There's no profit in it unless you run around setting fires yourself.

Unprofitable but indispensable social services: this is what government is good at.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anyone would argue that he needs to pay alot more than the $75 fee at this point. How about we put out all fires we are called to but if you haven't payed the fee then you get the whole bill for putting out the fire. That could reach into the thousands of dollars but you have your home, pets and belongings. Small price to pay I would say. If the money is not forthcoming then you put a lean on the home and up the cost again until payment is made.

Having those firemen there, watching and doing nothing is about one of the most unchristian things I have heard in a long time. Now that is bad coming from an atheist.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how a government run fire department failing to put out a fire looks like a libertarian utopia.

Re:A Libertarian World

[thegwo]

You can no more pay the bill after you need the service than you can wait until after you get cancer to start paying for medical insurance.

Yes, but you can still get treatment, given that you pay the full cost out of your own pocket. Imagine a world where you were literally unable, no matter the cost, to get medical care without insurance. That's how it would work if Obion County, Tennessee ran the health care system. They refused to put out the fire even when the homeowner offered to pay whatever the cost. That's not how insurance works. If you want to think of the $75 as insurance, then make the homeowner pay the full deployment costs if they don't pay it. Or charge a penalty fee, or something, anything but just standing there.

Re:A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

And if he doesn't pay? They can't amend his property taxes or put a lien on the house: he doesn't live in the fire department's municipality. Their only option would be to sue him, which would help nobody but the lawyers involved.

Or I guess they could go back and restart the fire...

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try liberal troll. This isn't libertarianism. This is crony liberalism at its finest.

In a libertarian country, if you don't buy insurance, you still have the option of paying for the full cost of the service at the time of need. For example, you can go without health insurance and if you get sick, pay for surgery with cash.

In this case, the local government ordered the firefighters NOT to put the fire out, even though the homeowner offered to pay the full cost of the firefighting service (not just the $75).

This is classic liberalism/"get-even-with-them"ism/"I'll show you who's the ruling class"ism.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying when the house is burning and getting the service is exactly like the future of healthcare (ObamaCare) in America. Guaranteed issue and Community rating means insurance can't deny coverage and can't charge one person more than another. Get cancer and THEN get insurance. Why not?

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that in the Libertarian utopia the fee is not always extracted by force. You choose to protect your stuff or not. As government becomes more liberal, government makes you pay for an increasing array of some politician's pet-projects whether it does you an iota of good or not.

Besides, this is a local issue regarding a rural area. There are always disadvantages to moving away from where the services are.

Re:A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

That's how it would work if Obion County, Tennessee ran the health care system. They refused to put out the fire

Wrong "they". The fire department belongs to the city of South Fulton, and is supported by taxpayers there. Obion County has no fire department: their elected county commission decided against establishing one back in 2008.

(Yeah, sorry for citing Mother Jones, I couldn't find a centrist site with the full details.)

In any case, I highly doubt the dude was actually waving thousands of dollars of cash in the firemens' faces. More likely he *promised* to pay. Given the dude's previous track record in paying for fire services, would you take an IOU from him?

Re:A Libertarian World

[quintessencesluglord]

Gosh, if we only had the same consideration for corporations who skip out on taxes. Would you support cutting them off from government services? Answer truthfully now.

No kids, this is an example of the tragedy of the commons looks like. You know, everyone pays in to get fire service, except some folks decide they can free ride something as basic as fire service and got burned.

So don't be putting a decision by a government entity in same class as private fire service. This is not a libertarian paradise, this is the dystopia libertarians complain about.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

As for "why not put out the fire and then bill him", ... You can no more pay the bill after you need the service than you can wait until after you get cancer to start paying for medical insurance. The system can't work that way.

That's funny. That's exactly how my local ambulance works. Pay their yearly membership fee and your trip to the hospital is free. Don't pay, and you still get a ride, but also a bill, a bill much larger than the yearly fee.

Re:A Libertarian World

[hibiki_r]

it can't if the fee for 'on the spot' payment is very low, but it could if the fee was high enough to keep the department running between fires. If the fire department takes 20K to run every month, and there's on average one fire a month, a non-subscription fee of 20K for putting out a fire without subscription would allow the fire department to run with a minimum initial investment, either by a private party or the government.

The problem here is that there was no procedure whatsoever to deal with a non-payer whose house can be saved. A form contract in the fire truck that the owner can sign to accept some kind of lien on the property to pay for the fire extinguishing costs plus a penalty would have saved the house, taught the homeowner a lesson and made the fire department richer.

Re:A Libertarian World

[thegwo]

I highly doubt the dude was actually waving thousands of dollars of cash in the firemens' faces. More likely he *promised* to pay.

My response would be that that's how lots of things work in life. If you go to the hospital (especially for emergency situations), you don't pay up front. They bill you afterward. I suppose that's something like promising to pay. Heck, even going to a restaurant you "promise to pay" after receiving your meal.

My point is, not everything in the world can or does work in the "cash up front" system. Yes, he might not be able/willing to pay the bill, but there are recourses. Put a lien on his property, get the county to levy a fee (this is the government, after all). When you have an emergency situation that presents a public safety risk, action must be taken.

Re:A Libertarian World

[fahlesr1]

You know, it doesn't have to be purely one way or the other. Essential services such as fire and police protection make sense to run as socialist services. Doesn't mean social security should be mandatory, or that the government should spend public money to bail out private companies. Purely capitalistic and purely socialistic societies are both damaging to people's rights and to economic freedom. The trick is to find some balance.

Personally I'd like to see the option to opt out of social security, they can even take half of what I pay into it now and give me no benefits. I could still come out ahead investing in low risk mutual funds.

Re:A Libertarian World

[rfolkker]

There's a lot of libertarians here on Slashdot. Well, this is what a libertarian utopia looks like, kids. If this strikes you as unjust and cruel, you'd probably better stop listening to Glen Beck on the teevee, and start voting for candidates who believe that government is a useful thing.

(If, on the other hand, you're happy with the outcome of this story, that's cool, you're not a hypocrite, and, we can agree to disagree.)

As for "why not put out the fire and then bill him", the $75 fee is not to put out the fire, it's to keep the fire department running when there *isn't* a fire. You can no more pay the bill after you need the service than you can wait until after you get cancer to start paying for medical insurance. The system can't work that way.

Hmm, that's an interesting theory. I should try and take that to the grocery store the next time I go... I wonder if they will not accept my money when I pick out my groceries, because I didn't pay them ahead of time...

Yes, there is a cost associated with putting the fire out. Ideally the fire dept could determine their cost in man-hours and supplies, and bill the family for it... Of course the current situation implies that the family wouldn't pay...

Either way, I only feel bad for the animals in this. The family obviously could afford the 75 dollars, and basic logic implies that one should pay for necessities first, security second, and luxury last, while saving for the future. It would be an easy assumption that this family passed up on #2, so now they need to replace #1. There is a price for everything, and this is no exception.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were making the calls, I would have billed the guy the cost of putting out the fire. Probably around $2-3K. His homeowner's insurance would have gladly covered that. Then I'd bill him $75/year. He sure as hell is going to start paying for that.

Sometimes things the gubbermint does are actually for the public good. And I think Libertarians understand this at the wrong level. They always make an exception for military protection, probably because they see no free-market solution.

Re:A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

corporations who skip out on taxes. Would you support cutting them off from government services? Answer truthfully now.
Yes. What are you getting at?

No kids, this is an example of the tragedy of the commons looks like.
The tragedy of the commons is *exactly* my problem with libertarianism. Solving commons problems is what government is (ideally) all about.

So don't be putting a decision by a government entity in same class as private fire service.
The government entity is *not* his government, but the next town over. In this, they're providing a subscription-fee based service, with no special authority, jurisdiction, or legal privilege -- in effect, outside of their town of South Fulton they *are* a private fire company. Their decision here -- should they offer this guy service on credit? -- was exactly the sort of business decision a private company would make.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't compare libertarians to Glen Beck. It makes libertarians feel icky and makes you look uninformed.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it _can_ work that way... but not for $75. Where I'm from our rural fire system works this way: The city fire departments will respond to a rural fire, then they will bill you the cost. It can be pretty pricey, but your homeowner's insurance usually covers it. I guess in TN they would rather collect small fees instead of billing "on-demand", but it can work either way.

Re:A Libertarian World

[darjen]

This has nothing to do with libertarianism. It wasn't some free market fire department. It was government operated. This is such a basic concept I don't even know why it has caused such an uproar. In reality it's another failure of government. Suck it, progressives. And suck the conservatives who are defending these government firemen standing by and not doing anything.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Bill Wong]

IANAL, but there's no way that contract would be considered valid, if it went to court. Signed "under duress".

Re:A Libertarian World

[juan2074]

In a libertarian world, perhaps houses would be built in such a way that firefighters were not even necessary.

Even in Germany (with its many aspects of Socialism), house fires are a rarity.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it can, you just get presented with a bigger bill, or as some organizations do, require you to sign a support contract for x years. The problem here is not capitalism, but that the fire fighters don't seem to understand that it is good business sense to let them sign a support contract before they go put a fire out on an previous non-contractor.

Re:A Libertarian World

[madsenj37]

Actually, in a Libertarian world, the fire department would have most likely accepted payment in the range of thousands of dollars, preferably in cash or precious metals such as gold and silver. Although this scenario is plausible in a Libertarian world, it is more of a bureaucratic ideal. Most Libertarians would want repeat business and to prosper financially, while bureaucrats want to avoid freeloaders and liabilities.

Re:A Libertarian World

[sydneyfong]

Then why do you think Doctors are paid for medical expenses for treatment of cancer (suppose not covered by insurance)?

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, don't want the fire department able to sign contracts to pay on the spot when a fire breaks out. The minute that sort of thing is allowed, we will start seeing unscrupulous fire departments going around starting fires to "Drum up business". Heck, slow fire day? Let's so set some of those posh houses on fire. Suzy needs braces? No problemo, let's go set the local 7-11 on fire... that should be a cool $7k.

Re:A Libertarian World

[jandrese]

They tried that for awhile with a $500 fee. Turns out that the bums who didn't pay the $75 fee also won't pay the $500 fee, and the fire department was having to turn most of them over to collectors and still getting almost nothing out of it.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

Payment at the point/time of service won't work either. Think about it. Lets say the fire department shows up and has no income coverage to fight the fire. Here's your options:

1. Placing a lien on a property with basically zero value, with a mortgage that isn't paid for, and is now well in the red on equity. You can't collect on that, which means you won't get paid for your services.
2. Agreeing to pay later for fire service today? That puts the fire department in bill collector mode, which leads to #1, which we've already established won't work. If the guy wouldn't pay $75/year for fire service, what do you think the chances of him paying 20 grand after the fact will be? Hint: A percentage less than zero.
3. Pay in advance. Sure, because everyone keeps 20 large in their mattress. Too bad it's on fire.

The guy still (hopefully) had homeowners' insurance, which will cover the cost to rebuild. But, if he thumbed his nose at his homeowners' policy as well, can you predict the foreclosure? I know I can. Ever wondered why the economy is in the toilet?

Personally, I can see both sides of the coin. If it were optional, I don't think it's unreasonable to not provide service to those who explicitly decline to support the program. Where I live, we have a volunteer fire department. Right on our water bills is a box we can check to voluntarily donate a single dollar per month to the department. I honestly wonder how many people pitch in that measly hundred pennies.

The funny part of this, is the comparison to ObamaCare. ObamaCare sets people up with the option to more or less pay after they get sick, which is obviously crippling to low insurance costs. I understand the desire to get people covered, and I fully believe certain bits of our insurance system are a bit screwed up, but giving it all away for basically free isn't the way to go. For instance, I could not pay, well in advance of my wife getting pregnant and despite being personally covered for many years prior, for a policy to cover the birth. But, since we just got married, I could instead transfer to my employer's group plan and be covered immediately and without issue. That just seems silly to me. With ObamaCare, I could drop my coverage entirely, wait until she's pregnant, and then pick up coverage on the way to the hospital. That is just stupid.

What's worse, is how illegals use the ER as their primary care center. Anchor baby has the sniffles? ER. Pedro gets a tummy ache? ER. This is NOT what the emergency room is for, and in my opinion the ER team should have the LEGAL right to turn them away for anything not immediately and obviously life threatening. The social programs are what is crippling this nation. California can't dig themselves out of the shithole they've created for themselves, because they're too stupid to cut back the social programs. These programs help such a tiny fraction of honest people - the masses are freeloaders jumping on the gravy train. Why take care of yourself when America has so much to offer? Hell, many even feel entitled to it now, there's no better proof our social programs have simply gone too far and grown out of control.

Re:A Libertarian World

[xavi62028]

This is a government run fire protection service, not the libertarian privately run one. The big difference is the incentive or lack of incentive of the public service to respond. A private company could surely respond, then stick the homeowner for a large bill. You can certainly pay the full bill for this type of service. Maybe not right away, but over a year it could easily be done. Healthcare can likewise be paid out of pocket. The purpose of insurance is for situations where a person could not financially handle a sudden large liability. Like cancer. Not like fire protection services.

Re:A Libertarian World

[xavi62028]

Or because governments don't have to make a profit doing it, making it very hard for private companies to compete and stay afloat.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Bill Wong]

Again, IANAL, but, from wiki:

A contract is voidable if the innocent party can prove that it had no other practical choice (as opposed to legal choice) but to agree to the contract.

In the above hypothetical scenario of someone who's house is burning down, there is no pratical choice but to accept whatever demands the fire department makes. Someone could always find another doctor.

Re:A Libertarian World

[LinuxAndLube]

Why would this be a municipal thing? This is about business and people not paying their bills (for the delivered service). So, they could take his house from him, not in the least because it *would still be there.*

Re:A Libertarian World

[sjames]

Not at all. The firefighters in question are from a neighboring state. There IS no fire department in that county at all, anywhere. Somehow, the invisible hand didn't cause two or more competing fire departments to spring up to take care of it. Perhaps there just isn't enough magic in the market to beat the $75/month offering from the evil inefficient government monopoly firefighters from the neighboring state.

Re:A Libertarian World

[WindBourne]

You are correct that this is not Libertarian. In a Libertarian world, we would have multiple companies providing the service.

HOWEVER, this is also not liberalism. Liberals would have had a taxing district in place.

What this is, is teabaggers/neo-cons/republicans ism in place. This is THEIR idea of utopia. Basically, they want gov. ran monopolies where they can tell others what they will or will not do for a price. Heck, all of the gov in the county and the city are hard core republican/tea-baggers/neo-cons.

Re:A Libertarian World

[WindBourne]

Sure, but many of those are going under. And in the situation that you described, I will lay money down that it was state ordered. Basically, no EMS can withold life-saving services for lack of money. HOWEVER, there were no human lives threatened. Just ppl that did not want to pay the tax and then got bit by their own lack of foresight.

Re:A Libertarian World

[dcw3]

Please link to any national level Libertarian site that indicates we should do away with essential public services. And, I'm no fan of Beck's, but I have listened to him, and highly doubt that he'd be in favor of that either...but if you can't find a quote, I'll openly eat my words here.

Re:A Libertarian World

[weiserfireman]

Remember, they're not *his* firefighters, they're from the next town over. His nonexistent local government has no fire service: I bet it would have no objection if you wanted to buy yourself a tanker truck and set up your own private fire company.

But nobody does this, because fire protection is an absolutely shitty way to make a living in the 21st century. There's no profit in it unless you run around setting fires yourself.

Unprofitable but indispensable social services: this is what government is good at.

Actually, this isn't quite true. There are numerous private companies that fight fire for a living. They are primarily in the Wildland Fire world though. Most of the airplanes and helicopters you see are privately owned on contract to the Federal Government. Lots of brush trucks, water tenders, caterers, shower and laundry facilities, EMTs, etc.

My fire department gets contracted for wildland structure protection sometimes. I made $700 in 3 days this year. Most years the department gets between $10,000 and $35,000. In 2007, we netted over $100,000. But, we don't put ourselves out for National dispatch either. Some departments do.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's no profit in it unless you run around setting fires yourself."

Huh.

I'd always wondered what "???" stood for...

Re:A Libertarian World

[sourcerror]

Please, what law prohibits private firefighting service? Then, how is it a monopoly?

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's no profit in it unless you run around setting fires yourself."

someday, hopefully, you'll wake up and accept that model as being the foundation of our industrial-military complex.
It's the Amerikan Way (TM).

Re:A Libertarian World

[WhoseSideAreWeOn]

Well, this is what a libertarian utopia looks like, kids.

I think you're confusing libertarians with anarchists. Sure, they are at the same end of the political spectrum but libertarians believe in limited government not no government. Most libertarians would agree that one of the few areas that government should be involved in is protection. That includes such programs as police, fire & military.

As for "why not put out the fire and then bill him", the $75 fee is not to put out the fire, it's to keep the fire department running when there *isn't* a fire. You can no more pay the bill after you need the service than you can wait until after you get cancer to start paying for medical insurance. The system can't work that way.

That's a flawed argument. As many others have suggested, you would not bill him the insurance premium ($75) but rather the cost of service (whatever that may be) which would include the cost or having the firefighters be on-call.
While I agree that you can't expect to get medical insurance after you get cancer, you can still get medical treatment if you are willing to pay for it yourself.

Re:A Libertarian World

[shutdown -p now]

If, on the other hand, you're happy with the outcome of this story, that's cool, you're not a hypocrite

Yeah, you're not - you're just a sociopathic asshole then. We can, of course, agree to disagree on that as well.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all indispensable social services are unprofitable...

Look at health care, the American health insurance system is the best in the world bar none, and its VERY profitable!

amirite?

Re:A Libertarian World

[Steve Hamlin]

"form contract in firetruck" - result: contract is void due to being signed under duress. Won't work.

Re:A Libertarian World

[khallow]

If this strikes you as unjust and cruel

Why should it strike me as unjust and cruel? This guy lives in an area where you have to pay for firefighting services. He chose not to. If nothing bad had happened to him, he'd be ahead $75 per year. It certainly looks just to me. As to the accusation of cruelty, the family won't remain homeless forever and they have a lot of family to support them. So it doesn't strike me as a cruel decision either.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing unjust and cruel about this.
The man should have installed his own fire-suppression system.
A redneck one could be made out of pop-up sprinklers a well pump and a heat detector
He is out in the sticks anyhow, there is no reliable way he could count on fire service.
People in the sticks often have guns as well, there is no cop on every corner there

Re:A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

Please say hi to the poster below you.

Re:A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

Please say hi to the poster above you.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, Pay-Per-Incident is not even an option there. It's illegal in TN for Fire Departments or Police to charge for emergency services after the fact.

Re:A Libertarian World

[khallow]

You mean the guy who wants to put liens on burning houses? I'm willing to go with that. Apparently, according to a replier, it's illegal to do in Tennessee. But otherwise that would be an adequate solution to the problem.

Re:A Libertarian World

[daveime]

So he STILL doesn't pay ... everyone else who dutifully paid into the Homeowners Insurance ends up footing the bill. What's the betting this asshole didn't pay his dues to the homeowners association either ?

Re:A Libertarian World

[goodmanj]

No, the guy who said that anyone who thinks this outcome is fair is a "sociopathic asshole."

I'm not standing behind what he says, I'm just pointing out that your "obvious" conclusion isn't so obvious to some people. I pointed out your post to him too, with exactly the same goal.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Eunuchswear]

No.

The American health system is a middling, high second rank system.

The American health insurance system is one of the worst there is in money spent for results.

It is very profitable however.

Re:A Libertarian World

[khallow]

Oh, it's "let's you and him fight". Don't see that much on Slashdot. If he gave a reason for his opinion, I might consider debating it. But the "You're a Mr. Poopypants for not agreeing with me" argument doesn't leave me much to work with.

Just to repeat my view in a different way, a consequence of a free society is that occasionally bad things happen to people because of bad choices they make. If we attempt to negate the consequences of these bad decisions, then we also tend negate the choice in the first place. Paying $75 a year for fire fighting services does sound like a great bargain to me, but I could see a situation where my real estate is so cheap (say I'm living in a small cabin and there's only a few hundred dollars worth of stuff to burn) that it simply isn't worth my while to get fire fighting coverage.

Re:A Libertarian World

[sydneyfong]

If you bothered to quote it, you might as well quote the "elements" required to establish economic duress too. (By the way, they are all requirements, merely one doesn't suffice)

A fire department demanding a huge sum before putting out the fire *might* suffice for #1 "Wrongful or improper threat", depending on jurisdiction and the general position of the courts/judges. But definitely wouldn't suffice for #4 "The other party caused the financial distress".

It's been a while since I've studied contracts, but my faint memory of what is needed to establish economic duress is along the lines of what is written in the wikipedia article. One additional observation is that economic duress is pretty hard to establish (at least in the laws of jurisdictions i'm familiar with), given the traditional common law doctrine of "freedom of contract", and a general reluctance to make the courts a place to redeem bad deals.

By the way, I wonder whether a house burning down can be a bit more than merely economic duress, but I wouldn't want to drill into there.

IANAL.

Re:A Libertarian World

[Anonymous Coward]

I can guarantee you that the contract would be thrown out because he signed it under duress. Also, there is no likelihood that he has the funds to pay the cost, thus causing additional costs to the fire department trying to collect on his debt. That's not what fire departments do or should need to do. I can also guarantee you that it just about killed those firefighters to watch that house burn, but if they intervened without authorization and got hurt, they would be on their own.
He got what his community, and he, signed up for. This is why I hate headline reporting. Most services are rabble-rousers and don't want to tell you that the community has voted down tax-funded fire services for twenty years.

This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[pnuema]

Your political philosophy does not work. At one time, all fire departments operated under these terms; there were no municipally supported fire companies. You know what the number one cause of fires was during those times? Fire departments. Give me some good old fashioned socialism any day. Libertarian philosophy - or as I like to call it, "Fuck you, I've got mine", has already been tried. We rejected feudalism hundreds of years ago. Why go backwards?

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

Being one of the 'Fuck you, I've got mine' mind set let me point out that socialism - or as I like to call it, 'fuck you, I know what is best for you', has already been tried as well. It doesn't work either and it makes people dependent on the government for everything. We rejected feudalism hundreds of years ago. Why go back?

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Robin47]

. We rejected feudalism hundreds of years ago. Why go backwards?

Well... feudalism being a form of oligarchy, I think rejecting libertarianism (which, last time I checked, rejects oligarchies) would actually be going backwards. Your argument makes no sense.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorant shortsighteded bullshit libertarianism: a brilliant improvement over ignorant shortsighted bullshit socialism.

The best countries in the world take elements from many ideologies. That's because they're all shit individually. Wake the fuck up.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Dexter Herbivore]

Oh gods, for some mod points right now... I'd mod you so HARD, baby,

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[SirWhoopass]

Your argument is overly-simplistic. First off, if someone is a libertarian and is happy with this situation then they are not "morally bankrupt" at all. You assume that just because you don't like the outcome tat no one does either. A number of posters have already said they are fine with what happened.

The bigger flaw, however, is that you automatically assume libertarian as an absolute philosophy. By that reasoning, your desire for socialism must mean that you are in favor of a government seizure of businesses, houses, property, and everything else. Few people are so obtuse.

Most "libertarians" (including much of the "Tea Party" movement) are perfectly fine with some level of government services. Perhaps they do not like some current programs. Or proposed programs. They often take the label as an effort to distinguish themselves from conservatives and the Republican Party. While the GOP has fancied itself a "small government" party, it really is not in any practical sense. And often seems more concerned with social agendas (media censorship, abortion, homosexual rights) with which these libertarians are not interested in.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with your sentiment, feudalism != libertarianism. It's always sad when someone undermines their argument by saying something batshit insane.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[metamechanical]

Please, for the love of math, stop this.

I'm not going to pull a no-true-Scotsman and say that there aren't people like you described that bill themselves as Libertarian, but at the same time most of us don't fit your mold, so please stop accusing us. It's as empty as if someone slandered socialists, claiming that they would starve to death without the government to hold their spoon. It's disingenuous and insulting, and does nothing to open up productive discourse, but does a lot to prevent it.

Libertarians are in favor of individualism and individual responsibility. Only the most shortsighted and foolish people are in favor of letting a stranger's life be destroyed because they made a hardheaded decision.

The Libertarian response to this is to wonder why they were letting their grandson recklessly burn garbage.

The Libertarian response to this is to expect people to be responsible enough to pay their fire department fees.

The Libertarian response to this is to expect the firefighters to prevent externalities by putting the fire out, and sending the fools who caused it the bill.

It is NOT the Libertarian response to this to herald it as a victory of the free market, or some such nonsense.

If someone in earnest represents Libertarian philosophy to you as "fuck you, I've got mine," that person probably has an ulterior motive, and is using the word Libertarian to mask their true intent. Some of us might take it pretty far, but at it's core, Libertarianism derives its logic from the Non-Aggression Principle. I think a quick reading would find that it takes a twisted interpretation to come to the conclusion that Libertarians encourage the destitution of people that make simple mistakes.

TL;DR: Please, can't we just be rational about these things, instead of just flatly slandering each other?

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

  And this is why this country is financially bankrupt and quickly heading toward insolvency.

  They didn't stand by and watch someone die. They didn't fail to provide medical services to the injured. They simply refused to provide a service he failed to pay for. A service to save his personal property.

  This fucktard failed in his responsibility to his family. Why the fuck should everyone else be required to take care of this, quite capable. freeloader?

  People like you need to work harder and pay more taxes so freeloaders like this dipshit can be lazy and safe.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[PhinMak]

You know what the number one cause of fires was during those times? Fire departments.

[Citation needed]

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of hating going on about libertarians today.

Not all libertarians believe in anarchy. I would say most believe in a minimal, but necessary, government. In either case, he exercised his rights twice: to not vote for the taxes that would provide the service he wanted and to not pay for the service privately. Libertarian, republican or otherwise; he screwed himself over.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[pnuema]

I respect your reasoned tone. I apologize for my slander. We've been getting a whole lot of it from people calling liberals socialists, some of whom happen to be named after your heroes.

However, I do not respect your beliefs. I'm sorry. I find them to be completely divorced from reality. You maintain that "any initiation of force is illicit and contrary to natural law". I maintain that the application of force is how the world turns. All life attempts to benefit at the expense of other life through the application of force. It is LITERALLY part of our DNA. To want to live in a world like that is understandable; it is a Utopian ideal. But it ignores the fact that all of biology is working against you. Libertarianism is a lot like Communism - great on paper. Too bad they both ignore human nature.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what the number one cause of fires was during those times? Fire departments.

[Citation Needed]

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[pnuema]

They didn't stand by and watch someone die. They didn't fail to provide medical services to the injured. They simply refused to provide a service he failed to pay for. A service to save his personal property. This fucktard failed in his responsibility to his family. Why the fuck should everyone else be required to take care of this, quite capable. freeloader?

Responding to the AC...crazy...

I'll tell you exactly why. Because you idiots don't think the consequences through. Now we have a family, who is homeless. If they have insurance that would pay out in this situation, we are all going to pay a little more because of this claim. This family is now going to need somewhere to live. There is a cost to society associated with that - whether it is welfare for this family, lost property taxes, or increased crime if this family turns to stealing to survive. The neighbor's property was damaged; this has a non-zero cost. Plus the fact that they let three animals die. That was nice.

What would have been the cost of putting out the fire? The cost of the water. Maybe some depreciation on equipment. That's it. Now which do you think is cheaper in the long run?

I think the biggest problem that Republicans and Libertarians have is that under progressive policies, somewhere, someone might be getting something for nothing. When are you guys going to figure out that it is often cheaper to do it that way than your way? If we have to let thousands of families suck off the government teat, but have to build half as many prisons, isn't that for the better? It is cheaper to feed people than feed them in prison.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[alexo]

> We rejected feudalism hundreds of years ago.

Did we?

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

What's up with all the libertarian bashing? I'm not a libertarian myself, and I'll gleefully bash them on other issues (such as their tendency to downplay the negative externalities of people's actions, like polluting), but what happened here doesn't discredit libertarianism. This guy lives in an area where people can essentially opt-out of having fire service: if you want to keep your $75 and not have fire service, then you are free to do so. Cranick *chose* to take this gamble, and lost; he's not a victim. If he were too poor to pay the fee, so that declining service wasn't so much a choice as an inevitability, then there would be more subtle moral questions here.

If the people of County X want to not pay taxes for fire service, that's their business. What bothers me is when they want *me* to pay for their fire department, even when they could afford to pay taxes but choose not to. This happens every summer: I'm driving through some town or county whose citizens apparently like low taxes, and I get shaken down for money by firefighters holding out boots (and holding up traffic). If it were a matter of the people of that town simply not having the means, I'd happily chip in; but this is just them (the citizenry, not the individual firefighters) being cheap.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[khallow]

Because you idiots don't think the consequences through. Now we have a family, who is homeless

Maybe, with this life lesson, he'll cough up the $75 next time. You're welcome to give him money so that he doesn't have to take responsibility for his mistakes.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[pnuema]

Or we could have just forced him to pay the 75 in taxes, and saved ourselves a bunch of money. Instead we all get to take responsibility for his mistakes. What about this do you not understand?

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[khallow]

Or we could have just forced him to pay the 75 in taxes, and saved ourselves a bunch of money. Instead we all get to take responsibility for his mistakes. What about this do you not understand?

Well, if we're going to do that, how about we force you to pay me $100,000 while we're at it? It'll by tautology be going to a good cause. And last I checked, I wasn't taking responsibility for this guy. There's nothing to "not understand" here.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[sznupi]

...because it's so easy to think in polarising extremes.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[sznupi]

You know, if one looks at prisons as workcamps...

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

Frei departments - or more precisely the people they consist of - are still a (small?) cause of fires, just because they draw the kind of people who like fires.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[sznupi]

Hm, so you really don't get how ultimatelly you will be covering greater consequences of the lack of responsibility of such "firefighters"...

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[khallow]

Hm, so you really don't get how ultimatelly you will be covering greater consequences of the lack of responsibility of such "firefighters"...

Actually, I do not just how much I'll be "covering". Nothing. Sure maybe this guy will get government funds, but that's a sunk cost, taxes I'd have lost anyway. You can tell me all you want about the costs to me of someone failing hard like this, but I don't have to pay a cent more for the consequences, no matter what you claim in the matter.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[sznupi]

Ah, so getting less out of what you pay is fine, glad you cleared that up.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[khallow]

Ah, so getting less out of what you pay is fine, glad you cleared that up.

Call my bluff. Spend those taxes on something useful so that your argument has a leg to stand on.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[sznupi]

Yes, yes, because they don't contribute at all to the generally quite nice state of the society; allowing its members to "seek opportunities" freely, etc....

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[khallow]

Yes, yes, because they don't contribute at all to the generally quite nice state of the society; allowing its members to "seek opportunities" freely, etc....

Just because government does a small number of things that do the above, doesn't mean that they deserve a blank check. I still don't see a fundamental change in the equation. Most of my taxes are squandered. Whether they're squandered pushing up the cost of medical care, Social Security, buying peanuts, funding some Iraqi contractor, or given to someone who made a dumb move in Tennessee, doesn't matter to me.

You can speak of the noble mission of government, but it remains that most US government money isn't used for maintaining society, but instead for purposes that have nothing to do with stabilizing society.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[daveime]

It did not take long for people to see the rather obvious flaw in paying a group of people by the number of fires they put out. The penny really dropped shortly after Charcoal Tuesday.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[sznupi]

US gov is generally a reflection of its society, don't kid yourself otherwise (from where do you think come people forming federal structures? Where are their relatives and friends? How do values of "ordinary folks" work when its their turn to "squander" a bit?). Its "destabilising" actions being ultimatelly a will of the society; neccessary to, for example, sustain levels of consumptionism. All funds at its disposal go towards maintaining that society.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[khallow]

US gov is generally a reflection of its society, don't kid yourself otherwise (from where do you think come people forming federal structures? Where are their relatives and friends? How do values of "ordinary folks" work when its their turn to "squander" a bit?). Its "destabilising" actions being ultimatelly a will of the society; neccessary to, for example, sustain levels of consumptionism. All funds at its disposal go towards maintaining that society.

If that were true, then you'd indeed have a point. But parasitic government is no more a reflection of society, than a tapeworm is a reflection of the poor sap who hosts it.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[sznupi]

Yes, I know, "it's their fault! We, the People, are noble!" (what movements does that remind me?...)

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[khallow]

Yes, I know, "it's their fault! We, the People, are noble!" (what movements does that remind me?...)

What would you expect a populist movement to reduce government spending to look like?

I find the chain of bullshit rationalizations to be interesting. First, you claim that government glues society together. When that argument fails, you switch to the claim that we get the government we deserve (and that it needs every cent it consumes). After that fails, you start pondering with a condescending tone what mass public movement my talk sounds like.

Here's what's missing: a coherent argument that supports why government needs to provide the services that it provides for the cost. I don't disagree that government performs some useful services. The thing you don't seem to understand is that government does other things than just provide services we need. It also is a powerful tool for rent-seeking, that is, acquiring resources ("economic rent") through political manipulation rather than by providing a valuable service. In other words, government is great for creating economic parasitism. No amount of ranting about government's role in society changes that fact. So we have reason to control government spending precisely because such spending frequently doesn't align with societal or individual interests.

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[sznupi]

And why do you think there was any step at all from one to two?... They are the same thing.

I'd say the burden of proof might be much more on you to show that stable (not the same as "good"!) systems of governance are not some very ingrained parts of a society (most importantly - show what are they the result of, if not societal dynamics?). And by doing that somehow discard, evident everywhere, simple slow rates of changes; with most of notable ones taking at least a generation or two - surely a coincidence, nothing to do with those people... (and FYI, I'm from a place which was put behind the Iron Curtain (raped, so to speak, few times before that particular half a century, too) and I still can say all of the above; the regimes drew virtually exclusively from countrymen, many of their fallings were a clear continuation of certain trends (also from nominally opposing traditions!) or stemming from customs present among "common folks")
You really think it's inconcievable for average members of societies to (using your example) crave, when it comes deep down to it (of course they will claim something different(*)), even somewhat "imaginary" resources?

(*)A stark/sad example was one roommate of mine at uni, from one place which should better remain unnamed - but still quite impoverished and corrupt one. We watched together BBC reports of a major turmoil at his place (due to election fraud, but also general venting IMHO). He was of course outspoken critic of rampant corruption at his place among top officials, which was of course the root of all evil...
But what was he doing? Studying comfortably in a decently well-off place (funds sent by his family at a position of public office), aiming for a useless diploma (while cheating) and with a future position at...a public office guaranteed (where certainly almost everyone wanted to end)
And he was fed up with all the corruption.

Condescending tone was generally at a typical (not any failing in particular at all, we humans are practically programmed to do it) naivety of finding a convenient & visible group to distance oneself from, put on them a lot more blame than they deserve for all the evils of the world, and dreaming how wonderful it would be if only everybody would follow our few simple ideas. It does feel nice...

Re:This is why Libertarians are morally bankrupt

[khallow]

I'd say the burden of proof might be much more on you to show that stable (not the same as "good"!) systems of governance are not some very ingrained parts of a society

Why? We already have examples of societies that for long periods of time didn't have a stable system of governance (Mexico of the 19th Century, for example) and even societies that transitioned from having a stable system of government to an unstable one (Haiti of the 19th Century, Yugoslavia and the USSR of the last century). Just because a society currently has an "ingrained" stable system of governance, doesn't mean that it keeps that system.

My view is that the US is in the process of discarding its "stable system" of governance for one of corruption and cronyism (well, more corruption and cronyism than before) with increasingly divisive ethnic, class-based, and even age-based conflict. A key part of the problem is the government itself which engages in a great deal of non-essential and often counterproductive activities while transitioning from a "nation of laws" to a "nation of men" (that is, where the rule of law is superseded by the whims of politicians). Disbanding and defunding most of the federal government won't fully solve the problems we face, but it's a good destination from now.

Condescending tone was generally at a typical (not any failing in particular at all, we humans are practically programmed to do it) naivety of finding a convenient & visible group to distance oneself from, put on them a lot more blame than they deserve for all the evils of the world, and dreaming how wonderful it would be if only everybody would follow our few simple ideas. It does feel nice...

Once again, someone gives me great advice that they'd do well to follow themselves. Having said that, a few simple ideas are at least testable while a fog of nebulous superstitions are not.

For example, I have no idea what your point of mentioning the Iron Curtain was supposed to be, unless it was to indicate a possible disease vector by which you became infected with your current collection of ideas. I am not impressed just because you came from a place that sucked. To the contrary, I have to wonder, if you bring with you the bad ideas that made that place suck.

As for the "stark/sad example" of someone complaining about corruption in their unnamed country while working to integrate themselves into the system, you describe a pretty standard example of the Prisoners' Dilemma. The members of that society have the choice to cooperate (that is, be honest and comply with the laws of the land, even if they are superficial and commonly observed in the breach) or to defect (crime and corruption). As long as the cost/benefit of defecting is more advantageous to the individual than cooperation, you'll end up with a corrupt society. Rather than fruitlessly dwelling on the apparent hypocrisy of said roommate, you should have tried to understand the forces that led to his choice. By increasing the cost of defection, you can even cure the society of most of the problem. My view is that most people don't want to live in such a society. But they can't change the system by themselves. It requires some sort of large scale action.

My view is that the US is facing the same choices. Here, I see the cooperation/defection choice as choosing whether or not to accept public funds (a further step being to influence government to acquire more public funds). My view is that we've transitioned over the past century or so to a regime where a large portion of the population and of business take considerable public funds and work to protect that revenue stream. IMHO, the end game to such a scenario is a relatively impoverished country or countries that would be indistinguishable (aside perhaps from size) from the current defective countries of the world.

[Shrug] Market forces at work

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like a socialist fire department would do any better.

Won't anyone think of the animals?

[oh-dark-thirty]

Animal cruelty charges should be brought, they allowed 4 pets to die...frankly I would be more pissed about that than losing my stuff.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree 100%. If there had been a human trapped in the house, would they have reacted the same? Sorry, you didn't pay, little Johnny will just have to die.

I realize this is a bit of an absurd comparison, but I also believe there is a fundamental difference between physical possessions and pets. Letting the animals die was over the line. As many have said before, the appropriate response would be to fight the fire, then bill for the actual cost of the services. Many fire departments bill for cost of fighting fires when negligence or carelessness or arson are involved, so it is not unprecedented.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, sue the Cranicks! (Right?)

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[jjohnson]

They would have allowed the pets to die in New York or in South Fulton or if Crannick had paid the $75. Firemen don't rush into burning buildings to save cats, only people.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[viking099]

If a firefighter had gone in to save those animals and been injured, he would have been just as out of luck as those homeowners were.

Their worker's insurance won't cover them if they're not "on the job," which they're not if they're tromping through a house with no fire protection policy in place.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[dunezone]

The owner should have gone back into his house. I think the fire fighters would have felt an obligation to put out the fire when there's a human life on the line.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pets don't have rights.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[smellsofbikes]

IANAL, but in general courts are very reluctant to find an entity liable for negligence for failing to anticipate someone else's negligence. That's sensible: "he should have anticipated that someone might be driving the wrong way down the one way street, so the accident is his fault!" would lead to complete chaos. In this case, the fire department could have anticipated his negligence, and did -- by trying to contact him to get the bill paid, they made a good faith attempt to anticipate his negligence. That's not to say that he deserved this -- he, and his pets particularly, deserved much better than the outcome.

But with that said, even if you could show that the fire department had some contributory negligence, if they're a part of the government in any capacity they have immunity against suits for negligence unless they specifically and explicitly allow themselves to be sued for negligence.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[dyingtolive]

I'm more pissed off about the pets that I would have been if one of the humans died. The hillbillies chose to live that way. The animals didn't.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[WindBourne]

Amazing. I look at this situation and I see C. Springs in it. Come Jan, C. Springs is to take a MAJOR hit in services. They will lose 1/3 to 1/2 of their cops. Likewise, they are taking a hit on EMS, though I do not know exactly how much.

So, I wonder how soon before C.Springs residents will scream that the state is failing them and allowing their services to go down? And they will scream that they pay good taxes to the state for all of this.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[DavidD_CA]

I agree they should have saved the animals (unless it was too dangerous).

Other than that, I think they did the right thing by letting the house burn.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right - animal cruelty should be brought against the family who refused to pay the $75 fire insurance which could have saved them.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[gknoy]

That could be pretty financially troublesome. They'd probably be forced to mortgage their home to cover it...

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[Unkyjar]

I beg to differ with your base assumption. Apparently firefighters do run into burning buildings to save pets. And it seems that this has been done more than once.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[BobMcD]

All the people seem to have gotten out okay. Perhaps they should have tried to rescue their animals? It isn't as if this fire happened in the night while everyone was asleep or something. They were burning their trash at the time, and had time to respond to the fire...

I personally doubt the animals died at all. I suspect this is just like how he 'forgot' to pay the fee - a simple plea for more sympathy.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[Scooter's_dad]

Animal cruelty charges should be brought, they allowed 4 pets to die...frankly I would be more pissed about that than losing my stuff.

I wonder if you're joking. Frankly I don't much care if his house and all his possessions burn, but as a somewhat stereotypical pet lover I think it is wrong to let the animals die in the fire. I mean they wouldn't just stand there and let a *person* die... I wonder what Peter Singer would say.

Of course that raises the question of which animals they should be required to save. Other primates? Yes. Dogs and cats? Sure. Iguanas? Cockatoos? Ant farms?

See? It's just easier all around if the fire department puts out the fire without question in the first place.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[euphemistic]

That was exactly my one objection to the entire story. I couldn't care less that this guy who didn't pay the fee had his stuff burnt to the ground. I do believe fire dept. should be fully funded through tax, but he knew that wasn't the system there and just opted out of his quasi fire insurance. But to go there and then let the animals burn to death? That shit is just unethical; it's not their fault the owner of the house was a moron.

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[anegg]

The homeowner is even more cruel; he not only failed to provide a safe environment for the pets, the fire was caused from carelessness, not as an "act of god."

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[4phun]

Animal cruelty charges should be brought, they allowed 4 pets to die...frankly I would be more pissed about that than losing my stuff.

Could the firemen had thought that was merely a Korean barbecue they were watching?

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[Anonymous Coward]

EXCELLENT point!!!!!

Re:Won't anyone think of the animals?

[oh-dark-thirty]

No, I wasn't joking, or trolling. That would have sent me over the edge; not sure what I would have done exactly, but it would not have been pretty and would have likely ended up with my arrest.

Pay attention Slashdot

[BobMcD]

To all those who've argued that this doesn't exist, observe - it does. The next time we lock horns in a healthcare or other societal need debate and you say 'do you have to pay for fire protection', DO NOT disagree when I say 'yes, you always do'. Either you pay a fee, or you pay it in taxes up front. In this district, the homeowners are free to decide whether to pay for fire protection or not. Vis-a-vis healthcare, IMO.

Not the point though. Just please pay attention that it can and does exist, by design.

Counterpoint

[Pollux]

If your county is too poor to pay for a fire department, you may have a volunteer fire department, or the nearest municipality may charge a fee to cover service. If you don't pay that fee, you don't get fire protection.

But in the interest of public good, a fire that's allowed to burn out-of-control at one home could spread to another home, or to a forest, extending the initial threat from a single private residence to the general welfare of the public. If I were this man's neighbor, and the fire that the fire department let burn suddenly engulfed my house as well, I would be quite the irate citizen.

There is public good in not permitting a fire from growing, regardless of whether or not someone payed their municipal fees. As such, fire protection should be a public service guaranteed to all citizens, funded through taxes, rather than be an optional insurance paid for at the individual level. We realized long ago that individual and/or private firefighting services were not in the best interests of the public.

Re:Counterpoint

[0bject]

As others have pointed out, the fire department showed up to prevent the fire from spreading to the neighbor's property. The neighbor had paid the $75.

Re:Counterpoint

[Wrath0fb0b]

There is public good in not permitting a fire from growing, regardless of whether or not someone payed their municipal fees. As such, fire protection should be a public service guaranteed to all citizens, funded through taxes

First, there are no municipal fees, this is the county we are talking about. Second, the voters of Fulton County considered this argument and decided they would rather not have yet another tax assessed on their houses when the city provides the same service for less. Maybe now they will reconsider, but there's nothing unreasonable in saying "It would cost us $200/house in taxes to set up our own fire dept but the city agreed to provide it for $75." In fact, getting fire service for $75 instead of $200 and avoiding unnecessary duplication in equipment, training and organization is an unalloyed public good.

The wrinkle is that since the city doesn't have the authority to tax country residents outside city limits and the county cannot tax the residents and give the money to the city, it has to be organized as a voluntary subscription. So I'm not sure if your argument here is "the county should tax the residents and set up a duplicative fire dept." or "the county should be allowed to tax its residents and give the money to the city in lieu of setting up it's own fire dept". The latter makes sense, the former is total bollocks.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

c. If I were this man's neighbor, and the fire that the fire department let burn suddenly engulfed my house as well, I would be quite the irate citizen.

Do you know how I know you didn't read the article? The firefighters were there to stop the fire if it spread. Your wild speculation could have just ended right there.

And if I were a neighbor I would be irate ... at my grifter neighbor that thinks my house isn't worth him spending $0.20 a day protecting.

Re:Counterpoint

[pesho]

You are missing an important part of the story. The fire department was actually on site, dozing his paying neighbor’s fence with water to protect him from the fire. The conclusion of the story: Taxes are good, because they protect idiots like this one from themselves. In fairness the firemen did act silly and are now open to lawsuits. Instead of acting like the local extortion crew they should have helped the man and then sent him a bill with handsome fee for their service.

Re:Counterpoint

[city]

Who are you to say what is in the best interest of that community? Shouldn't they be allowed the make their own choices? The fire department kept the fire from growing. Nothing happened to his neighbor's house becuase the fire dept kept the fire under control, apparently by watering the fence between the houses. But yes, the neighbor would have the right to be irate if anything happened to his house.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

The fire department did show up later. The fire spread to a neighbor's house and THEY had paid the $75 fee.

Re:Counterpoint

[Ihmhi]

Well, the highest district court of our nation's capital ruled that police are in no way obligated to protect the citizens - or more specifically, they're not liable for failure to provide adequate police protection.

The "public good" went out the window a looooong time ago.

Thankfully there's still decent people out there trying to make things better, but I imagine a lot of our problems are simply a fact of how goddamn huge our country is. So many issues involve matters of infrastructure (distance relating to response times for firefighters, police, ambulance, etc.) that it's amazing anything works as well as it does today.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

The firefighters did respond to protect the homes of those that had paid their fees so the public good was covered.

Re:Counterpoint

[sorak]

The fire department waited until the fire crossed the property line before dealing with the fire. Why? The neighbor had paid his fee. With that having been said, I agree 100% that the fire department was endangering others, including those who paid for the protection, by letting the fire burn out of control.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

I'm not an idiot. I don't need to be "protected from myself". Please refund my taxes immediately.

Re:Counterpoint

[rssrss]

What you said is true enough when you are talking about cities, but if you read the article above you would have seen that it began with the words:

"Firefighters in rural Tennessee"

Re:Counterpoint

[Remus Shepherd]

But in the interest of public good, a fire that's allowed to burn out-of-control at one home could spread to another home, or to a forest, extending the initial threat from a single private residence to the general welfare of the public. If I were this man's neighbor, and the fire that the fire department let burn suddenly engulfed my house as well, I would be quite the irate citizen.

Read the article. When the fire threatened the neighbor's house the firemen responded, because that neighbor had paid their fee.

This is what happens when you starve governments and run the country on capitalism. The only more raw capitalism would be if firefighting were privatized out to for-profit corporations -- which is another dream of the right wing. The 21st century would look a lot like the 19th, if certain people had their way.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I am not for socialism at all but should a hospital deny saving someone's life because they don't have insurance. Stop the burning house to avoid a public danger and then take the idiot to court for the fees when he doesn't pay.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should idiots be protected? So they can reproduce more idiots?

Unnatural selection is bad for human evolution.

Re:Counterpoint

[eugene ts wong]

Yeah, it's worth forcing people to pay, because it gathers more money for the firemen. It's relatively safe to tax people like this, because it's not as if people typically abuse the privilege. How often do we say, "Well, it's so cheap to get them to come and wet my house, so I'll keep doing this dangerous thing."? People think along those lines with welfare [e.g. "I can't get a job, because I might get fired, and that will put an end to my income."], but that type of situation is a totally different ball of wax.

On top of that, I read somewhere that firemen have the most trusted reputations.

Paying for the fire department is probably 1 of the most legitimate insurances available, if not the most legitimate.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it is in the best intrest of the public because then the people who pay for the service are the ones who get to use it. now you have people growing up thinking they have a right to all these services when they don't pay a dime for it. also they put out the fire before it went to the neighbors house who did pay the fee. there is no such thing as a free lunch. the real reason they became a public service is because they wanted to buy votes and they do it with someone elses money via free services that are paid for by someone else.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

The fire department put out the fire AFTER it began to damage the neighbor's property, not BEFORE it caused damage. The parent's point still stands.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

No it is democracy The citizens decided that they do not want to pay for a fire department. That is their right.

I wonder how much lower that $75 would be if everyone participated.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case, the fire protection is paid by taxes. However the fire department in question is in another municipality. If the owner of the house had been in the fire department's municipality, he would have been paying those taxes and he would have been covered. He was outside the boundaries of that municipality and wouldn't be required to pay those taxes. The $75 was an optional coverage fee for those outside the boundaries for those who still wanted service. His neighbors paid it and the fire department put out the fire when it spread to their property. The people received the service that they paid for.

Re:Counterpoint

[Ian Alexander]

If they hadn't?

Re:Counterpoint

[Monchanger]

You are if you misread that as "taxes are only good for protecting idiots like this one from themselves."

No refund for you.

Re:Counterpoint

[drukawski]

Based on information found in the '09 county census (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/47/47131.html) if you were this man's neighbor your house would statistically be almost 700' away from his. Granted, if the fire spreads beyond the man's property it then becomes a county/municipality issue and the fire dept has an obligation to commit resources to prevent its spread, however most rural areas I've lived in have municipal codes requiring fire breaks around houses for this specific reason. The county doesn't care so much if a county wildfire takes your home out with it, what they don't want is your home fire turning into a county wildfire.

As far as public emergency services go, currently most of America uses privatized fire protection and EMT services, the municipalities I've worked with are often firm in their beliefs that these privatized services save their tax payers money (http://reason.org/files/c2bbfe415eccfdff424a2bf7c8a20585.pdf). But this is the result, they cost less money because they make the hard choices the county itself, for a multitude of reasons, can't make. No Fire, EMT, or police service could ever guarantee their services, by necessity they operate like an insurance program; everyone pays in with a very small minority on any particular day actually needing the service. If conditions occur outside of this model such as large wide-scale emergencies that exceed the capabilities of the local fire, EMT, and police departments we have another layer of insurance, local emergency planning and coordination committees and inter-district aid agreements commit the resources of neighboring counties/states, and beyond that the national guard and the red cross can provide relief efforts to stressed local emergency services.

Here is the kicker though, all these layers of protection, all these buffers against worst case scenarios cost money. As far as I can tell good intentions don't pay for the upkeep, overhead, and salaries of emergency services. If you don't agree with how things are run or you know of a better way to do things then the proper answer is not to refuse to pay your bill, but to become active in the local community and actually change things. It's not particularly difficult, few care enough to actually commit their time so competition generally isn't a factor.

This fire department likely performed a cost-benefit analysis at some point and determined which areas were high-hazard areas for the spread of house fires and which areas were low-hazard areas for the spread of house fires, and it sounds to me like this guy lives in the low-hazard area. When we as the tax paying general public want to pay lower taxes then cost cutting measures like this are the result. Granted I'm biased, I don't have a problem paying my county fees and taxes but truthfully I don't see anything wrong with refusing service to people that refuse to pay for it. It's not the fire department's fault when you lose your house and dogs to the fire you allowed your grandson to start right next to your house when you hadn't paid your taxes. This isn't just some random event, a is the conclusion of a series of poor decisions by the home owner which led him to his current circumstances, he has no one to blame but himself.

Re:Counterpoint

[ericfitz]

We realized long ago that individual and/or private firefighting services were not in the best interests of the public.

This is incorrect.

In the past we found undesirable behavior with private fire fighting organizations. This does NOT lead to the necessary conclusion that fire fighting MUST be a government provided service. It just means that we need mechanisms, legal or otherwise, to prevent bad behavior. There were also good aspects to private fire fighters.

For example, I personally like the idea of two fire fighting companies racing to my house as fast as they can, because only the first one on scene gets paid by the insurance company. This incentivizes timely response and placement of many fire stations in order to minimize distance.

In the Tennessee case, I think that the right thing to have done would have been to put out the fire and then send the guy a bill for the cost of putting the fire out. Not out of kindness, but just to avoid bad PR. In an area with high building density then there must be a fire response, and this model would work there as well. Already some cities charge you if you have a traffic accident and knock down a light pole, for instance.

I just don't think government is particularly good at anything, and I don't think that de jure monopolies result in the best outcomes.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

And that neighbor wouldn't have had any of his property burned if they hadn't waited so damned long to come put it out...

Re:Counterpoint

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

If I were this man's neighbor, and the fire that the fire department let burn suddenly engulfed my house as well, I would be quite the irate citizen.

There is public good in not permitting a fire from growing, regardless of whether or not someone payed their municipal fees. As such, fire protection should be a public service guaranteed to all citizens, funded through taxes, rather than be an optional insurance paid for at the individual level.

There is a public good from not having infections spread - so we should make health insurance a public good.

Otherwise uninsured sick people with infectious disease can make even insured people ill.

Yet people call that socialism!

Re:Counterpoint

[fyngyrz]

Why should idiots be protected? So they can reproduce more idiots?

Because it's not just about the idiot, that's why. There's no way to know if there were others in the house until it advances to the stage of sifting the ashes. Also, fires don't respect boundaries. The best approach to any fire is fight it as hard as possible until it is definitively out.

Re:Counterpoint

[fyngyrz]

Shouldn't they be allowed the make their own choices?

Only when those choices can be demonstrated to significantly affect only themselves. In the case of a fire, that can't be done. So, no.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me get this straight.

I go to a neighbors house to have dinner. A fire breaks out and I am trapped. The Fire department shows up but will not put out the fire or enter the building because my neighbor did not pay his fire tax. I LIVE down the street, and I paid my tax, but I will BURN TO DEATH because my neighbor didnt pay his tax?

Thats somehow the RIGHT THING TO DO? Did the emergency fire department respond to an emergency that one of its PAID CUSTOMERS in involved in?

NOPE, becuase they think they know everything, and will just let a house burn down because the OWNER didnt pay. Let's not even discuss the idea of renters dying because their landlord didnt pay the tax this year? (or didnt pay it on time)?

You are foolish at best.

Re:Counterpoint

[jbeach]

If you think you don't benefit from the indirect results of a military protecting you (even though the US hasn't been invaded this month), the fire department (even though your house hasn't burned down), the police (even though you haven't been mugged this year), the interstate highways (even though you've never ridden on them), public education (even if you don't have kids), etc. etc....

...then, sorry, but you can't have your taxes back. Because it isn't fair for my taxes to benefit you without you paying taxes as well.

Re:Counterpoint

[makomk]

No, they stopped it from spreading further after it had already started spreading to the neighbour's property thanks to them refusing to get it under control in the first place. Well, according to the article I read, anyway. Fire doesn't exactly respect property boundaries.

Re:Counterpoint

[AK Marc]

The fact that you think that is proof to the contrary.

Re:Counterpoint

[AK Marc]

Real capitalism would have had the firefighters charging extortion fees to the uninsured homeowner. Instead, we have capitalized socialism, or social capitalism or something. The worst of both worlds, yay us.

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

The firefighters were there to stop the fire from spreading but what if in letting the Cranik house burn the fire got so big they couldn't stop it from spreading? To me the best way to prevent the possible spread is the hit the fire as soon and as hard as possible.

Re:Counterpoint

[the_B0fh]

you are crazy. that mentality is why the US has such a fucked up wireless infrastructure.

we had 7 companies setting 7 different fucking wireless infrastructure.

all wildly incompatible with each other. it took a lot of work to make them work with each other. wasted time, money and effort.

Re:Counterpoint

[Luckyo]

The fact that you're willing to accept damage control over total elimination of the problem in the interest of principle as a counterpoint says a lot about your ethics. None of those words are complimentary.

One could argue that the system this as disgusting, warped and unethical as this can only exist with a permission from equally unethical, warped and disgusting individuals.

Re:Counterpoint

[sznupi]

Boiling down to population density; and you know, even in the EU there are countries with it 2x lower than the US...and having for example far better communication & cellular infrastructure. Thankfully for them, they didn't have few separate corporate interests pushing disparate solutions.

Re:Counterpoint

[Sean0michael]

But in the interest of public good, a fire that's allowed to burn out-of-control at one home could spread to another home, or to a forest, extending the initial threat from a single private residence to the general welfare of the public. If I were this man's neighbor, and the fire that the fire department let burn suddenly engulfed my house as well, I would be quite the irate citizen.

If you read the article, you would see that the firefighters did actually keep the flames from spreading to his neighbor's property, since the neighbor had paid the $75 fee. While I agree that it is a good idea to keep fires from spreading, in this case it was only spreading to private property that was already protected.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

I said I don't need to be protected from myself. None of the issues you point out are of this "nanny state" variety. I do not object to legitimate needs for taxation.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

I didn't say they were only good for that. There are, in fact, some legitimate gov't functions that are funded by taxation, and I do not object to those. But since "idiot protection" taxes are paid for by everyone and not only by the idiots who need that protection, I still want my money (and freedom) back. I do not need the gov't as my nanny.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

You don't know squat about me. What makes you think I need to be protected from myself?

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

Clarifying, I wasn't saying that taxes are only good for that. It was the GP that implied it, and I responded to that.

I do realize that there are tax-funded services that are necessary, but I would like the "nanny state" to be dismantled, and to keep that money in my own pocket so I can take care of myself. People need to be more self-reliant, and take their lumps when they screw up. No need to coddle adults, unless you want a society of perpetual children.

Re:Counterpoint

[jbeach]

Well, among the issues I pointed out was "the fire department (even though your house hasn't burned down)". If that's the case, I don't understand your original objection to pesho's comment above.

Re:Counterpoint

[AK Marc]

That you are so sure you don't need to be protected indicates that:
1) You need to be protected from yourself, and
2) You don't deserve to be.

Any more questions?

Oh, and does everyone else out there recognize the idiots that claim "You don't know about me" are always the ones that will *never* answer questions when asked? Yeah, they purposefully hide who they are, then claim no one could ever understand them. Yeah buddy, you are unique, just like everyone else. If I don't know squat about you, rather than whining that I can't understand you and your particular unique plight, inform us. Nah, that'll never happen. It's so much easier to claim infallibility when you never actually say anything falsifiable.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

That you are so sure you know what's best for me, even when you don't know a thing about me, indicates that you are a patronizing elitist. Go find a socialist country to reside in, where that kind of thing is appreciated.

Further, why should I answer questions if I don't want to? You don't need to understand me. You only need to leave me alone unless we mutually enter into a relationship or transaction. Don't force your will upon me, and I won't force mine on you. It's called liberty. That's what you need to understand. Since we'll all have differing ideas on what functions of gov't are beneficial to the general welfare, those functions should be limited to the smallest set we all agree on.

I'm not saying I should be exempted from a mound of regulations because of a "unique plight" of mine. I don't meekly submit an application asking if I may be allowed to use my rights. I'm saying the mound of regulations shouldn't exist at all, for anybody! That's why I don't feel obligated to open up any details to anybody.

Re:Counterpoint

[Peeteriz]

Why can't the county tax the residents and give the money to the city?

Providing a fire service doesn't have to mean you have to contruct a building and pay salaries, you can contract it to a skilled third party, and surprise surprise - there is a nearby fire department that can offer such coverage for x $ monthly. And it might quite realistically be cheaper than 75$/house in this way due to simpler process, skipping billing, etc - in effect, a 'volume discount' for this 'purchase'.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

I don't personally object to taxation to provide a fire department. (Though I also don't personally think privatization of the FD--which this case, an optional subscription/enrollment based service, is similar to--is a bad idea, either.) Narrowly, I was objecting to the OP's comment "Taxes are good, because they protect idiots like this one from themselves", which implied the purpose of taxation is to protect idiots from themselves. If that is the case, I want my money back, because I'm not an idiot.

More generally, I object to the larger premise as well. The purpose of government is not to protect anybody from themselves; the purpose of government is to protect the people's rights. I am vehemently against the notion that somebody else, somewhere else, who doesn't know me or my situation, can better determine my choices for me than I can for myself. Don't limit my freedom "for my own good". I don't need laws to tell me to buckle up, to wear a helmet, to buy health insurance, to buy fire insurance, not to smoke, etc etc ad nauseum! I can do the smart things on my own, and if I don't and get bitten by the consequences, I'll take responsibility for it!

The real problem, as I see it, is that nobody takes responsibility any more. Anybody with a decent moral compass can look at what they've bungled and say, "Yup, that's my fault," then, "How do I make it right?" or, "I guess I won't do that again." Morality is on the decline, and we've traded it for legality. We'll only admit culpability if it's legally required, after all the machinations and contortions and extensions fail to win a more favorable outcome. We want someone else to take the blame, someone else to pick up the tab. To do that, for every possible situation that might arise, requires an insanely complex set of rules. We call this the "legal system". To help us navigate it, we have more lawyers per capita than any society in history. We have waiting times to get into court that mock the right to a "speedy trial", bordering on unjust. Frivolous lawsuits clog the system, because people throw everything at the wall just to see what will stick. Nearly every law that's passed to limit some unjust action has overreach that will snag inoffensive actions as well. And then there are the laws that are passed because "it's a good idea". If it's so good, you shouldn't need a law to make people do it! That's how freedom is eroded.

William Penn said, "Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." That's exactly what we're seeing. We've traded morality for legality, but legal doesn't make it right. "The system" is the tyrant, and it's of our own making.

Re:Counterpoint

[AK Marc]

Further, why should I answer questions if I don't want to?

You don't have to. But you are an intellectually dishonest prat if you purposefully withhold information and then complain that someone came to a poor conclusion because of the lack of information you purposefully withheld. But go ahead. Hold back information, then complain that I don't have that information. It makes you feel better. And that's much more important than acting ethically and rationally.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

It's not about me "feeling better". Perfectly logical and rational on this end, thank you very much. Please don't project your stereotypes on me. There's simply nothing about my argument that requires that you have any additional information about me or my situation. Get it yet? That's the point. Liberty. I leave you free to deal responsibly with your own affairs, and you do the same for me. That's it, end of story. Nobody needs the details of the other's business. Hopefully you begin to understand soon.

Re:Counterpoint

[AK Marc]

And here I thought it was communication. I thought you were here to share thoughts. Instead, you have said that you are here to lecture people as to How It Is, and anything else is wrong. Any attempt to understand your point of view violates your Freedom.

Oh, and for linking to a parked domain, you are a fucktard. Either you are trying to sell it, or you are linking to things that no longer exist. But don't worry, pointing out you are a fucktard in no way prevents you from continuing to be one in the future. And I won't ask which it is, I know how you get when people ask you questions. It's all about your Freedom (and the freedom to be a fucktard, which you willingly demonstrate repeatedly).

Re:Counterpoint

[jbeach]

Well privatization of the FD has already been tried, to disastrous results that are exactly similar to the above case - letting people's houses burn down because someone didn't pay a fee. Which may arguably "teach the homeowner a lesson" - at the cost of an entire house, which is bad for the whole community.

The purpose of government is to do things that people otherwise can't get done. Some of that is protecting the people's rights - but that's only part of it. We can have a "should be" vs "is" argument here - but the fact of the matter is that all successful governments throughout history have always done more than just "protect people's rights". This is because nations are in competition with each other. And any nations "violates citizen's rights" by taxation for things the individuals don't directly need, lose out in the competition.

The real problem, as I see it, is a lot of people want all the benefits of having a stable government and democracy, but don't want to have to pay for it through their taxes. This can be because they don't actually see the benefits to themselves or the society as a whole - or it can be because they don't *want* to see.

And the system does this now, because before it did this things were much more difficult. And all the same arguments were presented against the Federal highway system, rural electrification, etc. etc. Results prove the system works. Now it can be made to work better or worse depending on how it's changed, but that judgement will also be made on the basis of results if we want to have a system that works.

Don't think of it as saving idiots from themselves. Think of it as saving you from the negative fallout of idiots - because otherwise they will burn your entire town down because there won't be enough firemen to stop them.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

Dude, if you are so petty as to ridicule me for not updating my signature (which has been the same for, oh, maybe six years now) then you need to get a life. And clean up your mouth while you're at it. You've reminded me why I started coming to Slashdot less and less several years ago. This isn't worth my time.

Re:Counterpoint

[AK Marc]

Yes sir. Sorry to point out that an idiot advertising a broken link is an idiot. I'll not do that again.

Re:Counterpoint

[ChristTrekker]

The example in question could have been remedied easily. What should have happened in this case? FD could have said to homeowner, "You didn't pay your fee (insurance) this year. We will put out the fire, but you will be liable for full costs associated with this. Do you want us to proceed?" I think the FD was stupid for not handling it this way, but that's beside the point I was arguing.

You've never lived in a redneck area

[SlappyBastard]

The problem with sending a bill to a redneck is they will never pay it.

Re:You've never lived in a redneck area

[GungaDan]

Exactly - this guy still owes $75 for the LAST fire his idiot redneck grandson started that the fire dept. put out (despite his not having been paid up at that time, either).

Second strike you lose, dumbass.

And no, rural TN will never support raising taxes to eliminate this nonsense. The stupid grows thick there.

Really?

[vanDee28]

I mean, Really?

Compromise

[somaTh]

Why not just let the dude pay the back fees (up to 5 years worth)? $4500 is adequate punishment for not paying and the dude would still have his house. Even better, just make him sign up for the coverage and if he breaks it in 5 years, make him pay the fee.

Re:Compromise

[goodmanj]

The firefighters who show up in the truck are good with hoses and CPR, but they're not trained to run credit checks, negotiate payment plans, and set up early-termination contracts while standing in front of a burning home. There are a hundred different ways the homeowner could abuse a "save house now, pay later" system. The *only* fair ways to do it are "pay in advance" or "free with your taxes".

Re:Compromise

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither are hospitals, but they seem to do it just fine, even for the people who have poor credit and no health insurance. The only difference is that it's a burning home instead of a broken leg.

Re:Compromise

[jjohnson]

The FD is municipal; the residents are county. The FD has no legal means to compel payment from someone who says "I'll pay anything". And in the past, they've collected from those people in less than 50% of the cases. The FD is 30k in the hole servicing the non-subscribers who can't find their wallet after their house was saved.

Besides, there was a couple hours between the shed catching fire and the house. All Crannick had to do to save his pets was, you know, open the fucking door.

Re:Compromise

[KYPackrat]

Hospitals are legally exempt from the part of contract law forbidding contracts under duress. You can't say "But I was dying, they MADE me agree to this" for them.

If you pull up to the Last Chance Gas Station in Death Valley, and they want you to sign a contract to get the gas you need to get back to civilization, you may be under duress. No court in the land would allow anything outrageous in the terms.

A contract to fight the fire would work the same way. It would be nearly impossible to enforce a monetary judgement of any serious amount when the contract is signed under duress.

Don't forget collection. Hospitals lose an outrageous percentage of their non-insured accounts receivable to failure to collect. A fire department would likewise lose 30 to 60 percent of their "in-progress" bills.

This person is just lucky that his stupidity was costly, and not fatal.

opens the door for extortion look people who did n

[Anonymous Coward]

opens the door for extortion look people who did not pay and then have some set there house of fire and they have the fireman come out and bill you X100 the fee.

Details yall are missing

[alta]

This person lived outside of the city fire jurisdiction. The had been petitioned by the people in the county to extend their coverage, but since those people didn't want to incorporate as part OF the city, the city offered to agree to put out fires for people who wanted to pay the $75 fee. So, this is a service the city is doing for those that pay for it.

For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?" Sorry, that's SOP. If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.

Re:Details yall are missing

[tf23]

Not only that, but if the city has any health/life insurance on those fire fighters, coverage may specifically only cover those firefighters on site of those houses that have pre-paid.

If that were the case, I would certainly not expect any of the fire fighters to touch that house, at all. If one of them were to be injured, or worse killed, who's looking after the fire fighter's family afterward?

Certainly, imho, not the guy who chose to save the $75. (There was another discussion somewhere I saw yesterday that I can't find a link to) that said the guy had had received letters, phone calls, and had chosen to not pay it at the time of the call, and someone had googled the guy and they had a farm and were seemingly doing quite well enough to shell out $75.

Sad story, regardless.

Re:Details yall are missing

[brit74]

"If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire."

Except that, if you read the story, you'd see that the fire department HAS responded to fires where people didn't pay the $75 fee, and there ARE still people paying the fee. (Based on your argument, *everyone* would've stopped paying years ago.) Regardless of that issue, they could've given him a different payment option - like paying $1500 (equal to twenty years of payments). This is one of the real tragedies of libertarian thinking: because he didn't pay the $75 fee, and they didn't allow a "pay now" option with a higher price, they'd let a $75,000 house burn to the ground. While libertarians might claim that they're "helping society" through their political philosophy, the reality is that society (as a whole) is $75,000 poorer. That's bad. How can libertarian philosophy possibly be making the world a better place to live when it results in the destruction of property?

Re:Details yall are missing

[alta]

Society is not $75,000 poorer. If this guy had a mortgage, he had homeowner's insurance. The insurance company is poorer but that's the point of insurance. If it didn't work that way, no one would get it.

Re:Details yall are missing

[brit74]

"Society is not $75,000 poorer. If this guy had a mortgage, he had homeowner's insurance. The insurance company is poorer but that's the point of insurance. If it didn't work that way, no one would get it."

How ridiculous to say that society, as a whole, is not poorer. One day there was a house. Now there is a burnt-out one. Whether or not the insurance company pays is irrelevant - because all it does is change who is poorer. I suppose you'd also argue that if a million people died, society is no worse off (personally or financially) by their absence, especially if they had life-insurance.

Animal Rights count, too...

[Anonymous Coward]

If that happened in the UK, the fire brigade would be facing charges of negligence, and the RSPCA would be taking legal action against them for knowingly and willingly causing harm to animals.

Re:Animal Rights count, too...

[KYPackrat]

If anyone committed cruelty, it's the homeowner by abandoning the pets and not paying for their protection as well as his own.

Animals are not people. It is negligence to force a human being to risk his own life solely to rescue an animal.

Entering a burning building is not safe. We have elevated the process from nearly 100% fatal to X% fatal, but X is still well above 0. Asking a person to accept the X risk for the life of an animal is ridiculous. And yes, I would think so even if the owner had been paying his fee.

Re:Animal Rights count, too...

[shentino]

Except they didn't actually start the fire.

Personally I'd be more looking at whoever screwed up the trash burn for negligence.

Re:Animal Rights count, too...

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Wrong. The firefighters did not set the fire. Also, you have no clue what "negligence" means.

Also, the homeowner had TWO HOURS to get those animals out of the house. He didn't.

Libertoons and moral hazard

[benjfowler]

I just absolutely love the American nutjob libertoon Right and their obsession with moral hazard.

So these firefighters let the house burn, abandoning those poor animals inside to an agonizing, slow death, because drooling idiot teabaggers are terrified, that some poor person somewhere MIGHT get a free ride.

Ask them about moral hazard and bailouts for the bankster spivs on Wall Street? Crickets and tumbleweeds.

This is why I loathe rightwing libertarians. The hypocrisy stinks to high heaven.

Re:Libertoons and moral hazard

[characterZer0]

some poor person somewhere MIGHT get a free ride.

If people find out that they can get service without paying, there will be a multitude of freeloaders. It is not the fear a a freeloader, it is the certainty of many freeloaders.

My thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not have the fire department come out and charge a contract fee or something similar if they did not pay the fee. Charge $75/hour plus supplies. When it comes to the yearly payment put something in the pamphlet saying that you will be charged X if you do not pay and opt for the fire department to put your house out.

I find it sad that they did nothing, but seriously how is this different than anything else in this world? Compare this to car insurance. We all pay out the ass for car insurance...but if you ask me it is worth it. In my 20's I had multiple friends drive without insurance. One got in a wreck and ended up getting sued. All he had to do was pay $50-75/month for insurance and he would of been fine. Instead he lost a car, had huge medical bills and got sued for a ridiculous amount.

Re:My thoughts

[anegg]

How does the fire department determine how many trucks to buy, personnel to hire, etc. if it doesn't know what its subscriber base is? In a government jurisdiction where the fire service is paid for by taxes, you can determine how to size the service by the number of households and other factors.

If no one had to pay for any fire protective services unless they actually used them, no one would pay for any protective services. Where would the up-front capital come from to purchase the equipment and hire the staff? What if a whole year went by without any fires because everyone was being careful? How would the staff be paid? How would the equipment be maintained? How would training be funded?

Everybody hates the government

[SlappyBastard]

Right up until the moment they need the government. Ain't it a bitch?

I was raised liberal in a redneck part of the country. And a lot of kids I grew up with thought it was clever to call the cops "the pigs". The first time my mom caught me pulling that shit, she pulled me aside and bitched me out, telling me, "You won't be calling a pig on the day you need a cop."

Frankly, I like nice roads. I like a school tax that enables stores to hire cashiers who can read. I like the idea that if any brown people overthrow their government while I'm on vacation that I can go to the embassy and the Marines will fly me the fuck out of there.

I'm a supporter of paying higher taxes -- just make sure I get some decent services to go with it.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Anonymous Coward]

but with your government overthrown, which country do you expect your marines to fly you to?

Re:Everybody hates the government

[SMQ]

You were making a good point, right up to the part where you turned into a bigoted asshole with that "brown people" remark.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I can tell, what he needed was a firefighter....and he had chosen not to pay for one.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the idea that if any brown people overthrow their government while I'm on vacation that I can go to the embassy and the Marines will fly me the fuck out of there.

Sounds like you've still got some redneck in you.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the idea that if any brown people overthrow their government while I'm on vacation that I can go to the embassy and the Marines will fly me the fuck out of there.

And in what country is this ? In most countries these days the security has been outsourced to "private" firms. And no you cannot enter the embassy:

1.) Without an appointment
2.) With a cell phone
3.) With a laptop computer
4.) Keys
5.) Other miscellaneous objects

Basically to sum it up they "the security" treat you like shit , more times than most are locals and cannot even speak decent English, regardless whether or not you are waiving an U.S.A. Passport in their face.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment was fine until you added 'brown' to 'people.'

Nice job assuming someone's skin color makes them a terrorist/guerilla/reactionary/whateverthefuck.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[fiannaFailMan]

I was raised liberal in a redneck part of the country. .... I like the idea that if any brown people overthrow their government while I'm on vacation that I can go to the embassy and the Marines will fly me the fuck out of there.

I believe the redneck part. Sure about the liberal bit?

Re:Everybody hates the government

[SlappyBastard]

Being raised redneck tends to lead to the odd off-color joke.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Doctor Faustus]

"You won't be calling a pig on the day you need a cop."

How about the day one sucker-punches you and then charges you with assault for it?

Re:Everybody hates the government

[SlappyBastard]

I'm sorry. I grew up in a redneck town. The cops were far more afraid of us than we were of them.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd seem that you've never heard George Carlin speak, you ignorant prick.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Anonymous Coward]

"any brown people"? I think the redneck's still beating the liberal.

Re:Everybody hates the government

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a supporter of paying higher taxes -- just make sure I get some decent services to go with it.

But the nasty reality is that they'll get you to agree to pay higher taxes with the promise of some decent services, and then they'll either never deliver those services or they'll be canceled in a few years and you'll still be stuck paying the higher taxes.

Reminds me of colonial fire departments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the rise of municipal fire departments, fire protection was a business. If a house caught on fire the fire department would show up and check your house for an emblem indicating that the service had been paid for. No emblem, no service. Next time your in a historic city(Charleston, SC for example) look around, many historic houses still have these metal emblems near the front door.

Car Analogy

[HockeyPuck]

I didn't pay my auto insurance premiums last year...

Then I got in a wreck...

Why should my insurance company pay for my accident...

Re:Car Analogy

[Culture20]

I didn't pay my auto insurance premiums last year...
Then I got in a wreck...
Why should my insurance company pay for my accident...

Beter Car Analogy:
I didn't pay my auto insurance premiums last year...
Then I got in a wreck...
My former insurance agent was on the scene. He yelled out to everyone: "I'm dialing 911!" and he was, I watched him as I lay bleeding to unconsciousness. He dialed the nine, the one, then he came up to me, showed me he hadn't finished dialing, and proceeded to "talk" on the phone as if he was summoning aid.

.Have the cake and eat it too.

[viking80]

Should car insurance work the way this idiot wants, you drive with no insurance, and if you have an accident, you just pay $75, and the insurance company pay you for a new car.

Re:.Have the cake and eat it too.

[brit74]

Should car insurance work the way this idiot wants, you drive with no insurance, and if you have an accident, you just pay $75, and the insurance company pay you for a new car.

No, because once you get into a car accident, the damage is already done. With the fire-department situation, there's a period of time where the fire can be stopped before the destruction is done (and the cost of the firefighting service is much less than the cost of the destroyed property). The solution would be to make the homeowner pay a fee for firefighting services (e.g. $1500). Perhaps a better example would be to say that someone could get health insurance, but they don't. Later, they get sick. The doctor arrives with a medicine that could cure the person, but it costs $50. The doctor says that he's not going to help the patient because he didn't pay for health insurance, AND he's not going to sell the patient the cure for $50 -- arguing that it would be better to let the patient die than let him "free ride" on the system. Of course, this leads to a situation where society is worse off because of a person's death -- much worse off than they would've been if they could've paid the $50. Ultimately, it results in a society that is actually a lot worse off because of libertarian "thinking".

Re:.Have the cake and eat it too.

[Straif]

But you're ignoring the fact that when they offered to allow people to pay after the services were rendered the majority of people didn't.

So in your example you'd be asking the doctor to give every patient without health insurance the $50 medication, knowing full well that only a small portion will bother paying him in the end. The result would either be the doctor being forced to raise the cost of the medication to $200 so that those few honest people would be penalized to cover the cost of the freeloaders or the doctor being forced to close shop and there no longer being any medical service to the people in the area, whether insured or not.

And either way, no lives were in danger in this situation. The FD ensured no one was in the home and only refused to protect his property from damage because he had not bothered to contract their services for that. So to continue your medical analogy, it's closer to a doctor arriving at the scene of an accident, bandaging the wounds of the victim and ensuring all life signs were stable and they were good to go and then getting mad at him because he refused to perform breast augmentation surgery on them for free.

Re:.Have the cake and eat it too.

[Unkyjar]

Actually the owner here has insurance. What he doesn't have is emergency services.

Imagine not paying a $75 rescue fee. So that when you got into the car accident emergency workers showed up to cut the other guy out of his wreck and put him in an ambulance then towing away his wreck. Then a few stick around and watch you try to drag yourself out of the car.

Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[ilsaloving]

While yes it is sad that this happened to the family, I think this is a fantastic example of what happens when right wing capitalist values meet reality. They are so obsessed over the evils of socialism, how forcing people to pay for services 'used by other people' is anathema.

So here is what happens when you don't feel you should have to put money into the collective pool for social services. Thanks but no thanks. If some relatively small taxes is the price I have to pay for this kind of peace of mind, I'll take it every time.

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[cplusplus]

It has been said many times, and is so appropriate here - "Taxes buy civilization"

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[thegsusfreek]

If some relatively small taxes is the price I have to pay for this kind of peace of mind, I'll take it every time.

Indeed. If you want peace of mind, pay the fee. That is a "right wing capitalist value".

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that from Civilization 5? Because it should be :)

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[WindBourne]

The problem is that the taxes MUST be used wisely. And sadly, both parties are guilty of not doing that. Look at US federal gov. since 1980. When did it grew the most? With reagan and W. Seriously, they expaneded gov. the most. Yet, where did debt grow the most? Again with reagan and W. Finally, under whose watch did civilization move forward on the most? NOT reagan or W.. reagan did massive cuts to R&D. Likewise, he did massive cuts to programs like maintaining roads/bridges/dams/etc. Likewise, W did the same. In both cases of reagan and W, they simply made the taxes flow to their friends.

So, it is not that taxes buy you civilization. It is that taxes buy you the CHANCE of civilization. Sadly, we are about to vote back in many of the same neo-cons that have been destroying America.

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[Doctor Faustus]

Taxes buy civilization

Wait, what? I paid $50 for it at Best Buy a couple weeks ago!

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[Anonymous Coward]

He bet, he lost. His reponsibility. Personnal responsability buy civilization.

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[amiga3D]

Sadly it seems taxes mostly buy less and less. Government is a necessary evil. The idea is that you have to have it but you must keep it chained and under control or it will turn around and eat you. Government spending (by both parties) is rampant and rapidly going out of control. In a few more years of this idiocracy your taxes will mostly just pay interest on massive debt.

Re:Sad, but I can't help but be thrilled.

[Medievalist]

If some relatively small taxes is the price I have to pay for this kind of peace of mind, I'll take it every time.

Indeed. If you want peace of mind, pay the fee. That is a "right wing capitalist value".

I just wish some right wing capitalist politicians actually existed.

Well, OK, there's Ron Paul, but I'm not in his district.

75$

[EmperorOfCanada]

I would love to see the list of things that this guy spent 75 or more dollars on recently; what size TV did he have, XBox?, Booze?, Cigarettes? Did he have cable?, Satellite TV?

If he was having to decide between food for the kids or Fire coverage then that is when the government should step in. But seeing that he lost a few dogs he was spending at least $75 per year on those. Hmmm.... dogs or fire coverage; that is a choice that he made not the government or the Fire Fighters. As for the fire fighters "helping him out" if they do that enough then they will blow their budget and then it will be time to cut some firefighters.

I feel for the guy but I am getting really sick of hard luck people expecting me to pay for not their bad luck but their ineptitude.

I do have one other question: What does this have to do with us tech heads?

Re:75$

[bluefoxlucid]

I do have one other question: What does this have to do with us tech heads?

Intelligent people are right-brain impaired and like to pretend to be philosophers in the form of bitching about the government. It's what all stupid people do. Oh sure, you can write an OS from scratch; but you're still a monkey with no understanding of what it is you're talking about.

I'm trying to decide if I should change my sig to reference the book Shibumi or the game of Go.

I agree, but still...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with giving people a choice. However, I don't really like the way they're putting it in practice. Can you imagine if there was an accounting error, and they said "you haven't paid your fee" when in fact you did?

I think they should battle the fire if the homeowner is asking them to. If it turns out the guy has paid his 75$ yearly dues, it ends there. If the guy hasn't paid his dues, then he gets stuck with the full bill for the costs of the interventions.

Also, I think them mobilizing just to stand there and do nothing is a little crass. They shouldn't have come at all if they weren't going to help.

Firefighters Guild

[bickerdyke]

Reminds me a bit of this: http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Firefighters'_Guild

Re:Firefighters Guild

[makomk]

That's because, as with a lot of the apparently absurd things in the Discworld books, the Firefighters' Guild is very much based on real history.

The Roof...

[uzd4ce]

The Roof, The Roof, The roof is on fire! They didn't pay the money let the motherf0cker burn!!

Glad not to live in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, not only is it impossible for me to understand how a public service can stand idly by when they had a chance to interfere, but even less can I understand the people here who support this kind of mentality. I'm just glad the US guys are over there on their continent and we're somewhere else.

Not the first time

[Vrallis]

I wish I had some references to back this up (I'm curious about the validity of it myself), but here is something I've heard of for years:

In San Antonio, a number of years ago, a factory opened up in the area. Because the city wouldn't give them any (or enough) tax breaks, they built just outside city limits, and made a big deal of it that they did it to avoid taxes.

Shortly after there was a fire there. SAFD showed up and checked the building for any people who might have been trapped inside then put water on the building next door (which was in city limits). They let the factory burn to the ground at that point.

Again, this is just a story I've heard of for a number of years, but don't know the truth behind it.

Re:Not the first time

[weiserfireman]

don't know if it is 100% true, but I have heard that similar situations have played out before.

Well Duh-Ambulances.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your city and county taxes pay for fire departments. If your county is too poor to pay for a fire department, you may have a volunteer fire department, or the nearest municipality may charge a fee to cover service. If you don't pay that fee, you don't get fire protection.

Good thing ambulances (even city) don't work that way. I have an accident, they pick me up, then charge either me or my insurance. What they did would be the equal of letting the house burn, then sending him a bill for standing around.

GabooN

[Anonymous Coward]

The price of life $18.75, how sad is that? Letting 4 animals die because of $75.00, this shouldn’t be an option to opt out, you must pay the tax. So we have mercs firemen, that is nuts, never heard of such a thing. Good thing there isn’t a police tax or hospital tax, who is the idiot that though this was a good idea? This really blows my mind at how STUPID this story is, how easily this could be avoided, I feel for the south.

Why not put the fire out and charge them a sum for services due, would of been allot more than $75.00, and trust me they have ways to get the money, especially if they would lose the house financially instead of burning down and killing 4 animals, sad sotry.

Re:GabooN

[jjohnson]

They wouldn't have run in there to save the animals even if Crannick was a fully paid subscriber. Firemen don't enter burning buildings just to save pets.

Besides, there was a couple hours between the shed catching fire and the house. All Crannick had to do to save his pets was, you know, open the fucking door.

This is wrong with a capital 'R'

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need to disband this fire department, imprison the fire chief and the mayor (or whomever is in charge) for dereliction of duty and criminal endangerment, dismiss the rest of the firemen who stood by for forgetting their humanity, annex the county (or whatever sorry political arrangement they have there) into some more responsible neighboring entity that can provide basic governance and services, and end the inexcusable, lunch-lady-like "if we put out this fire, we'd have to put out every fire" mentality and the circumstances that allow it to exist.

I've seen mean-spirited bureaucracy, but never thought it'd go this far.

Any political arrangement that can allow _this_ to happen should not exist in a civilized society.

'Stepping up' to help

[Anonymous Coward]

It burns my britches that people are now 'stepping up' to help this dick who does not want to pay for the fire dept.

He might make more on this fire than most people who pay for services. This sucks. Stop helping jerks who just beg for money.

Summary Missing a Few Details

[wbav]

When the 911 operator told him that he hadn't paid the fee, the guy offer to pay for the entire fire fighting cost over the phone and to the firefighters. They refused.

In addition his neighbor did the same to the firefighters. They refused.

Finally, according to the guy, he pays public safety taxes that go to things like shiny new fire engines, that they can drive out to his house (so they can toast smores and watch it burn).

My issues are two fold:
1. The guy offered to pay (he claimed that he forgot about the fee, who hasn't missed a bill payment once in their life?)
2. This runs afoul of the Good Samaritan Laws. Anyone who was driving by that might have helped out, saw the firefighters and figured they were handling things.

For those who think he got what he deserved, think about this: if you're driving though this town and your car catches fire, you didn't pay the fee, so they won't try in save it, but they'll watch your car burn.

Emergency services are not optional. They must be funded through taxes. We need a law to state this, I mean just look up the crash tax.

I pay my taxes so these people are covered when driving though my town, why am I not covered by them when I drive through their town?

Re:Summary Missing a Few Details

[jjohnson]

They refused to allow him to pay the $75 then and there because $75 is the insurance premium. It only meaningfully covers the cost when it's collected over years when your house doesn't burn down.

So charge the actual costs? In the past, the South Fulton Fire Department collected less than 50% of the time when someone offered to pay actual, and because it's county residents outside the municipality's jurisdiction, the city has no legal means to force payment like a lien on the house.

The guy offered to pay (he claimed that he forgot about the fee, who hasn't missed a bill payment once in their life?)

He was lying. He said that three days later on Olbermann. What he said immediately after the fire to a local reporter was "I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75". He was explicitly and consciously being a freeloader.

Re:Summary Missing a Few Details

[ibpooks]

if you're driving though this town and your car catches fire, you didn't pay the fee

Almost every fire department and EMS service in the USA bills non-resisdents for car fires and crashes in their jurisdiction; coverage for non-residents is rare. This has been the case for many years and completely makes sense, especially for towns which have a major highway nearby. Their entire fire department budget would be blown dealing with car fires and crashes for people who were simply passing through while putting nothing into the local economy. The costs must be recovered without putting that burden on locals.

Emergency services are not optional.

Yes they are when the residents of this county elected NOT to fund a fire department of their own. The only option for fire protection was for residents to hire contract service from the nearby city. In a second bout of stupidity, this particular homeowner elected NOT to purchase the contract service.

Re:Summary Missing a Few Details

[wbav]

if you're driving though this town and your car catches fire, you didn't pay the fee

Almost every fire department and EMS service in the USA bills non-resisdents for car fires and crashes in their jurisdiction; coverage for non-residents is rare. This has been the case for many years and completely makes sense, especially for towns which have a major highway nearby. Their entire fire department budget would be blown dealing with car fires and crashes for people who were simply passing through while putting nothing into the local economy. The costs must be recovered without putting that burden on locals.

My point is, the firefighters were told not to put out a fire. Your implicit claim is, the EMT/firefighters would still attempt to save you and your property. My claim is, with this pay as you go type service, they are forbidden from doing so.

In addition, the claim that towns near freeways don't get any benefit from the traffic, is nuts. If you discard economy boosting things such as people stopping for gas or food, you need to look at if the town would even exist if the freeway wasn't there. You would need a population that was completely self sufficient in terms of food, fuel, energy and other resources to claim that there was no benefit of that freeway.

Emergency services are not optional.

Yes they are when the residents of this county elected NOT to fund a fire department of their own. The only option for fire protection was for residents to hire contract service from the nearby city. In a second bout of stupidity, this particular homeowner elected NOT to purchase the contract service.

Okay, let me rephrase what I said, Emergency services must never be made optional. I don't want an EMT telling me that because I missed a bill they aren't going to save my life or my wife's life.

Re:Summary Missing a Few Details

[wbav]

So two points, first the fire station did have to pay the cost of driving the truck out there, I mean there were other houses in danger. If they didn't they would be endangering public safety by letting a fire grow out of control.

Second, call it what you want, a fee, an insurance premium, the fact is these firefighters were told they not do their job because someone didn't pay them enough for it.

And when someone who did pay for it, asked them to do their job (the neighbor) again they refused. It strikes me as insanity, because the sooner you put out a fire, the less likely it is to do more damage to everyone involved. If embers go up and catch the neighbor's roof on fire, isn't that now gross negligence by fire department?

Re:Summary Missing a Few Details

[jjohnson]

You're right, it is insanity, but the firefighters aren't the ones to blame here. They were put into a position of choosing to do what they're supposed to do, but at a cost driving the municipality deeper into debt, and setting an example for all the other Gene Crannicks of the county that you don't, in fact, have to pay, which means less funding for them to do their job. The city is 30k in the hole servicing the Gene Crannicks of the county because they can't collect afterwards from them.

As someone else put it, everyone acted rationally from their perspective; it's the whole situation that's irrational. The villain here is the opt-in system of protection. You don't have an opt-in system if the firefighters just do their job regardless, you have a system where there are suckers who pay and non-suckers who don't. Enforcing the opt-in nature of the system gets you a ton of shit from people like yourself who are understandably horrified at the image of a bunch of firemen watching a house burn down. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't.

So why do I blame Crannick? Because he and the other county residents have repeatedly shot down plans by the county to institute blanket coverage and help support the FD that services them. They choose not to have blanket coverage. They choose an opt-in system. And then they choose not to pay, counting on moral approbation to force the firemen's hoses out. They're playing the municipality and the fire department for suckers, and I don't blame the fire department one bit for refusing to play that game.

Re:Summary Missing a Few Details

[WindBourne]

Hmmm. I will assume that you work at McD's. As such, I am electing to NOT pay you for the burgers, but I expect you to feed me for the next year. I mean that IS what you are saying.

Re:Summary Missing a Few Details

[icebrain]

This guy didn't just "forget" to pay his fee for the year. He had a consistent track record of not paying for several years running. And given that, why the hell would the fire department then believe "oh, I promise I'll pay, honest!" on the scene? I wouldn't trust the word of a guy who lets his son set fire to his house trying to burn leaves, and then repeatedly refuses to pay his bill.

Re:Summary Missing a Few Details

[ibpooks]

Your implicit claim is, the EMT/firefighters would still attempt to save you and your property.

In this case, the fire chief said the department would have responded if a person's life was in danger regardless of the fee payment. It was made clear to them that all occupants were out of the house and this was only property conservation so they didn't respond. There is a big difference between saving lives and saving property, which is probably insured anyway (unless the homeowner made yet another massive blunder).

the claim that towns near freeways don't get any benefit from the traffic, is nuts.

I don't claim they get no benefit, just not enough to support the emergency services that non-residents desire.

Okay, let me rephrase what I said, Emergency services must never be made optional. I don't want an EMT telling me that because I missed a bill they aren't going to save my life or my wife's life.

I agree with you, which is why I choose to live in a city with emergency services paid for by property taxes, and I assume you have also. The people in this story chose to live in a rural area outside of the city (probably at least to some degree because of the lower tax rate), and because of that have fewer services at their disposal.

What I disagree with is that city services should be forced to provide subsidized services to non-residents; nor should the establishment of a fire department be forced on these residents. If they feel they need fire protection, they should organize a department through the local government or collectively contract for services so that individual properties are not omitted from coverage as happened here. Ultimately it should be their choice, not mine or yours even if we think they chose poorly.

Fee for Service

[Jodka]

South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.

So charge a higher one-time fee to homeowners who want to pay for the service after their homes starts burning and a different, lower, periodic fee for those who want to pay in advance of a possible fire.

There is nothing wrong with a "fee for service" model for some services traditionally provided by local governments. What is wrong with this story is that the service providers refused to provide the service for a fee in an emergency. It's like refusing to sell a starving man food or a poisoned man antidote.

Re:Fee for Service

[dbc]

Yes, exactly. Bill him for the full cost of putting out the fire. Then it is between him and his insurance company to sort out where the money comes from. As it is, the insurance company is going to be paying off his house and contents -- paying a fire fighting bill would have been cheaper. Also, the insurance company is now going to raise premiums on all the neighbors, regardless of whether they are up to date on their fees, because insurance companies *do* rate rural fire departments, and *do* calculate your distance to the fire station and fire hydrants in rural areas for each and every home-owner's policy they write. (I know, I used to live in a semi-rural place where that mattered. Volunteer fire department, 6 miles away, no fire hydrants. All three factors caused an up-charge in fire coverage. As they should.)

Ironically, some of those fire fighters no doubt live in the district covered by that fire station. Their fire insurance premiums are now going to go up. Karma is a bitch some times.

And where is PETA and the SPCA? The fire department let four live animals burn.

Really, the only rational answer here is to put out the fire and send a bill for the full cost. That, after all, is what the California Department of Forestry sometimes does if you do something sufficiently shtoopid and start a wild fire in the mountains.

It's been said already and in different ways, but

[Tiger]

... the firefighters did exactly the right thing.

You can talk about what kind of crackmonkey 19th century scheme it is to have a subscription fire service in the first place, but that's another discussion.

If you have a subscription fire service and you want it to survive you have to protect it from freeloaders. One saved house here will mean a whole lot of lost subscriptions from people who realize you don't have to pay to get your home saved. Then, the service collapses and what do you say when a responsible former subscriber's place goes up in flames as a result?

It's not like these services just let you forget to pay, either. They do everything they can to make sure you know what it means if you haven't and don't pony up your equivalent-of-a-cup-of-coffee-a-week.

Problem out of nothing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now maybe other people will see it as an example on why it may pay out to pay for the fire service after all ... if you have freedom, there must be cases when people screw up. That is absolutely normal and paying for consequences is actually very educational. Well ... not taking it to the extreme of course ... These people had a lesson, no reason to turn to socialism. Do you turn to socialism every time some company bancrupts?

Re:Problem out of nothing?

[bluefoxlucid]

Do you turn to socialism every time some company bankrupts?

Uh? Have you been paying attention or were you not asking Obama?

A Better Car Analogy

[thegwo]

I didn't pay my auto insurance premiums last year...

Then I got in a wreck...

Why should my insurance company pay for my accident...

You're missing the point. The point isn't that he should get services without paying the $75. The point is that the firefighters responded and just stood there, and wouldn't help put the fire out at any price. "You're too late" is what they said when Crannick offered to pay whatever the cost.

If you think of this in terms of the car insurance analogy, imagine you got in a wreck and didn't have insurance. Except when you go to the body shop, they say "sorry, we can't help you, you don't have any insurance." "But," you retort, "I'll pay whatever the cost out of my own pocket." "Sorry," they reply, "it's too late. We won't fix your car even if you pay for the full cost."

It doesn't take a lot of thought to realize that makes no damn sense.

Re:A Better Car Analogy

[weiserfireman]

Contracts taken under duress are hard to enforce in Court.

This community had already tried the "bill them $500 for a response if they didn't pay in advance route" and it was not effective. Less than 50% of the people paid and the lawyers told them they would have to go to Court to collect on the non-payers. Once word of that got around, no one paid the $500 bill.

Re:A Better Car Analogy

[JerkBoB]

You're missing the point. The point isn't that he should get services without paying the $75. The point is that the firefighters responded and just stood there, and wouldn't help put the fire out at any price. "You're too late" is what they said when Crannick offered to pay whatever the cost.

If you think of this in terms of the car insurance analogy, imagine you got in a wreck and didn't have insurance. Except when you go to the body shop, they say "sorry, we can't help you, you don't have any insurance." "But," you retort, "I'll pay whatever the cost out of my own pocket." "Sorry," they reply, "it's too late. We won't fix your car even if you pay for the full cost."

It doesn't take a lot of thought to realize that makes no damn sense.

No, friend. You're missing the point. Unless Crannick was offering to pay $30k (or whatever his share of the true cost of rolling trucks out, maintaining readiness, wear/tear, etc. was) ON THE SPOT, the firefighters would have had to take his word that 1. he had the money to pay them, eventually 2. that he was committed to paying them. Basically, extending him credit (with all the problems inherent with credit -- collection, legal fees, administration, etc.), or else eating a huge loss. One time, for one guy, maybe... But if they do it once, then they open themselves to discrimination charges after they realize they can't do it for everyone and they let the next person's home burn.

The fire department (from a neighboring town, from a neighboring STATE) isn't out to make a profit, but they do have to pay for themselves somehow, right? The people of the county this guy lives in decided not to pay taxes for a fire department. Their choice. They also had the choice to pay what is effectively a $75/year fire coverage premium. The only way such schemes make any sense whatsoever is if most people who pay a relatively small fee never need the coverage to which they're entitled.

Your car insurance/body shop analogy isn't accurate at all, because it ignores the distinction between an insurance premium and the true cost of coverage.

Re:A Better Car Analogy

[thegwo]

I fail to see how my analogy isn't accurate. In fact, the whole point of my version was to highlight that cost of services rendered is much higher than the premium. That's how insurance works, after all.

firefighters would have had to take his word that 1. he had the money to pay them, eventually 2. that he was committed to paying them.

You're getting bogged down in specifics. Nobody would actually carry out the billing the way you describe, with having to sign a contract or something on the spot, or extend credit. A more realistic way to recoup the costs would be for the county to levy a hefty fee on behalf of the town's fire department. And, like a parking ticket, if he didn't pay, it would violate the law and he could go to prison.

This argument isn't about specifics on how such an arrangement would work. The point is that 1) fire control is a public safety issue, since it can affect more than just the single homeowner, and 2) if the $75 is considered a "premium", why would it be impossible for the city fire department to put out the fire anyway and work with the government to recoup the full cost to the firefighters? There was no good reason to make a system work the way it did here, and that's the whole point.

Re:A Better Car Analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. I was gonna post something earlier like this, but I couldnt do it with out calling the other person an idiot or a retard.

I agree... bill him

[Sedated2000]

This is a case of money. He didn't pay, and they didn't want to put out the fire "for free". They should have gone anyway but then billed him for the full cost of the deployment. That's what would happen if he didn't have insurance but broke his arm right? Even still, he should have had the fee paid before hand. Especially if you're letting your dumb kid burn crap in your yard.

Re:I agree... bill him

[jjohnson]

In previous cases of billing the non-subscriber afterwards, the South Fulton FD collects less than 50% of the time.

The FD is a municipal organization; the non-subscribers are county residents. The municipality has no legal means to coerce payment if the non-subscriber won't write a check afterwards, besides simply suing the houseowner, which would cost far more than they would get.

Basically, when one of them calls up and says "I'll pay anything!", he usually doesn't mean it, and often can't. Planning to bill them afterwards is how the FD is $30k in the hole servicing the county residents.

Re:I agree... bill him

[ceejayoz]

In previous cases of billing the non-subscriber afterwards, the South Fulton FD collects less than 50% of the time.

So you do what hospitals, banks, etc. do - bill everyone several times the actual cost to make up for the fact that some won't pay. Send collections agencies after the folks who don't pay up, too.

Re:I agree... bill him

[jjohnson]

That works when you have a large population, and most of the paying ones don't realize that they're being overcharged to cover the freeloaders and the truly needy who can't pay. South Fulton has a population of around 10k; the rest of the county around them add a couple thousand more. The nominal actual fee they were charging was $500, and failing to collect in the majority of cases. As that goes up to cover freeloaders, the collection rate goes down. The rate curves on this just don't work.

As for collection agencies, you can't enter a contract with someone who's house is on fire--it's the definition of duress. Short version is that the municipality is fucked if the county resident decides not to write a check.

Re:I agree... bill him

[WindBourne]

A number of hospitals around the USA are going out of business. Why? Because they provide service to illegals, and then bill them for it. What happens? Over 90% of those illegals simply do not pay. The worse part is that ER costs are extremely high and the illegals use it like a drop in clinic.

As others have pointed out, the firefighters DID bill before. And 50% did not pay.

American Society is slowly moving to a situation where everybody pays for their service. Interestingly, in the wealthy areas, it is still treated as a socialism approach. That is, all services are provided and everybody is taxed. Simple as that. It is only in middle to lower class area that have republicans controlling them that get this approach.

This is what the teabag future looks like.

[headhot]

If the teabaggers had their way, this is what government would run like.. A government by the people, for the people that can afford it.

Now, what happens when there is a paperwork mistake and the fee had been paid? What if it were a case of arson, and stopping the building from burning would have preserved evidence? What does the insurance company do? Raise rates for every one in that town?

Crassus

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'original' fire department (instead of an ad-hoc neighborhood crew) was invented by a roman named Crassus. Yes, his name is the root of the modern word "crass". Had a bunch of slaves on the lookout for fires in Rome. When one broke out, they all ran there as fast as they could and stood around - until the foreman completed fire-pressured negotiations for their services. Usually the owner gave up the title and rented the property from then on. Crassus ended up owning most of Rome.

Burn baby burn

[glittermage]

Owner did not pay the fee when due so house burns. It's like insurance, you don't want to pay the fee until you need it. Kudos to firefighters for standing by their policy. Otherwise, tax payers in city & others who pay will have to subsidize people who choose not to pay.

Shame on the organizations that condemn the firefighter actions. The general feeling that someone will pay for the costs except the person responsible is pervasive. If the homeowner can't manage his affairs properly then let him enjoy the trailer.

"Free Market"

[unity100]

Pay up, or burn up. its that simple .............. yea, really. its that simple. dont come up with shitty rationalizations and excuses. it is what it is.

but health insurance does work that way as you can

[Anonymous Coward]

but health insurance does work that way as you can't buy on your own all the time and it's tied to your job.

also you can pay $400 /m and then get a 5,000K copay and then be told you had X 20 years ago and that is a pre existing condition.

Welcome to Liberatarian/Teabagger econ 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the world of Libertarian Economics.

All fees and taxes are voluntary, if you don't pay, you might get burned.

Also, if you don't pay, you get to whine to the world about how you got screwed when something happened, and you decided to then pay.

I pity the pets who were burned to death in terror, because their owner was too much of a cheap SOB to take care of business.

And considering where he's living, he's probably going to go right out a vote for some teabagger, even though the teabagger mentality just burned his house down.

sorry, mod me down for way off topic but...

[Cowclops]

What the heck is with the extra G in "whining?" I thought it was a typo the first time I saw it but now I've seen lots of different people do it? Is this pronounced like it rhymes with "singing" or does it rhyme with "cringing?" I've never, ever, heard anyone anywhere say this out loud, not even on like British TV shows, so where the heck did this come from? Is "whing" even a word when you leave off the -ing?

Re:sorry, mod me down for way off topic but...

[CaptSlaq]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define:whinge

Re:sorry, mod me down for way off topic but...

[Cowclops]

The dictionary definition doesn't really clarify the scenario, other than pointing out that it does mean the same thing as whine, and that its chiefly british - two things you could find just by reading my own post.

The issue is that while its a british phrase, its not widely used enough to have a good web site explaining why its "whine" in the US and "whinge" elsewhere. It would also mean why I could go for so long without hearing it in any actual media, just random people on the internet saying it.

Re:sorry, mod me down for way off topic but...

[fyngyrz]

"Whinge" is English for "please put up more cameras to watch us."

Re:sorry, mod me down for way off topic but...

[CaptSlaq]

Comparing the etymology of "whine" to "whinge", it would seem to be that they're both effectively the same. I suspect this may be a dialect thing.

I am not an etymologist, but the wikitionary appears to be a good tool for starting that research.

Which is linked from the google definition page.

Re:Libertarians get blamed for this?

[ceoyoyo]

It was a neighbouring city government that had agreed to provide fire services on an individual basis to people in a county that didn't want to either set up it's own fire department or be annexed by the city.

In this case the city government was just like a private contractor.

No even close

[Shivetya]

this is what happens when people do have to take responsibility for their own actions.

We have a group of people, this happens in other places across the US, who live in areas with limited services, including some totally absent. I have been in areas where phone service required months of wait. Cable was "you pay us to run it and we do it" but still fire and police were part of my taxes.

The problem here is, that this should not have been an optional service. Public safety is one area where government should not be opt in.

I can find lots of wonderful disasters or reduced services in socialist countries by reading the news search engines, where those in power are far more than equal to those they served.

This has nothing but government type, but living in areas where essential services have not been fully established and for some odd reason, an opt in on essential public safety services was chosen. It is quite possible this choice was valid when only a handful of people were involved.

Oh shut up

[Sycraft-fu]

The only thing that tires me more than a frothing libertarian is a frothing libertarian hater, of which there seem to be more than actual libertarians.

If you knew anything about what the hell you were talking about you'd realize that libertarians aren't opposed to all government, just parts of it. As with any group of humans there's variance, some are quite moderate, some are more extreme. However you find that things like military and public safety, which fire departments are, are things they almost universally are ok with taxes paying for.

There's a big difference between saying "Reduce or eliminate many government programs," and saying "Eliminate ALL government." That would be anarchists, not libertarians.

Also please realize the people suggesting bill him mean "Bill him for the cost of putting out the fire." It would be a case of "Pay $75/year in insurance, or pay the full cost if there is a fire."

That is the proper way to handle a situation like this, since fire is a public safety issue. Not putting out a fire should never be an option since the problems isn't that a house may burn down, it is that all of them may burn down. Ask London what happens when you lack proper fire control.

Re:Oh shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

The nazis come over and bomb you?

Re:Oh shut up

[The Flymaster]

And what if there are no fires for 3 years? Who pays to maintain the fire station? "Pay when you need us" is simply not a workable model.

Re:Oh shut up

[Helix_Sky]

"It would be a case of 'Pay $75/year in insurance, or pay the full cost if there is a fire.'" And what if they can't pay the full cost of the fire. And how would you know... right then... while the house is burning down? Oh and since libertarians aren't against all governments, then we are just debating which government services are essential. Personally, since my body doesn't seem differentiate between my dying from a terrorist bomb or cancer, I'd put health care on the essential list. Truth be told, since my chance of dieing from a terrorist attack is much, much, much less than from say a heart attack, I prioritize health care above the military.

Re:Oh shut up

[dcam]

You might have to illuminate the difference between liberterians and anarchists. From an non-US perspective it seems to be debating whether the pot or the kettle is more blank.

Re:Oh shut up

[khallow]

And what if there are no fires for 3 years? Who pays to maintain the fire station? "Pay when you need us" is simply not a workable model.

Sure it is. If you're having fires so infrequently that you can't afford to maintain a fire department, then maybe you don't need a fire department at all.

Welcome to adulthood.

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't the first time. I remember learning about a very similar case when I was in grade school 25 years ago. This is how the world works. You are not entitled to any service. The supreme court has already decided that you are not entitled to police protection. It is childish beyond belief that people think that they're entitled to fire protection. You can't wait until you're in an accident to buy car insurance. Until this month, you couldn't wait until you get sick to buy health insurance. You can't wait until your house is on fire to pay for fire protection. There are consequences for every decision we make.

On the contrary

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a still a government-owned and operated service, is it not? The fact that they have to pay a direct fee for certain locations doesn't change that. So how, exactly, is this better or different than privatizing firefighting service?

This wasn't a failure of a private service at all as you tried to imply. There is no private service. This was a failure of government service, no matter how you try to spin it. Socialism funded the service, and the service failed -- so while this isn't necessarily a point for privatization, it certainly isn't a point for socialism either.

Opportunity knocks

[wulfbyte]

It would appear that this is a great time to start a for profit fire department there.

I think Darwin already addressed this issue ..

[fkx]

know what I mean?

DutchmanInCanada

[Anonymous Coward]

Dears,

Europe is not socialist. It is a social democracy, or often called Christian democracy. Nothing to do with socialism.
It means that all government services are free, funded by tax.

But it goes further, minimum 25 paid holidays, relatively high minimum wage (approx $12). People on welfare get internet for free, rent is partially paid, so people can live respectful lifes.

This would also happen in ancient Rome.

[jbssm]

Even 3rd world African countries have free fire protection.

In fact, as far has I know, the last state that asked a fee for fire protection was Rome. I think that says a lot about USA. Even more when I see so many comments here in Slashdot supporting the fire department action.

Re:This would also happen in ancient Rome.

[ralphrmartin]

In Britain, you can see houses with strange symbols on the walls. These were marks from various insurance companies from the (I think) 18th century. If you had a fire, various insurance company fire wagons turned up. Of course, if you were insured with Circle, and Triangle turned up first, the Triangle guys would just jeer and tell you that you should have insured with them, until eventually the Circle guys turned up.

Re:This would also happen in ancient Rome.

[dunezone]

Thats because the town voted against a taxed based municipal fire department and instead opted into paying a monthly fee to another department outside of local government. The guy refused to pay the fee, they warned him, and his house burned down. To paint a broad picture that this says a lot about the USA is pretty ignorant. Most of the country has a fire service provided by paying proper taxes and or fees to another department. This one particular town decided to go with the fee based route, a citizen refused to go along with even that payment and he got burned (no pun intended).

Re:This would also happen in ancient Rome.

[wanax]

You might want to check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting
Publicly funded firefighting has been a comparatively recent idea, especially in the US (Cincinnati established the first funded, full-time professional brigade in 1853) . And the extension of professional firefighting brigades to non-urban areas in the US has happened mostly post-WWII.

Re:This would also happen in ancient Rome.

[x_IamSpartacus_x]

mmmkay... I live in one (3rd world African country). Mozambique does NOT offer free fire protection to people in the boonies like this guy. I've actually lived in 3 "3rd world African countries" in the past 2 years (Botswana, Angola and Mozambique) and NONE of them offer free fire protection to people outside main cities. Botswana doesn't even offer it to their 3rd largest city/village (Maun, where I lived). It was a bunch of private citizens (I was one of them) that did it on a volunteer basis. I can't speak with complete authority on most African's opinions though I think I can speculate that most sub-Saharan Africans would be pretty happy if someone showed up to fight a fire in their home even if they lived in the capitol of their country.

Re:This would also happen in ancient Rome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even 3rd world African countries have free fire protection.

In fact, as far has I know, the last state that asked a fee for fire protection was Rome.

That's not even remotely true.

Also, there's really no such thing as free fire protection.

I think that says a lot about USA

I think your post says "a lot about USA" too. People can get out of high school almost completely illiterate, and still try to comment on complex issues.

Re:This would also happen in ancient Rome.

[jbssm]

But from what you say, you have free firefighting, it's just that it isn't enough. It's a very different thing.

I also know that Angola, and Cabo Verde for instance has it (the ones I checked).

The issue her is not lack of resources, the issue is having it and then, just because you didn't pay a fee, the fireman guys come and wait there while your house to burn to the ground.

Re:This would also happen in ancient Rome.

[x_IamSpartacus_x]

That's exactly the point of the fee. If there wasn't a fee the resources wouldn't be there.

Cabo Verde is TINY (1500 sq miles make up the entire country) and is relatively easy to offer fire services to.

Angola offers firefighting in Luanda and, because of the intense corruption in Angola, (rated in the absolute bottom rank by Transparency International) it would almost certainly not be "free". Having lived there I can say no one would expect a firefighter to show up at your flaming house and put it out for free.

Complain all you want about the USA but don't hold up developing countries as some sort of utopias that are getting it all right.

That's rather different

[Sycraft-fu]

That's not a public safety issue. See the thing with fire isn't so much that your house might burn down, it is that everyone's house might burn down. It spreads, and quickly. That is why fires always need to get put out rapidly.

If your stuff gets stolen, well that is an issue for only you. Hence it is more or less a completely private issue. If your house catches fire that is an issue for everyone.

In a fee case like this the correct answer is put out the fire, and bill the home owner the cost of the operation. Public safety is preserved, FD gets the money they need, etc.

As it stands this FD is likely to get sued by the insurance company of both the house they let burn down and the neighbor's house that was damaged. They were made aware of a situation they should deal with and didn't. Not sure the insurance companies will win, but I'm pretty sure the FD will have to fight the suits.

Should have charged a fee

[canajin56]

Well, they shouldn't have just let it burn. Put the fire out, then charge him services rendered. It costs $500-$1000 to respond to a fire and put it out, let him pay. They showed up to make sure it doesn't spread to his neighbor who does pay the fee. That makes no sense, putting it out is the easier way to prevent it from spreading. Once it's torched an entire property it's a lot bigger and harder to control.

That being said, I hate people with an entitled attitude who think it should be fine to pay insurance retroactively when they need it, since the company gets the same amount of money as if he'd been paying the whole time. In BC, "Universal" Health Insurance still has a premium to pay. So, you can pay your premium. (IIRC $150 for 3 months, but with discounts for people with low income. Households making under, I believe, $20,000 pay $0). If you don't pay your premiums, then you have pay-as-you-go service. Visit a doctor, you pay for that visit. Need surgery, you pay for that too. Anti-government types refuse to pay the premium because they "ain't sick" and it's just another tax for no benefit to them. Then they have a heart attack and say "ok ok ok I've learned my lesson, I'll pay my premiums this month, you cover my bills..." Doesn't work that way, you want to gamble with your life for less money than your satellite bill, go right ahead.

Re:Should have charged a fee

[Straif]

They used to operate this way, charging $500 after the service was provided, but less than 50% of the people in the county bothered to ever pay the bill. So in effect the 2500 people of South Fulton, whose fire department this is, were being taxed to provide fire services to the 30,000 people of Obion county who were not being taxed, fined or levied for any fire services. Obion County's own report on the matter considered this unsustainable and because the residents of the county still didn't want a levy to pay for a contract with the SFFD the $75 annual fee system was devised and membership became optional.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Dexter Herbivore]

Aaaahhhh..... got to love the American Dream.

Socialism in Nowhere, Tennessee

[drumcat]

To every Tea Party type that thinks it was a shame, get over it. Fire protection is socialism. I WANT SOCIALISM. Let's fund these damned things, huh? Pay a fucking tax at the STATE level. And if they can't pay, let the STATE deal with it. Fire zones should be based on a municipality, but should be funded in the same way STATE POLICE are funded.

Re:Socialism in Nowhere, Tennessee

[Robin47]

Nice. I have been burglarized/robbed 8 times so far. Nothing has ever been found and no one ever caught. Those state funds are working well, aren't they? I have a home security system now and that seems to have alleviated most of the problem. The thieves seem to go to the other houses in the neighborhood are not willing to pay the private company for the service. Put the money where it does the most good.

Re:Socialism in Nowhere, Tennessee

[goldspider]

Apparently the folks in this municipality disagree with you (as is their right), and opted for an insurance model.

The system worked as intended. If you don't like how it works, don't f-ing live there!

Re:Socialism in Nowhere, Tennessee

[tibman]

I'm with you that some social services are good, but this is also how we get "bridges to nowhere". If someone wants to live in the middle of nowhere and pay for (almost) zero services.. why not let him/her do it?

What happens when human life is at risk?

[zerofoo]

We can all debate the merits of pay for use systems, but for me, this is nothing more than an academic exercise.

What happens when human life is lost? Do we as a society not even attempt to save someone's life because a fee has not been paid?

For all those who claim all life is precious - you just put a price on human life - in this case , had someone perished in the fire, the price would have been $75.00.

This doesn't seem right.

Re:What happens when human life is at risk?

[svendsen]

There are other articles that point out this: The city stated if a life was at risk then the SOP would have been for the fire fighters to go in and rescue them. Since there were no lives at risk, the fire fighters were not going to risk their lives to fight a fire that the home owner refused to pay the $75/yr to save possessions.

Also mentioned in other articles was that the fire fighters/city insurance would have not covered any injuries because of the situation (i.e. no contract with the home owner who was outside the city limits) for fire services. So what would have the bill been if a fire fighter got hurt/killed and no insurance to cover them?

Why is that surprising?

[BergZ]

If libertarians had their way and fire departments were privatized across the country:
Incidents like this would become an almost daily affair.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[dbc]

No, no. The would put out the fire and then check their books when they got back to the fire station. If you had paid your fee, no problem. If you hadn't, they would send you a bill for the full cost. I suspect they would *hope* that you hadn't paid the fee so they could put out your fire at the fully grossed-up fee.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[sv_libertarian]

Pay the fee, or accept a lien on your property for the full cost of the fire suppression. Seems reasonable to me. And I'll wager his insurance company would have happily paid the full cost of suppression, vs what they are going to have to pay out now for the lost goods. And then I imagine he would see a higher insurance rate for his own negligence not only in maintaining good fire safety practices on his property, but for failing to pay the local fire department. Win all around. Fire department gets paid, guy gets the fire put out. If he has to deal with a $7500 or whatever lien, that is his responsibility. Or barring that, perhaps his local community will get together, and create a fire district.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[misexistentialist]

Most fires result in near or total destruction even with the intervention of dozens of firefighters with millions of dollars of equipment. I don't know if it's libertarian, but volunteer fire departments are the most that's needed.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[_Sharp'r_]

Rural/Metro in AZ is an actual private fire department (as opposed to the city government department in the article). Their policy in situations like this is to put out the fire and then bill the non-subscribing owner for the cost of services.

Private fire companies in cities in the early days of the U.S. typically had a policy of putting out fires for poor people and non-subscribers so that they wouldn't threaten their paying customers.

In any case, this event is a failure of County government and the folks in the County who don't organize their own fire department. It has nothing to do with private fire departments.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[kcurtis]

And who would pay such a fee? I would not pay a fee for services that I had not agreed to, and no court would force me to. And if you force me to, then it is called a TAX. But we're against taxes, right?

Re:Why is that surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was a government fire department, which is quite different from a privatized fire department. Equating the two and using this incident to argue against the libertarian viewpoint is intellectually dishonest. This is not an example of a failure of the free market or privately provided services because the services were provided (or not provided) by government in this case. This has nothing to do with privatization.

I recommend reading this article for a better description of this:

http://blog.mises.org/14158/did-the-free-market-burn-down-the-house/

Re:Why is that surprising?

[roman_mir]

Personal choice. If people decided not to pay their service bill, they wouldn't get the service. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[BergZ]

You assume that the property owner has the ability to pay the fine (or lien against his property).
What if the property owner is already heavily in debt and his other creditors have higher priority?
In that case the privatized fire department goes ahead and puts out the fire: They will have to eat the cost.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

  No, it wouldn't. People would pay their fees or get the service paid for through their home owner's insurance.

  You heavy government types are unimaginative. We really don't need government for everything.

  You cry that privatization of services like this won't work because you yourself wouldn't pay for it. You say it's uncaring and callous cause you yourself want others to provide for you. You want a life where others have to worry about your safety, your care, your survival. Where others have to take the risk, pay the costs, and deal with the consequences.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[BergZ]

No I'm just smart enough to be able to see the many and obvious flaws with a libertarian system.
For starters it is obvious that no matter whether fire fighting services are public or private that they must put out the fire for anyone who calls because there might be people (other than the owner) trapped in the burning building.
Since it is a given that the fire department MUST respond then a privately owned fire department does not have a choice of customers. They must put out the fire even for customers that are so heavily in debt that they will never be able to pay for the service.
In that case the person who ought to pay can't; The business that ought to refuse service can't; Who pays?

Re:Why is that surprising?

[Jason Levine]

I think the poster meant to say "bill" instead of fee for. You would be given the option of paying a $75 per year fee as an insurance of sorts. If you didn't pay the fee and had a fire, you would recieve a bill for services rendered for the full amount of fighting the fire. (There would be some kind of form that you could sign at when they arrived.) Considering that the full cost would likely be very high (say, $10,000), people would be more likely to pay the $75/year fee than risk the $10,000+ bill.

Of course, if you refused to pay the annual fee and refused to pay for their services, then the firefighters could stick around to make sure your fire spread past your property.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[sjames]

Agreed, but I'm guessing multiple times a day with a few who paid on time but got lost in the accounting for good measure.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because obviously fire departments that failed to fight fires would stay in business and no one or their insurance companies would sue the crap out of them for failing to fulfill their contractual duties and no one would step up and form volunteer or not for profit departments to fill the gaps.

Right.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, it's not Fulton COUNTY, TN. It's OBION Co., TN, and across the border is Fulton, KY. The town is SOUTH Fulton, TN.

Second, in the not so distant past, there was NO option for the Obion Co. residents outside of the auspices of the jurisdiction of a town with a municipal fire protection service to even have the OPTION of paying $75 to gain such protection for one year. The town of South Fulton was gracious and magnanimous for doing THAT much. And when a subscriber's home was threatened, they did swing into action, and as stated, if human life were threatened, they would also swing into action, just like doctors in the ER treating people they know will never pay their hospital bills.

Now, how about a long view on this subscription fire protection issue. Cranick didn't pay and now everyone and their brother-in-law twice removed knows what happened to him. What do you think is happening right now in the South Fulton, TN fire department? I submit a lot of rural homeowners are looking around and realizing that they don't have fire protection and are deciding to pay the subscription fee now. A few cases like Cranick have to happen every now and then to show the irresponsible what the unprepared for consequences can be. Thus enlightened, those who are unprepared have the option of preparing, or opting in to the protection.

In the long run, this IS how Libertarianism DOES work.

And I hope his son gets a nice assaulting a public servant charge on his permanent record.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[danpbrowning]

Most fires result in near or total destruction even with the intervention of dozens of firefighters with millions of dollars of equipment.

Do you have any references for that? Among my family and acquaintances there have been two house fires with the intervention of dozens of firefighters with millions of dollars of equipment, and neither one resulted in near or total destruction. Just a refinished garage and bathroom.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollocks.

There are plenty of socialist liberal parties all over the world (in Europe in particular) who did away with farcical situations like this a hundred years ago.

Re:Why is that surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. As has been pointed out above, this is not the result of libertarianism run amok. In fact, a libertarian would be annoyed by this result for any number of reasons. Clearly you have (a) never met a libertarian and (b) never read anything written by a libertarian. Instead, you've probably (a) hung out with anti-libertarian types (you can tell because they are Republican / Democrat) and (b) read stuff by anti-libertarians. I know, life's hard if you are always having to think, think, think...

Two sides...

[bsherm]

My gut reaction was that they should have put out the fire anyway. Then I started thinking about it and no matter what they guy says at the moment, when you flood his house and ruin something or other potentially you could be opened up to a lawsuit because "officially" you weren't contracted to put out the fire. It is extremely stupid, but that's the society that we've built here. I would argue that as friends and neighbors we should do everything we can in this situation to help out, but you can't today. Too many people will look for the easiest scapegoat to unload their problems on. The conservative says, he didn't pay, he doesn't get the service. The liberal says, society should provide for it no matter what. Then the liberal sues society for any unfortunate outcome. Our society is in a lose lose situation on this one.

Charge by the hour

[Anonymous Coward]

A rural area I previously lived in had a $100 annual fire protection fee. When the fire department was called out to someone who didn't pay, the county would charge a response fee plus hourly charges and equipment charges for fighting the fire. It could add up to several thousand dollars very quickly, but it did help protect neighbors and surrounding areas by not letting the fire grow out of control.

Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wow.

That's as much from the comments in this thread as the story.

America, you really do earn your international reputation on a daily basis.

Which actually works just like other insurance

[Sycraft-fu]

That's more or less what this system is, an insurance system. You pay a fee, and for that you get coverage. So compare it to theft insurance. If you pay the fee, and your stuff gets stolen, well you are just out whatever the deductible is. If you do not pay for it, you are out the cost of replacing your stuff.

Same kind of shit here. You pay the fee, then you get the fire put out at no additional cost. You don't, you get to pay the full cost.

In both cases, it is your choice to pay an insurance fee, and risk that money going to something you never use, or pay the entire cost if something happens.

Only thing is it should be non-optional to have the fire put out since it is a public safety hazard.

If Only

[Anonymous Coward]

If only he had paid the fee, he would not have regrets.

Sometmes those life lessons are painful. I'm sure that now he wishes he a had paid the $75 fee. Life can suck pretty bad.

So much wrong with this picture

[curado]

His home owner's insurance - I'm completely bewildered if they don't require some kind of fire coverage in his policy. They shouldn't even cover his loss. In a situation like that, I don't see why they don't require proof of fire coverage or drop his policy (which would default his loan). Fire dept - should be required to respond to the fire regardless of whether he has paid his dues or not, and then collect for the cost of services rendered afterward. If you call an ambulance, they don't check if you have health insurance before dispatching. Sounds like very sketchy legal ground because they are selling their services as a form of insurance.

HOWEVER - he deserved to have his house burn down!

[bussdriver]

The idiots in that area of the country don't like taxes and don't think government does them any good. So they end up with arrangements as stupid as this one. It is NOT the fault of the firemen it is the fault of the idiot citizens to not include fire in their property taxes!

People get the government they deserve. Unfortunately, it is unlikely this lesson will teach his community anything.

It costs MORE to pay out like this - its cheaper to just include it into the local taxes than to make somebody mail bills and do follow up calls AND KEEP RECORDS of people who payed up -- the fire dept then has to look you up to see if they can help you. Wouldn't it suck if they made a mistake and thought you didn't pay?

Stereotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting really sick of all political stereotyping that goes on in the comments (here it is libertarian hate). I find it despicable that in the US we see every liberal as a pot smoking hippy in california, every republican as a gun toting redneck and apparently every libertarian as a morally reprehensible selfish dick with money. How this article (that shouldn't be on /. anyway) turned into a political commentary, I don't know....but I would like to think a site with news for nerds would have a reader base capable of thinking critically. Forget reasoning through people's beliefs and ideologies, let's just lump them together in generalized groups so we can more easily hate them and also in turn strengthen our imaginary bond with people 'like me'.

That's a nice place you got there...

[Anonymous Coward]

Be a real shame if something were to happen to it, you know what I mean?

Stuff costs money

[Loosifur]

This isn't an example of a "libertarian paradise", as some extraordinarily well-read and informed people have said. This is an example of the time-honored principle of "shit costs money". Homeboy lives in a rural area where there aren't municipal services like sewer, garbage collection, etc. So, he pays to have those services provided. Since there isn't a county fire department, he has to pay for fire protection since his taxes aren't going to fund it. Yes it's crappy that the firefighters didn't put out his house, but you know what would be even worse? If the guy down the street who paid called the fire department and was turned down because they were already on a call, putting out some Johnny-Come-Lately's fire who didn't pay but had a good sob story.
Resources are finite. You do not have a right to have your own screw-ups or accidents fixed by virtue of being born here. You have to pay for it, either through taxes, fees, or private exchange via the market. Meanwhile, if the son wanted to kick the ass of the person responsible he should've saved himself a trip and whupped the grandson's ass.

Re:Stuff costs money

[geekoid]

They were ALREADY at the house. So your argument about another call is completely ignorant.

Bill them for the entire cost, sell it to a bill collector. problem solved.

Insurance Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a house
Pay for lots of insurance
Don’t pay the $75
Drop a cigarette
Collect home owners insurance
Profit!

Completely

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, just wow, this makes me glad I'm not American. If this sort of thing happened during Black Saturday I guarantee that more than a few hundred deaths would have occurred. This is completely disgusting and I'm saying this as a firefighter, you save lives and property before dealing with accounting, same thing applies to Search and Rescue, why not here? What's worse is the number of apologists here that have commented supporting them just sitting idly by... have you people got no humanity?

Poor City/Bad Town Management

[sdhuff79]

I live in far part of Western Kentucky and I heard about this story locally first. This is is the second time in two year this has happened to this town. The fire fighters won't come out even to look at the fire, but they did came out when the first spread to the next door neighbor's house. To which they put it out since that person paid the $75. The fire chief and the fire fighters just stood and watched as the fire burned. Also the fire fighters were forced into this, because if they touch a house fire and the homeowner hasn't paid the fire fighter can lose their job. So I don't blame them, I blame an old law and town management over this. What the that city should do is raise taxes, yes I know that is terrible, if current taxes doesn't cover it. Or get a volunteer fire fighters to pick up the difference. You don't see police or hospitals doing this do people and I don't believe the town should force the fire fighters into this.

slashdot poster stupidity record shattered

[hamanu]

I've been on Slashdot for what 15ish years now... before there were user IDs.. anyway

I've always hated the supposedly free market capitalism anti-government crap espoused by the supposedly enlightened intellectual libertarians who hand around the "open source" movement. But this is the worst I have ever seen, and it proves they are not intellectuals, they are rabid dogmatists.

The fire department DOES need to get paid for fighting fires, and when a non-insured home is on fire the "putting out an actual fire" service fee will need to be much higher than the "putting out a hypothetical fire" insurance fee. But the service fee can be paid OUT OF POCKET, or by putting a LIEN on the house. The cost to put the fire out was WAY less than the value of the home, and refusing to put it out ends up being a net destruction of wealth (not to mention the lives of the pets inside).

At this point the worst libertards say "well they didn't pay the insurance, so tough", and it completely escapes their consideration that MAYBE just MAYBE the fire department could have charged them $5000 or $10000 to put out the fire. An intellectual would see that alternate payment system as a good and just possibility, but a dogmatist doesn't need to think that hard because they already have all the answers.

Any economic system that fails to protect wealth and watches it burn away will lead to a society with LESS WEALTH. The fire department may have saved $1000 by not putting out the fire, but the society lost 200 times that when the home and its contents were consumed. If you don't have enough brains to improve upon that result, even within the libertarian worldview then you are an idiot, not a legitimate intellectual that people should bother listening to.

Re:slashdot poster stupidity record shattered

[shutdown -p now]

I've always hated the supposedly free market capitalism anti-government crap espoused by the supposedly enlightened intellectual libertarians who hand around the "open source" movement. But this is the worst I have ever seen

Indeed. My remaining respect (what little there was of it) for libertarian movement completely evaporated today after reading all these comments. I'm sorry, but I can't respect open sociopaths.

What's shameful is that I used to be a libertarian myself in my uni years. Shameful, because I really can't say if, back then, I wouldn't have posted a comment along the same lines as all the other "he got what he deserved, burn baby burn!" crap here. Rationally thinking, I probably would have, in fact. I'm glad I'm no longer that person today, but it's unnerving to realize that I used to be.

You get what you pay for

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

I have lived in several of the most highly taxed states in the US as well as several with ultra-low taxes. Schools, roads, parks, fire protection, police, and other common services are better in the states where people pay higher taxes ... and demand a better quality of life. Sorry about your stuff and your pets, but think of all the money you've saved by living in a state without basic services.

Reno 911:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Firefighters are Jerks"

Seriously though, they obviously were trying to teach him a lesson if they were so callous as to control burn his house while making sure his neighbors house didn't. They seem to be building a precedent of fear so as to make sure that others pay.

Not so black and white

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is this that .... firstly, obviously:
- they were within their 'rights' to not respond
- and obviously they can't just always respond and charge the normal $75 fee, as people would just pay them if+when they had a fire

still ... it would surely make sense for them at least to say 'for a fee of $x' we can do this (and x would have to be very high to cover not only their costs of putting out the fire, but also their yearly running costs and to cover the fact that offering this possibility would still discourage people from paying the normal yearly fee - so maybe a 4-figure number for example even) .... and that could have led to a much better, win-win, result for everyone (he saves his house + belongings, while they make a really sweet profit for minimal effort and maybe even less effort than containing the fire) ....

What makes it sick is the small amount of effort required by them (potentially less than what they anyway required for containment), and the huge benefit to him (and the insurance company) of them making that effort, and the idea that surely they could make a win-win deal that leads to them putting out the fire.

The idea that they shouldn't put it out at any cost, in order to make a point to ensure people pay their yearly fees or whatever, is where it gets totally inhumane .. as I already explained that they could of course set the fee high enough such that people will still want to pay their yearly fees (or at least, if they all don't, then the fire department would get more money from all the onetime fees). And then sure, someone who doesn't pay their yearly fees and can't afford the last-minute fee is screwed, but that is to me at least a little more understandable.

Also, I'm surprised that his insurance would cover it - surely they'd have a clause like 'if you don't pay for fire-department coverage, such that the fire department sits around watching your house burn down, you're not covered'.

Simple Solution - really

[wemakegreatpets]

Include in the original billing a clause that states any fire prevention services will be billed at actual cost if the $75 is not paid. Then, when a fire breaks out, the department is enabled to respond with the understanding that the property owner will be sent a bill for services.

Firefighters fight fires, by definition

[RiffRaff06078]

I've worked on a volunteer fire department in Indiana. Besides being supplemented by county-level taxes, we held fundraisers for what the taxes wouldn't pay for.

And one thing I remember very specifically from my training: You *NEVER* just let a building burn. For any reason. If it's too far gone to save, you still fight it to keep it from spreading. You lose water pressure, you form a bucket brigade. You lose your buckets, you piss on the fire. But you never, ever, under any circumstances just sit idly by and watch a building burn to the ground.

That fire department may have been enforcing a code approved by the voters in their area. But there is sometimes a difference between what is legal and what is right. Those firefighters don't deserve the title they have, and should have their certification revoked.

Penalty Fee

[Anonymous Coward]

This is fucking bullshit. They should put the fire out and charge a $2500 fee. He'd pay it. Anyone would.

It'd be like ambulances. No insurance, huge fucking fee. But they save you.

And yet they still

[geekoid]

call themselves Christians.

ISO rating and Insurance

[rec9140]

Well that FD's ISO rating just went to a 10, if its not there now..... and 10 IS BAD! You want to be a ISO 1 or as close to it as possible and there are very few of those! One MAJOR EASTERN US CITY doesn't qualify as 1!

Oh and EVERYONE AROUND this home will be getting a nice big FAT HOMEOWNERS RATE INCREASE thanks to this! Your homeowners insurance is based on the ISO rating, and with a 10 and this .... Get ready to pay up! EVERYONE!

Oh... and the lawsuit(s) I am sure are pending...I hope they put that FD out of business... it gives everyone in PS a bad name.

Why don't you shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard enough libertarians advocate for "free-market" fire protection to know that all you are doing is using ad hominen attacks on "lib-haters" and deflection to try to defuse what is a very valid point and gaping anus of a flaw with libertarianism.

Also please realize the people suggesting bill him mean "Bill him for the cost of putting out the fire." It would be a case of "Pay $75/year in insurance, or pay the full cost if there is a fire."

On what athority can they bill him after, if the fire department were a private entity they would have no athority to put out his fire and then charge him, if he didn't agree. And the alternate to that, that they would just bill him on the spot a higher fee when they show up sounds a lot like blatent extortion. Though libertarians don't seem to mind this in health care...

Libertarianism fails, ask london when you let the "free-market" provide fire protection.

Re:Why don't you shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard enough libertarians advocate for "free-market" fire protection to know that all you are doing is using ad hominen attacks on "lib-haters" and deflection to try to defuse what is a very valid point and gaping anus of a flaw with libertarianism.

It's kind of amazing to see someone throw a bunch of words on a page, and expect it to form a rational argument. "Ad hominen "? That would be something like "How can you pretend your argument is valid? You can't even spell ad hominem or authority correctly."

It's kind of amazing to see the logic that shows up on Slashdot sometimes.

1. I hate libertarians.
2. I hate this story.
3. Therefore, this story is about libertarians.

It doesn't matter if the story is about a local, state, or national government, if something awful happens, it must be a libertarian utopia.

The Tea Party Vision for America

[darth_borehd]

A privatized fire department is equally as crazy as privatized health insurance. This is what will happen if the Republican extremists get their way.

They made their bed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this such a surprise to people? The citizen voted for this system, it's not like anyone forced them not to mandate a tax for fire departments. The public voted that in rural areas since fires wouldn't spread to anyone house that people could choose not the pay for fire protection. What is wrong is this? The decision for protection lies with the individual to pay or not, forcing the owner to pay for coverage wouldn't change his situation had he elected to pay for it, all you'd be doing is removing this ability to choose.

I agree in an urban environment fire department fees should be mandatory because it can spread to another individuals home, or the city at large. But that is not the case here.

Everyone needs to come to grips with the idea that decisions you make can have consequences. It isn't the states fault the guy didn't pay for fire protection, and there is no one else to blame except the guy in the mirror. Remove his decision isn't the answer.

As a matter of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

That is interesting to me, in the UK everyone is covered. As a matter of interest would they have been obliged to come out if someone's life was in danger - trapped in the building or something?

One time fee option?

[Anonymous Coward]

They could also make a one-time spot payment available, say $2,000. This would provide an option to save homes that aren't making regular payments. Of course, good luck collecting the payment if the home isn't insured.

Whenever firefigters are celebrated as heroes

[cowtamer]

We need to make sure to explicitly mention each and every one of these particular "heroes" by name for sticking to their bureaucratic guns where less heroic men would have let sentimentality and sense of duty to the human race over and fought the fire anyway.

he would pay whatever is necessary

[Culture20]

He offered to pay far more than the $75. He offered a blank check. They refused to come. When they did come to the scene, they ignored his pleas; didn't even respond to him. They are scum, and Chief David Wilds won't be chief for very long, methinks. Union mentality: "Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and nothing more than that. Ever. If you try to give above your duty, you're out of the union!"

Shhh!

[spun]

The whole reason we have a government is to have someone to blame when things go wrong. That doesn't really work if we remember we are the government, so shut it. Comforting myths are comforting.

My question would be this....

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he pay the fee every year up until this year? Or did he never pay the fee at all?

If he had paid every year up until now, cut the man some slack. Simple as that.

That Sure is a Nice House You Got There ....

[srobert]

....(pause to light cigar) it'd be a shame, ya know, if anything was to ahh... happen to it.

instant recall

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that everyone else who had "forgot" the 75.00 fee will have instant recall and pay.

and maybe some other houses will catch fire...

[KonoWatakushi]

I would not be surprised if those very firefighters had their own houses burn down after such an event. When people lose everything, they tend to do crazy things sometimes.

I also wonder if they would have watched it burn had there been people inside as well as animals...

Workman's Comp Insurance

[weiserfireman]

I don't know how this might have played out in this situation, but over the past couple days I have read forum posts from Fire Chiefs in other parts of the country that say this is an issue.

A fire departments Insurance is only in place when they are responding to emergencies in their jurisdiction or when responding to legitimate requests for mutual aid into other jurisdictions.

Some of the Insurance Carriers are taking a hard line about subscription areas or areas without fire protection districts. If the fire department responds into areas without fire protection, the Insurance companies are refusing insurance claims for injuries or equipment damage because the fire department is covered in their own jurisdiction only. Subscribers in subscription areas are considered as being under their jurisdiction. Non-subscribers are out of district.

These Fire Chiefs are struggling with the moral dilemma this puts them under. The only way around it is for them to have a Contract or Memorandum of Understanding with the County that all the homes/businesses in the subscription area are part of their jurisdiction. Some counties have been reluctant to sign such agreements.

Re:Workman's Comp Insurance

[shutdown -p now]

These Fire Chiefs are struggling with the moral dilemma this puts them under. The only way around it is for them to have a Contract or Memorandum of Understanding with the County that all the homes/businesses in the subscription area are part of their jurisdiction. Some counties have been reluctant to sign such agreements.

What you need is EMTALA for fire fighting services.

Obamacare!

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing this story to Socialism and Obamacare...

When Obamacare kicks in, I'm dropping health insurance completely. The fine for not participating (plus an out of pocket office visit every year or so) will be WAY cheaper.

If I come down with a disease, any insurance company will have to take me and my preexisting condition!

This will save me MANY thousands of dollars a year! Who's with me?

(And how long is this actually going to work, before the industry goes bankrupt and gov't has to step in and take over completely. Hmm... wonder if that's the actual plan?)

Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[sydbarrett74]

I've seen a lot on here about the unconscionable conduct of the fire department (and yes, they were douche-nozzles about the whole thing). What I haven't seen is commentary on why this guy's idiot grandson was burning rubbish in the first place. Use legitimate solid-waste disposal (landfill or, better yet, recycling) but don't burn the stuff! Not only can it cause property destruction, but it's also a health hazard if plastics are being burned and people happen to inhale the noxious fumes. Too bad this poor guy had to lose his home because his grandson is a fucktard.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[Bemopolis]

Use legitimate solid-waste disposal (landfill or, better yet, recycling) but don't burn the stuff!

The county doesn't provide firefighting services. Why the hell would you assume that they have a landfill or recycling services?

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[mdielmann]

Too bad this poor guy had to lose his home because his grandson is a fucktard.

Who do you think should have been responsible for the behaviour of this kid? And who do you think taught him it was cool to burn shit?
I have no problems with libertarianism in principle. But one of the keystones of libertarianism, which so many seem to forget, is personal responsibility. You better take care of your own shit, because no one else will. Just like this guy who chose to not pay his firefighting insurance (which is ultimately what it was) and then became surprised when someone he wasn't paying was unwilling to provide those services.
All social models have problems, primarily because they involve people. They also have nice things about them. One of the nice things about libertarianism is that the person who caused the problem usually suffers the consequences.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[SpeZek]

Kids will be kids, unfortunately. Everybody fucks up at some point in their younger years; this kid now has all his grandfathers' posessions and three beloved pets' lives on his conscience for the rest of his life. Have a little pity.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article to the end, you'll see that the grandson thought the appropriate response to all this was to go to the fire station and beat the fuck out of the fire marshall, thus getting himself an ag. assault charge and a few nights in jail.

Yep, he's a bright one.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I haven't seen is commentary on why this guy's idiot grandson was burning rubbish in the first place. Use legitimate solid-waste disposal (landfill or, better yet, recycling) but don't burn the stuff!

So you think a city that doesn't have its own fire department provides lawn waste disposal. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's the way you teach, I don't really want to take your class.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a lot on here about the unconscionable conduct of the fire department (and yes, they were douche-nozzles about the whole thing).

What I haven't seen is commentary on why this guy's idiot grandson was burning rubbish in the first place. Use legitimate solid-waste disposal (landfill or, better yet, recycling) but don't burn the stuff! Not only can it cause property destruction, but it's also a health hazard if plastics are being burned and people happen to inhale the noxious fumes. Too bad this poor guy had to lose his home because his grandson is a fucktard.

Some counties in TN actually allow this.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[manwargi]

Clearly Mr. Cranick forgot to pay for garbage disposal too.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[richlv]

right. city dweller there, correct ?
first, everybody outside of cities burn stuff every now and then - be it some leaves, branches that are too small for firewood or something else. this is part of the approach to throw out in collected trash only stuff that you can't deal with yourself - it always makes me sick thinking about how people throw food stuff in trash.

second, are you just an ass or did you miss your childhood ? you really never played with fire ? we did it... well, not constantly, but often enough. either it was burning small "fireplaces", creating plastic toy car "accidents" or just putting compressed cans in fire - many, many of those things were mighty dangerous, now that i look back on it. but i would not expect nobody ever to do that again. quite the contrary, i would expect that to happen a lot. unless you lock up the children, fire and other dangerous things will be fascinating, interesting - and best learned about as early and as safe as possible. not this time, unfortunately.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[sydbarrett74]

you really never played with fire ? we did it... well, not constantly, but often enough. either it was burning small "fireplaces", creating plastic toy car "accidents" or just putting compressed cans in fire - many, many of those things were mighty dangerous, now that i look back on it.

No, I didn't burn stuff when I was a child. Guess I'm just a freak from another planet. *sarcasm*

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[rmullins]

Perhaps you've never lived out in the country.... Everyone burns their trash in the country. What most people do is burn what they can and use a dumpster for everything else. That way you're not paying any more than is necessary for trash disposal. And no, there is no recycling pickup in the country - plastic gets burned along with the paper products. Take a drive out in the country sometime - I mean actually far away from any city - and you'll see that everyone has burn piles and 55 gal. burn cans.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[hsbaker]

Sometimes life is a hard teacher.

Re:Hey idiot grandson, did you learn your lesson?

[Anonymous Coward]

People make mistakes. I've almost burned down a couple things in my life and I feel horrible for being so ignorant of what could happen, for not having enough respect for what a fire could become. But I've learned from it. I expect some others will make the same mistakes.

I see nothing wrong with it

[Moraelin]

Not only I don't see it as criminal, I see it as the right thing to do.

The short story is that ultimately all obligations between people are two way streets. Community, loyalty, etc. You name it. If you expect something from someone else, you should do your part in return.

Ultimately this is how it works with any kind of mutual protection too. Be it neighbourhood watch programs, or just calling the firemen or cops if you notice something needing them on the neighbour's house, or making sure it gets hosed down if it burns. If you expect the community to do something for you, it's a two way street.

In this case it only works down to $75 fee because there are tens of thousands of people paying it. Each pays a small part, so the community is safer from fire. Either directly as in you pay a small price of the cost of hosing down the neighbour's house, or indirectly as in the fire doesn't get to spread from your house to his.

Again, same idea: two way street. If you want them to pay for yours, you pay for theirs.

The system breaks down when people essentially start expecting only to receive, but not to do their part. The fucktard in TFA for example, he expected not to pay for someone else's fire, but that they'd still come hose down his house out of everyone else's money.

But ultimately it's not even about money as such. It's about the whole social contract. It's a two way street. It's give and take. Expecting only to take, but not to give, is just being a parasite. Rationalizing why someone should give even though the other doesn't do their own end of the deal, is supporting parasites.

Did they do right to sit and watch his house burn? Damn right, if anyone asks me.

Should they go to jail? Nah, they should get a freaking medal.

Re:I see nothing wrong with it

[JesseMcDonald]

Expecting only to take, but not to give, is just being a parasite.

Exactly. Also, note that the same applies to tax-funded fire departments: supporters take tax money from non-supporters for their own use without giving anything of equal or greater value to the non-supporters in return.

don't be so quick to judge...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is easy to sit here and say "morally, the firefighters should have put it out". But that does not take into account what would happen to the fire dept if anyone got hurt, or equipment damaged, etc... What happens when a firefighter dies fighting the fire, and the fire dept's insurance company says "you were fighting a fire that you should not have been fighting, so you get no coverage for your loss". Any kind of negligence/damage on behalf of the fire dept trying to "do the right thing" could very well come back to haunt them financially. Such is life in this litigious society.

Re:don't be so quick to judge...

[pclminion]

But that does not take into account what would happen to the fire dept if anyone got hurt, or equipment damaged, etc... What happens when a firefighter dies fighting the fire

What happens when the guy's hidden meth lab explodes, blowing burning hazardous materials onto neighbor's houses and potentially killing everyone nearby?

Irresponsible on both parts

[tick_and_bash]

The article states that he "forgot". (In quotes.) There's no clarification that he had paid prior years on time or if he had been "forgetting" for several years. If anyone had been injured as a result of them not showing up over a $75 annual fee, then there would be a lot more shit hitting the fan.

Since his insurance is paying part of the loss, I'm assuming their stance on this will be very important. If they hold the homeowner to a higher standard because of his failure to pay, then he's lost everything and won't receive much compensation. If the insurance takes the view that this was a preventable loss and that the fire department should've shown up regardless, then this could be interesting.

The fire department should've shown up in either case. Worst case, he honestly forgot to pay this year and they'll get $75 out of showing up. If he's "forgotten" to pay the past few years, then they'll have grounds for a lien on this property until he can reimburse them for their costs.

If the neighbour's sustained any damage, I wonder who they'll go after. The broke guy who just lost everything, or the fire department?

Re:Irresponsible on both parts

[Straif]

In at least one other story it was reported that he had 'forgotten' to pay at least a few other times in the past. I haven't seen anything saying he's ever been a regular subscriber to this service.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay the cops will just stand there as you get raped as you did not pay the fee?

Pay the fee you still get raped. You just won't have to fill out your own paperwork.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[b4dc0d3r]

They *are* paid from taxes. City cops and city firefighters paid from city taxes. These people don't live in the city and didn't pay the taxes.

Your slippery slope argument doesn't make sense. No person would stand around and watch a crime in progress, and despite some sentiment to the contrary cops are people too. Regardless of jurisdiction, a cop would probably do the right thing if someone's life or well-being were clearly in jeopardy.

Showing up to a fire and the family is safely outside, there is no imminent danger and no reason to help someone who specifically refused to pay the taxes.

It was optional for this family becuase they lived outside the city, making it not the city's problem. Same as if I called San Diego fire department from Idaho. Not their problem.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

"fireman and cops should be payed for with taxes!"

Well.. sure.. except TN does not tax personal income, only dividend and interest income..

from http://www.govspot.com/know/incometax.htm

"Seven states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Two others, New Hampshire and Tennessee, tax only dividend and interest income. "

so who pays for the fire department? The guy lives out in the county, where there is no fire service, so the nearest municipality charges $75 to provide service, which he "forgot" to pay.

It's a simple fiscal matter... and let's not forget, TN VOTED for no income tax, and from TFA, the fee has been around for about 20 years, so it's not like he didn't know about it.

Wait a minute...

[warGod3]

So they showed up to put the fire out on the neighbor's property, but didn't do anything for him? Isn't there a law about Duty to Rescue? Even if there wasn't, simple Good Samaritan Laws would protect the firefighters...

I call BS.

insightful?!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all the anti-socialist rhetoric taken to its logical conclusion.

Johnny's parents are poor, so Johnny shouldn't be able to go to Kindergarten either.

Oh, you were mugged, but you can't pay the policing fee... too bad so sad.

That your comment was placed, and modded up by others tells me that this nation is probably too sick to save.

In other news...

[entrex]

Payments of fire protection subscription double

No sympathy

[Anonymous Coward]

Out here in the peoples republic of caliban we pay much in taxes but sill cant count on fire services arriving on time in rural areas. Almost everyone I know that lives outside the city limits has their own water tank/hydrant just in case of fires. If this guy didn't want to pay the fee he should have made sure he could handle the problem himself. Unfortunately out here we get to pay and have to handle it ourselves.

what about clerical errors?

[danlip]

I wonder how long it will be until we hear they let someone's house burn down due to a clerical error,
i.e. they actually paid but the computer says they didn't. Or the 911 operator types in the wrong
address when they call. Seems sure to happen sooner or later.

Re:what about clerical errors?

[ody]

I wonder how long it will be until we hear they let someone's house burn down due to a clerical error

Indeed. Imagine how much less expensive, less error-prone and faster the response would be if fire departments didn't have to pre-verify the currency of a homeowner's fire insurance policy, and could just indiscriminately rush to the scene and extinguish the fire?

This is just pie-in-the-sky thinking, but what if those poor homeowners organized into some local body deigned with special powers to mandate individuals to pay, up front, their equal share of fire protection services? Now I I'm just spitballing here, but we could call such a fictitious organization a Noobamian Sociofascislamic Biggubmint.

Re:what about clerical errors?

[WarlockD]

Well insurance is a way of betting. If the it would cost the firefighters 7500 to put out the fire and the fee is only 75 bucks, they are betting that only 1 in 100 homes, in that area, each year, will burn. They make back their costs on that. I am also sure that, lets say, only 98 of those homes are on the list and maybe 2 random ones aren't. So then you have a 1 in 100 chance your home is going to burn, and a 1 in 50 that your name isn't on the list. That's fairly low odds.

This isn't even talking about the percent chance your hose will catch fire. Its hard for a house, even a modern trailer home, to catch fire. You have to have a really good kindling close by or in the home for it to start up. You can't just drop a match, unless the floor is dosed with gasoline. These genius were burning trash WAY to close to their home. This was not a lightning strike or some random accident. They were sitting there watching that fire burn before it got out of control. As other has commented, they also refused to pay the fee too.

But back to the original point, I honestly don't think it will ever come up. Everyone calls them hicks for all anti-tax and anti-government, but they aren't stupid as a whole. As someone who's family lives a good hour from any kind of hospital or fire station, you learn to be careful. Living on your own without support is hard so you deal with it. This feels more of an "Act of God" that I would buy. For some people, I think its a "I am a dumb shit" fee:P

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

This was a city fire department. The City Taxes payed for the department. He lived outside the city so NON of his taxes where going to support the department. So they said we will cover you for $75 and we will leave our assigned area and also protect you. This covers the extra costs.

The county people need to pay a little more in taxes so the entire county is covered by default. The county people decided not to pass something like this, and he decided not to pay $75. Why should everyone else pay because he made the bad decision. HE PAID NOTHING AND STILL EXPECTED THE COVERAGE!

MOD PARENT FALSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you RTFA, you'd hear that he didn't not pay his taxes, he forgot to pay an annual fee.

No, the article says he claims to have forgotten. Some news reports are now saying he specifically chose not to pay the fee, and was told the consequences. That's what the fire department has said all along; he explicitly declined fire protection service and is now pretending he didn't.

He has said publicly that he thought he could skip paying and the fire department would still come; it's starting to look like his intent was to game the system... but he lost the game when his incompetent grandkid set the house on fire while burning trash.

Trashy folk burning trash burn down trashy house, Internet to the rescue! It's a Tea Party dream scenario - don't pay the tax but insist on the services.

Re:MOD PARENT FALSE

[Godai]

Well, if you RTFA, you'd hear that he didn't not pay his taxes, he forgot to pay an annual fee.

Well, you're quibbling about my wording, but you're right, its 'claimed'. Why aren't you posting 'MOD PARENT FALSE' at the OP since he went straight to 'claiming government interference' -- something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere as a rationale for not paying the fee.

And yes, its clear he avoided paying it on purpose now, but that wasn't mentioned at first.

And lastly, I don't think we actually disagree on the heart of the matter, I was just saying in my original post that -- at the time of the article posted -- there didn't seem to be anything to indicate he was lying. That's changed, but it doesn't alter the more interesting discussion which is about whether stuff like this should be 'opt out'. I suspect we agree on that anyways.

By your logic ...

[srobert]

...we should all pay a tax and the funds used to provide medical care to every citizen. But Saint Rush Limbaugh says that's morally wrong because most of "those people" don't deserve any.

Re:By your logic ...

[jbeach]

That way would of course be cheaper for every single human being, including Limbaugh. But somehow that notion just can't penetrate - the very concept that the Free Market isn't bestest always just freaks them out too much.

Thank whatevah FDR banged Social Security too, or they'd be claiming that would never work either. They're still trying to piratize it, but I doubt it will ever happen.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[greyhueofdoubt]

Bad news: the scotus has already ruled that police can, in fact, legally stand by as you are raped. Even if they know about it. Even if you call for help.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

Also:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay the cops will just stand there as you get raped as you did not pay the fee?

Pay the fee and you still get raped. You just won't have to fill out your own paperwork.

what if

[Krau Ming]

he or his wife were trapped inside and allowed to burn to death?

Re:what if

[Straif]

The FD ensured no lives were in danger before refusing to offer their services. This is simply a destruction of property story so there is no need to try and make it more than that with strawman arguments.

Re:what if

[Krau Ming]

Ya, i guess the 3 dogs and a cat burning to death don't count.

Re:what if

[Straif]

By the Cranick's own description of the fire this was not a quick burn. It started in a burn barrel, then spread to a shed then the house. So if anyone is to blame for the pets death it is the Cranick's who never cared enough about their 3 dogs and a cat to open the door and let them out.

I feel sorry for the dogs and cat but it's not the FD's fault and in most cases a fire chief would not authorize his men to enter a burning structure simply to save a family pet, or even 4. It does happen but it is not standard operating procedure to put human lives at risk solely for pets.

Guys this is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on this is easy guys. The 75 dollar fee for fire protection is calculated based on some formula created by some actuary somewhere. So if your chances are 1 in 1000 of having a fire and the fee is $75 a year then they are cacluating that this fee is reasonable to cover 1000 people. If you opt out you should have the option to hire the fire department for the actual cost of putting out the fire, trucks, water, empolyee hourly bill rate + a reasonable fee based on the same formula for calculating the yearly fee. So then you can make the call if you want to hire the department.

Either way, its common sense, the fire department should have put of the fire simply for saftey reasons and then stuck him with a fine.

Re:It wasn't a volunteer fire department

[Logic Worshipper]

It was the fire department from the next town over, where the people are smart enough to pay for a fire department. I bet that guy spent plenty of time going on about the stupid democrats in the next town over who pay higher taxes so they have a fire department. Well I guess he found out the hard way why they don't mind their taxes paying for a fire department in that town. Why should the good people of the next town over pay for nearby towns who aren't willing to set up their own fire departments, volunteer or otherwise?

Next year

[OzPeter]

I bet a lot more people pay their Fire protection bill - nothing like a public demonstration of "Nice property you have there, it'd be a pity if it caught fire"

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Jack9]

This wasn't about saving or protecting lives. This was about property.

Please stop acting like this is any different than not paying an insurance premium, other than most localities provide fire protection as a social service.

He had 2 good courses of action

[BubbaDave]

1) "What do you mean you didn't get my check?"

2) Drive one of their fire vehicles into the flames- they'd sure as hell put it out then.

Dave

If someone had died...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the fire department would be sued out of existence fees or no.

Obvious Solution

[PowersOfTen]

Clearly there should be an option to pay the full cost of the fire department to put out the fire. Not having this option makes no sense because having it literally costs the fire department nothing and not having it can potentially risk a larger fire. Firefighters not putting out a fire not only puts property at risk but lives of everyone in the area as well. They should be mandated by law to put it out regardless or where it happens, work out the details later. If it costs $10,000 to put out the fire, send the homeowner the bill, and if they do not pay for whatever reason, they can be forced to pay through legal processes. If the bill is too small to bother going to court, then I think it is safe to assume that it was worth putting the fire out anyway to avoid the risk of a much larger and more expensive fire.

Copyright fee

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mafia is going to want their share, they invented the term "Protection Money", right?

Tea party to the rescue!

[Anonymous Coward]

should've called the tea partiers and they could've showed up with a few buckets of water. Don't need no big government with those pesky taxes. We can handle this stuff ourselves!

how many of you sages live in rural areas???

[dirtydog]

Attention nutsacks who think the guvment should solve everything:

A lot of us (if not the vast majority) who live in rural areas do so because we DON'T WANT government services, because increased control and getting up in your business comes with it. Don't even get me started about subdivision by-laws.

I live in Tennessee, at least 20 miles from the nearest fire station, and I don't think we even have the option of buying fire service from them. Because of that, Farm Bureau is about the only insurance company that would even give me a policy. Besides paying for the policy, I have to pay $25 a year to be a Bureau member. If I don't pay that, guess what - no insurance. If you choose to live somewhere that requires you to be responsible enough to pay a HUGE yearly fee of $25 or even a whopping $75 per year to be covered, and you can't manage to do it, then quit your bitching and go live in Nannyville with everybody else.

Re:how many of you sages live in rural areas???

[bodland]

Most people who live in rural areas work in and around agriculture and businesses that support that industry. I grew up in a totally rural state. People did not choose to live there to avoid paying for services....those that did lived in trailer houses with tin foil lined interiors at the ends of two track roads with no electricity....they were CRAAAAZZZZIEESSS...

NOT a Libertarian Fantasy

[SteelAngel]

Safety and security forces, such as police and fire are functions of most conceptions of a 'limited government' state, as are roads and basic infrastructure. The state exists to take care of highly unprofitable yet necessary services. Libertarianism is not equal to Anarchy as some here seem to posit.

What happened here is an unfortunate circumstance that the local government subcontracted out fire protection to another district because it refused to pay for it itself. In a purely libertarian environment, the fire fighters would have charged him a huge bill for the fire service on call, not just stood there like inhuman robots and watched as humans suffered.

"reason" doesn't mean what you think it does.

[fyngyrz]

there is no reason not to give people the choice.

In this example, the two dogs and cat might disagree. Could just as easily have been a handful of children, or a cherished spouse. Or the homeowner. So apparently there is a reason. These decisions can directly affect other people -- so they really don't fall into the zone of a single person's natural freedoms. Others should be considered.

It makes much more sense for some things to be covered by the solvent population, via taxes. Education, healthcare, fire, water, sewage, roads, canals, police, justice, defense... these are areas where "socialist" banding together makes for considerably better mechanisms for dealing with the associated problems.

This story is a tragedy brought on by idiocy.

Re:"reason" doesn't mean what you think it does.

[RobDude]

In rural America, the types of places where we don't already have fire departments; house aren't next to each other. They are often miles apart.

The fire department had no trouble protecting the paying customer from the spread of the fire. He wasn't placed in danger by his neighbor's decision not to pay.

There are a LOT of things that are generally considered 'good things' to do. Personally, I'd like to keep the ability to decide which of those I want and which I don't.

This guy didn't want to pay for optional fire coverage; so he didn't. I support his right to do that. It didn't hurt anyone but himself.

Eating Vegetables is good too. Should I be forced to pay taxes so that the government can provide free vegetables to myself and my neighbors? It's a good idea to eat vegetables. What about working out? Should taxes be used to provide public gyms? What if I don't want a public gym? What if I have my own gym. Sure, it's a good thing; but why not let me decide if I want to do it?

Re:"reason" doesn't mean what you think it does.

[fyngyrz]

In rural America, the types of places where we don't already have fire departments; house aren't next to each other. They are often miles apart.

Yeah. And so we shouldn't have postal service to them. Oh, wait. Or roads. Oh, wait. Or defense. Oh, wait.

The fire department had no trouble protecting the paying customer from the spread of the fire. He wasn't placed in danger by his neighbor's decision not to pay.

Of course he was. The FD handled the particular version of danger that cropped up this time; but there are times they don't, and the neighbor loses everything. This chance is exacerbated by letting a fire get fully involved.

This guy didn't want to pay for optional fire coverage; so he didn't. I support his right to do that. It didn't hurt anyone but himself.

Yes, it did. It killed the pets. And, as I explained above and you ignored, there are circumstances where people are in the house you're not aware of. The risk is substantially greater than just to the owner. This is why it shouldn't be a matter of personal choice.

Eating Vegetables is good too. Should I be forced to pay taxes so that the government can provide free vegetables to myself and my neighbors? What about working out? why not let me decide if I want to do it?

No. These substantially affect only you. A fire isn't comparable to "eat your veggies" or "maintain your body" and you're being disingenuous (or worse) when you try to draw the comparison. Yes, you should be able to decide what you do with you body. No, you should not be able to decide not to take fire safety measures with property that is physically connected to other people's properties and/or resources (water, roads, power and/or gas and/or communications lines, etc.) and where under your roof, you EVER allow another living being to visit.

I'm 100% libertarian when you can demonstrate that your choice only substantially puts yourself and lives classed as consenting, informed adults at risk; but as it is utterly impossible to do this in the case of a house or property fire, which by their very nature can spread uncontrollably, and are likely to if not fought without quarter, this is not an area where your liberties can reasonably trump another's liberties.

You want to eat poorly and not exercise? You want to take drugs? You want to frequent prostitutes, or be one? I'm all for your choice. 100%.

Personal liberties only have a rational meaning when they can be demonstrated to have a scope that you can limit to yourself by your own actions. As soon as you think it means you can make any choice you like just because it's your choice, you've entirely perverted the entire concept.

Re:"reason" doesn't mean what you think it does.

[alta]

Firemen don't go into a dangerous situation to search for people who might be there, especially when there are bystanders who say there's no one in there.

Also, firemen don't risk their lives for animals.

Firemen shouldn't be expected to risk their life to save someone's shit when their shit isn't worth $75 a year.

They stopped it from damaging the house next door, so it effected no one but him and who gives a fuck about the pets. Sure I love my dog, but the life of a stranger is worth more to me than a damn pet.

Re:"reason" doesn't mean what you think it does.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit.

As a firefighter, my job is to help solve problems that evolve.

As a firefighter, my job is NOT to keep your ass safe, nor is it to prevent those problems, nor prevent "danger".

God f*ing help you the day that DOES become my job. I'll micromanage every aspect of your life, boy.

Call yourself a Libertarian, yet you've just suggested a scheme where I get to be the biggest totalitarian ever. Hope you don't own a car, because there are unsafe drivers on the road... so you don't go anywhere, ever again. It's my job to prevent danger, after all.

Loving it!

[teeloo]

This is the exact sort of thing that makes me love your wonderful country!
Keep up the great work America. Its keeping my "pro" US FB page filled with great content.
Pukka.

How is this Tech Related???

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I seen this on Digg where all kinds of stories get covered. But Slashdot? really?

Re:How is this Tech Related???

[xavi62028]

agreed!

Gangs of NY

[SpeedyGonz]

But to just stand there and watch it burn? That should be criminal, what if people died? I think the firefighters should go to jail. What has his world come to when the people sworn to serve and protect decide not to? Sounds like anarchy.

My thoughts exactly.

Kinda reminds me of that scene of the fire in gangs of NY. All that's missing is the firefighters sacking the neighbor's house.

For those that don't understand the fire system

[Anonymous Coward]

Every subscription fire service I have worked with WILL make entry to save lives regardless of paid/unpaid. That does not extend to property.

If they reported to their homeowners insurance that they did not pay the fee and were not covered their rates would be much higher. Which means either:
1. They don't have homeowners (idiots)
2. They lied to their insurance and said they did subscribe and will not have any of their stuff covered (liars)
3. They paid far more than $75/yr extra in homeowners for not having fire protection (back to idiots)

Also, there seems to be very little details of the fire. If it was already in multiple rooms and through the roof when they arrived most departments would not make entry on a property only fire. There is too much risk of life.

Risk all to save all, risk nothing to save nothing.

humans are worth more than pets

[fantomas]

I assume you're trolling but I'll bite anyway.... Allowing pets to die in a fire and claiming animal cruelty? Presumably only in America....

Setting fire to animals or putting animals in a burning building, yes that's animal cruelty. Perhaps even watching a cat stuck up a tree while you have a ladder on hand and nothing to do and could rescue it and you choose not to.... might be considered animal cruelty.

But risking the death or permanent disability of humans (the firefighters) to to save pets from an out of control fire? that's not cruelty, that's a rational decision taken by the firefighters that their lives are more important than a dog or cat's (or a goldfish, or whatever the pets were) given the local conditions.

It's a philosophical discussion whether you consider not acting to save an animal from a situation you find it in that you had not created yourself is an act of cruelty.

Most people consider human lives more valuable than pets lives, however, so if that situation endangers the humans then many people would consider the safety of the humans takes precedence.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[tys90]

Just repeating some points already made:

The people voted to not have a tax for their own fire department. They instead opted to have the neighboring city provide a service for a VOLUNTARY fee since that neighboring city does not have power in Obion to 'tax' them. The agreement was: no payment, no service. I'm guessing they voted to have state or county police and whatever tax pays for them.

Secondly, if there is physical danger then they provide the service anyways (not sure what they do for billing/money in this case). I suppose he could have ran into his house and they would have had to save him. Only to a point where he was safe though, which doesn't necessarily mean the house would be saved.

Welcome to capitalism!

[tekrat]

If you don't pay up, you don't get the services. If they didn't like that system, the family should have moved. Now they will think twice about NOT paying their fees in Tea Party Land.

This is what kills me about Tea Baggers. They don't want to pay any taxes because that's dirty socialism, and then scream bloody murder when they can't get fire department, they can't get cops, and the roads aren't paved. Dude, that's paid for with the taxes you don't want to pay, so fuck you.

If Sarah Palin actually makes it near the White House, this whole country is screwed like you wouldn't believe.

Re:Welcome to capitalism!

[Travelsonic]

Yeah, and if they refused to come, or act, and there were no "paying customers" next door - then you would have a large, uncontrolled fire using the logic behind this system. That there is a paying customer next door was, IMO, a miracle.

Everyone agrees, he got what he paid for

[IronChef]

This guy chose not to pay and by the letter of the law, the fire department let his house burn down. Everyone agrees that the home owner should have paid the fee.

But I don't want to live in a place where the fire department chooses to let someone's homes and pets burn, even if that person is a cheap SOB. I would hope that the fire fighters would say, "Screw the rules, we're going to do the decent thing anyway."

But what is more appalling than the department's inaction is the number of people I see on forums like this who are gloating over this man's misfortune. "Hah hah, there's your libertarian paradise!"

Well, your socialist paradise looks like it may be full of jerks too.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[niko9]

What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay the cops will just stand there as you get raped as you did not pay the fee?

Well, yeah. You think the cops have any legal obligation to protect you?

Think again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

If all hell breaks in your town ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_riots ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina) whose responsibility is it to protect your own skin?

Yours.

P.S. Many a person were incensed after the L.A. Police Chief pulled all of his uniformed officers out of the L.A. riots and left citizens to fend for themselves, and there were even more pissed off when gun stores were telling them that there was a mandatory 10 day waiting period regardless of the raging riots.

Want to hear the phone call from the insurer.

[fishbowl]

This story has been reported in as many ways as there are biases. The first time I read it, I was led to believe that firefighters did respond to the fire, and despite being there and fully equipped to fight the fire, chose not to. That would actually constitute arson.

But there's a difference between a fire crew responding and not fighting a fire, versus there being no fire crew to respond in the first place.

There is an insurance company involved so rest assured that there are going to be really hard questions asked, probably in depositions. The fire crew can't be allowed to make this kind of decision -- if they get it wrong and someone dies, they are on the hook for manslaughter. If they get it wrong and cause the fire to get out of control, they are on the hook for property damage and disaster recovery.

But it's hard to get a straight account of what actually happened, because most reports are using the story as a political jab at Tea Party principles, and because the fire company is obviously finding itself on the hot seat, both in terms of the huge public exposure this incident has gotten, and because they are doubtless the subject of some pending litigation.

But as I said, there is a world of difference between a fire crew responding to a fire and then choosing not to fight it (for any reason other than public safety), and a rural location that is not served by a fire department in the first place.

Saving human lives?

[TreeInMyCube]

So, suppose all the background was the same ... homeowner didn't pay the fee, despite reminders; house catches on fire accidentally; fire dept rolls out to protect the fee-paying-neighbor's house. Except for this one -- instead of 3 dogs and a cat inside, there were 4 human children inside. Do you think the firefighters would have stood by and watched the house burn in that case? Following some of the reasoning here, should they have entered the burning house, pulled the children out, and then watched it burn? Or should they have intervened, using their usual methods and saved both the kids and the property? IANAFirefighter, but it seems to me that they would need to use some water on the structure to make it safe for themselves to enter, in order to save the children inside. Once you've gone that far, you might as well put out the fire.

So his neighbours paid a $75,- fee...

[Razgorov Prikazka]

...and they got their roof sprinkled?
Doesn't sound like a bargain to me.
If I was in that position, I would wet my own roof and get me my $$$ back!

Note to self: If there is an afterlife and I come across George Carlin I have to tell him this story, he would laugh is skinny ass off!

Cheers there guy`s!

What the fuck?

[cheekyjohnson]

They let innocent animals burn for worthless money? I'm speechless (not really, I'm not surprised in the least). What the fuck is wrong with them?

Welcome ...

[PPH]

... to WGA for public service.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

. . .[T]he cops will just stand there as you get raped. . .

LEOs are not obligated to provide you any form of protection. So, fee or no fee, they could stand there and as you get raped anyways.

I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I see tons of people arguing "he didn't pay, so he doesn't deserve help or sympathy," and ignoring the bigger picture.

1) Regardless of whether or not he paid in advance, he offered to cover the costs of service. While you can make the argument that it wasn't enough to bring them out in the first place, once the firefighters were there, they absolutely should have taken him up on the offer.
2) I've seen in other articles on this that they HAD paid regularly, and had managed to miss this year. Don't know if it's true, but if it is that kills a whole bunch of the arguments that he was just trying to get service without paying, especially in light of #1.
3) Firefighters are PROFESSIONALS - even the volunteers - and have a professional code of ethics to follow. The fact that they stood and watched the house burn is completely and utterly unconscionable. Every single firefighter who was out at the site and did not attempt to put the house fire out should be stripped of every single firefighting certification they have, summarily fired, and banned from any emergency service position for life. PERIOD. Fire departments put out fires, they don't watch them burn, no matter who's paying for it. If they won't do their jobs, they shouldn't have them.
4) While no humans were injured or killed in the house that burned, had there been then the fire department should have been arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and/or manslaughter - yes, the entire department. I would have no problem with charges being dropped against anyone who could demonstrate that they were not involved in the decision to not fight the fire, but anyone actively involved should be held responsible.
5) I can't tell if the neighbor's house actually caught fire or not, but if it did the same people who could be charged for #4 should be charged with arson for willingly allowing the fire to spread when they could have prevented it.

I know there are lots of people out there who are going to jump all over me for this, but I really don't give a damn. There's such a thing as common decency and respect in this world, though it seems to be getting more and more uncommon every day. And I have absolutely NO respect or sympathy for people who refuse to show that common decency when someone needs help.

Homeowner's Insurance

[nuckfuts]

That said, I think the solution to handling non-payers is to inform their Homeowners Insurance and/or mortgage holder about the requirement.

BINGO! You nailed it right there. Something similar actually happened to me recently. While on summer vacation, I let a homeowner's insurance bill go unpaid for a couple of weeks. When I came home, I found out that the insurance company had tried to deliver a registered letter cancelling my insurance. The interesting thing is that I got a letter from the mortgage holder shortly thereafter asking for proof that I was still insured. The insurance company has evidently notified the mortgage company.

So where firefighting service is "optional", the fire department should inform the homeowner's insurance company about any homeowner who refuses coverage. The insurance company would either require coverage or raise premiums. If there is a mortgage on the home and insurance lapsed, there is likely no way the homeowner could keep the house and still refuse to pay for firefighting service.

Re:Homeowner's Insurance

[alta]

I know this is logistics, but just how would the fire dept find out who holds their mortgage.

And this still doesn't help the 2% of the population without a mortgage.

On the other hand, the mortgage company would have an easier time finding the responsible fire dept. But then the FD would have to staff a book keeper to answer queries.

National database? No, I'm sick of nataional databases.

Re:Homeowner's Insurance

[BoberFett]

Mortgages are recorded in public records, abstracts, Torrens, what have you.

Wrong on So Many Levels

[SolarStorm]

Today we live in an A' La Carte society. The gov't has deemed us smart enough to know what kind of insurance and service we need and want. And we pay for each and everyone of them. For the smart people, they will assess their situation and purchase appropriate coverage's and service. Many of us would deem fire protection a necessity . Along with things like health ins. (which seems like a waste until you are sick) or even auto insurance.
But the reality is that "stuff happens", and unfortunately this A' La Carte society allows people to make the choice between health coverage or a new mustang. Smart people, will look at the shiny mustang and start saving. Darwin's proof population will look at the insurance bill and post in the "pay later" spike only to bury the other 10 "optional" bills that were delayed for the large screen TV and Pay Per View WWE event.
Unfortunately, these people are hazardous not only to themselves but the rest of society. See the pets and neighbor in the article. Government serves to serve the general population, and I for one would like them to mandate payment through taxes for things like healthcare, fire, police, roads, all of the basic services that ensure society runs (albeit to my standards). The payment for these services should be in the form of Taxes. They are as optional as death, but it is also what keeps our society functioning.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy's district voted against paying for such services with taxes. Since he didn't even want to pay a $75 fee for fire protection, I'm guessing he's part of the group that voted No.

Firefighers need a little attention+appreciation

[catmistake]

I don't want to show disrespect to policemen, because there are exceptional ones out there (or, were... teh NYPD at the 9/11 WTC disaster, for instance... or the one that pulled me over in WV and wouldn't give me a ticket because he would have had to arrest me and impound my car because of my speed... he was an individual, chewed me out, and let me go... and I haven't sped since), but a policeman's primary duty is to protect himself. It is a job, so why should they risk themselves and their family's well being for the unknown victim? They are pragmatic, and as selfish as the rest of us.

Firemen are passionate. They will run into a burning building to save your 62" flatscreen. Some will say they are nuts, but that's not it. They are passionate about their jobs. Without a second thought, they will risk their lives to save yours. They put everyone and everything before themselves. A story like this had to come out sooner or later. It is sad about the animals, but it makes the story all the more poignant. Show them respect. Thank them when you see them. Give them props. They are the true 1337.

Jesus said "I have cast this fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it, until it blazes."
-Secret Gospel of Thomas

We all fight fire. We are all firefighters.

Incorrect tag

[Jiro]

This is tagged as "republicans".

http://www.capitol.tn.gov/districtmaps/Senatewest.html

Obion County is in district 24. The representative from that district is a Democrat. Just click on the representative's biography. The current senator is a Republican, but was preceded by Democrat John Tanner, who was there for 20 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Tanner

Re:stick the homeowner with a huge bill

[DocSavage64109]

Bills only matter if people actually pay them. You really think they have the few thousands on hand fighting the fire would have cost?

Non-News is nothing to socialists

[Barterer]

The reason so many socialists are gleefully trashing libertarians over this fire-story (with a guaranteed +5 insightful) is because they only consider events dramatic enough to make the news. A loss that is spread out evenly over many people goes straight into their blind spot. It is unjust to force anyone to pay for fire service. That injustice is nothing to socialists because it isn't a dramatic event they can point to. But multiply it out over the vast number of people the injustice is imposed on, and the loss is greater than this house that burned down. Too bad a full cost/benefit analysis would make too boring a story for anyone to watch.

Re:Non-News is nothing to socialists

[jjohnson]

Is it unjust to force the fire department to fight the fire for a non-subscriber?

Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The fire station in question was funded through taxes, not private enterprise. How exactly is this an example of libertarianism?

2. Libertarians have much bigger fish to fry than the typical scapegoats of highways, fire, and police service. Yet strangely enough, these are the points that big-government cheerleaders regularly use as weapons against libertarianism.

3. Big-government cheerleaders have much to learn from the libertarian viewpoint, but for some reason, attack them with a level of hatred worthy of their worst enemy. Case in point: a government can provide fire, police, and highway services with a tiny fraction of the trillion-dollar budget the US government enjoys today. We are talking about the most expensive government that has ever existed in history, yet anyone who dares suggest that spending is the problem is instantly burned at the stake by the big-government cheerleaders.

In conclusion, big-government cheerleaders are some of the most hateful people I have ever known.

News for nerds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this even on slashdot? This is not news for nerds, it's just more of the same yellow, sensationalist, inflammatory junk we've all come to (sadly) expect from slashdot. Watch yourself samzen, you're about to join kdawson in the trash heap...

This is not about economics, or politics.

[b00le]

The responses here on /. point up what is wrong - not with Tennessee, or the USA, or libertarianism, but with human beings as a species. When you let a principle, right or wrong, trump your humanity you have lost the plot. It seems for most of the people on this site you can stand by and let your neighbour's house burn down because it makes sense politically, or economically, or administratively. And if his children had been in the house? The principle doesn't change. Never mind that libertarianism is just an infantile fantasy anyway. What kind of fireman will stand there and let this happen? A cowardly one. I don't care who pays, or how it's organized, or what the policy is: if your ideas are more important than your humanity, your ideas aren't worth shit.

Good, except for the arbitrary number

[istartedi]

I like what you're saying, except the numbers shouldn't be arbitrary. They should divide the number of hours spent on that incident by the hours in a year, then multiply by the annual budget to calculate the figure. Simple. Fair. Not arbitrary, inherently indexed to inflation.

Stinks, bu its his own fault

[Anonymous Coward]

He lives in a rural area, the fee is perfectly legal. He knew about the fee and choose not to pay it. Then when the fire department showed up he offered to pay them. Thats not how it works. You dont call the car insurance company to ask for insurance after you have gotten in an accident. The man choose to take a risk and it didnt turn out the way he had hoped. The fire department did nothing wrong, yes it may be "heartless" - to watch a mans home burn down, but there were no family members in the home. As I understand there were pets in the home, and although pets are like family... fire fighters are not required to risk their lives to save pets. They would have been required to go in had he said his wife was trapped... which she wasnt. so that would be false reporting. If he was allowed to not pay his fee and still receive services, why would anyone else in the area continue to pay their services? Then the fire department will receive no money, then when you do call they WONT come because there is no one there. Again, I know it SUCKS but tough. Its $75, he thought the $75 fee, slightly more then $6 a month was too much to pay for fire services -- do not cry foul because someone does not deliver services you have no paid for to begin with!

I agree with the fire department

[Jakobud]

This is completely justified on all levels. If everyone in a town pays the $75 annual fee EXCEPT THIS family and the fire department helps them anyways, guess who isn't going to be paying the fee next year? EVERYONE IN TOWN!

Re:I agree with the fire department

[kylegordon]

Unless the FD charges an exorbitant fee for unpaid callouts. Or insurance premiums are high for those that don't pay. Your 1st World system is BROKEN.

Re:I agree with the fire department

[russotto]

Unless the FD charges an exorbitant fee for unpaid callouts.

Problem is, the fee is uncollectable. There'd need to be a change in the law to make it collectable; someone above suggested a lien on the property, which would make perfect sense.

No insurance? Help now and send a bill in the mai!

[Shompol]

That's what happens when one without medical insurance gets hospitalized. They don't kick him out to die on the street!
There is no "Good Samaritan" law, but them being firemen on duty, I wish they could be prosecuted. Could always bill the guy for the visit later.

Ill say it again

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll say it again. Americans suck.

You don't let a house burn down, let alone if there are animals inside, for a fee or not, or for whatever reason.

Come to Canada, we actually care.

Fine til there's a paperwork snafu

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a fine system, until that magical time that WILL someday occur, when there's a fire call and the address and/or the name doesn't match up just right and they CHOOSE to let someone's house burn down, that actually DID pay. Then the fecal matter will strike the air flow enabling device.

Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the car

[zooblethorpe]

Uhhh...in a lot of states the government DOES force you insure your car.

Actually, what many states in US generally require is not that the *car* be insured, but rather the *driver* -- the legal requirements are for liability insurance for drivers, which makes some sense to me. The Wikipedia article on vehicle insurance goes into public policy somewhat.

If Joe collides with Kelly, and it's Joe's fault, then Joe is liable, and it's his responsibility to cover Kelly's expenses. Liability insurance makes sure that Joe can pay to cover such costs. If Joe has no liability insurance, and is too poor to pay for Kelly's expenses, then Kelly is stuck out through no fault of her own. Many states require liability insurance before they allow someone to get a driver's license, and thereby provide all drivers a measure of protection from the potential malfeasance of other drivers.

Cheers,

Hopefully the guys house was insured.

[scharkalvin]

His insurance company will be VERY ticked off that they had to pay for the total lose of the house becase the local fire department refused to do their civic duty over a matter of a tax dispute. That insurance company will then sue the county for the cost. IF someone had died, then which ever brainiac squelched that 911 call would (hopefully) have been charged with manslaughter.

Re:Hopefully the guys house was insured.

[EmagGeek]

Firefighters are under no legal obligation to respond to fire calls, and no legal obligation to put a fire out.

Similarly, Police have no duty to protect you, or to respond to your emergency calls. Police work is 100% voluntary. They are not required to actually do their job.

But we will arrest you for free

[Hairy1]

It seems the Fire Chief was assaulted by the son. Police turned up to arrest the son.For free. Did the Fire Chief have to pay the Police for that service?

Re:But we will arrest you for free

[jidar]

Did the police pay? Yes, with taxes. Or more to the point everyone paid for it, which is why it worked.

Not suspicious, just hill billy

[SoccerDad41]

And so the conspiracy theories begin. If a person lives in a rural area on a piece of property larger than the typical suburban postage stamp you develop an attitude of freedom. Zoning is often nonexistent. People don't have to mow their lawns, hide their junk cars, chain their dogs, or paint their houses. People do as they please and anyone telling them what to do is likely to get a clear view of the business end of a shotgun. Open fires might technically require a permit but enforcement is unlikely to occur. Any interference by government is met with righteous indignation. Property and other taxes are railed against. The people who wind up in control are often those who join in simply to protect their own wealth (and incumbency) by keeping taxes to a minimum, which usually means the schools suffer. Wow, quite a few sweeping generalizations in here but bottom line is that I grew up in rural England, now live in the Mid West, and can visualize this exact unfortunate situation occurring in a rural community in either area. Lots of clichés come to mind too: You've made your bed, now lie in it; Poor planning on your part doesn't make for an emergency on mine. It will be interesting to see what happens in the courts. If there isn't a Good Samaritan law, like the one in New York that put the Seinfeld crew in jail in the series-ending episode, and the fire department wasn't contracted to protect that house, there may be no standing to sue the fire fighters, the town in which they are based, or any of the local governments. Insurance companies always inquire about the fire department when selling an insurance policy. If the owner received a rate that was based on that department responding to a fire and failed to pay the fee that obligated the department to respond, the insurance company will likely decline to pay the claim and it's due to the homeowner's negligence in paying the fee. As easy as it is to blame the firefighters, anyone who believes in personal responsibility can see that the home owner is responsible for his current unfortunate situation.

you are an idiot

[pigwiggle]

The start of the LP platform -

"As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others."

And how do kings and nobels fit in?

Dumbass.

Re:you are an idiot

[sznupi]

Oh, you really don't know how they fit? Just dehumanize some groups, problem solved. Easy, almost natural to our minds. You were on a good track in the above post with regards to parent poster.

No, the homeowner allowed 4 pets to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the homeowner allowed 4 pets to die by leaving them in a house that wasn't protected from fires. These people live in an area where voters apparently think fire protection is completely unnecessary, or they would have taxed for it like sane people. Some city in the next state over was willing to allow people who live out there to pay an insurance fee in order to get fire protection from them if it was needed. This homeowner said no, he didn't think $75 dollars a year was worth paying in order to protect his property and animals from a fire.

Firefighting is dangerous, and you need to support a fire department by paying for it-- probably with taxes. Honestly, they're doing these people a huge favor by being willing to go in after people, when the voters of the state of Tennessee and the county they live in apparently think rescuing people from burning buildings is not a necessary social service.

Capitalism at its finest!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhhhhh!! I love it!

Here is the The American Capitalist mentality in full fruition. Everything in life is a commodity, and donating anything free of charge, despite it being a net less economically if you don't, is frowned upon.

Frankly, no one should be complaining here. Assuming the homeowner had insurance, and EVERYTHING was covered, sentiment should be the only thing was lost.

/not a capitalist, but an American who knows life is more than about money and objects

Don't have to buy things, eh?

[Civil_Disobedient]

the question there is whether the US federal government has lawful authority under the Constitution to order people to buy things

Just what do you think those pesky taxes are used for? To buy things. Like books for libraries. Trucks for fire departments. Guns for police. Planes for the air force and tanks for the Army.

Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, bucko.

Re:It's been said already and in different ways, b

[Anonymous Coward]

... the firefighters did exactly the right thing.

Really? Allowing a structure to burn, when you have no idea what is contained in that structure, is a wise idea? For all you know the man could have had a secret meth lab in the basement which could have detonated, or a huge stack of PVC pipe which, when burned, would produce enough toxic fumes to sicken anybody within 500 yards. Who gives a shit about the man and his non-payment. You don't put out the fire for him, you put it out because allowing a fire to burn when you don't have all the facts makes you a fucking idiot.

TFD broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the fire department in question has been struggling to pay their bills and employees (the people who actually put their lives on the line and show up for work every day), and people are continuously refusing to pay for the service they provide? Doesn't this scenario give them the perfect way to get attention from non-paying residents, and it will cause a huge influx of money for the department? I think that's a good thing.

Insane

[kylegordon]

I'm amazed at how many people are (t)rolling out the line "If everyone could pay on the spot then they'd only pay $75 when they needed it".

Don't you think the policy makers would involve some sort of penalty? It's not rocket science y'know. $75 per year, or $100,000 per callout. The insurance companies could even make a quick profit on it by reducing the payout if it was found that the owner didn't pay the $75pa cost. Doesn't your crazy medical care system work like this already anyway?

Don't you lot have _any_ form of social responsibility or compassion? You call yourselves developed? :-(

Re:Insane

[jidar]

I'm amazed at how many people are (t)rolling out the line "If everyone could pay on the spot then they'd only pay $75 when they needed it".

Don't you think the policy makers would involve some sort of penalty?

They tried that first. $500 bills after the fact. Not enough people paid so they stopped.

What is wrong with everyone in a society all paying for something that nearly everyone benefits from? Like fire protection? Newflash, the free market just doesn't work for everything.

Re:Insane

[gujo-odori]

The problem there (let me guess, you didn't RTFA; this is /., after all) do not live in the legal jurisdiction of the town that has the fire department. That means that the town cannot enforce a legal penalty for not paying the fee. It also cannot enforce a "business penalty" by having the firefighters whip out a contract and say "Sign here and we'll put out the fire. This contract requires you to pay the $75 now, before we even pick up a hose, and a $100,000 penalty within 30 days." Using that number because you through it out there, but the number doesn't matter. The contract would never survive a legal challenge because it would quite clearly have been signed under duress. Not only the penalty, but probably even the $75 fee, would be thrown out for that person.

The only practical ways to handle it are:

1) The way they are doing it now ("If you haven't paid, we won't even roll a truck").

2) Provide no firefighting service in the county at all. Or put another way, "You're the ones who, for whatever reason and through whatever process, have chosen not to have a county-wide fire department. Maybe you should think about getting one."

3) Get the county to agree to pay - in advance - the per-house fee for the service and to be responsible for collecting it from the county residents. This could best be accomplished through a special local property tax assessment.

I feel for the guy, having gambled that his house wouldn't burn and lost, but come on, it was his choice. You'll note that even the reporter who wrote TFA seems to not believe him. When he says he forgot to pay it, "forgot" is in quotes. I bet he's "forgotten" to pay it every year.

I'll also bet that the day after the fire, a huge number of people who also "forgot" suddenly remembered.

If I don't pay my garbage bill, they'll stop collecting my garbage. If I don't pay my gas and electric bill, they'll turn off my gas and electric. If I don't pay my water bill, they'll turn off my water. They can't turn off my sewer service, but it's included in the property tax bill, so they *know* they're getting that money.

Or to look at it another way, if he "forgot" to pay his fire insurance and the company canceled his policy and a month later his house burned down and he was upset that the insurance company wouldn't pay, he'd still be wrong. The insurance company would have no relationship with him and no obligation to pay.
The fire department had no relationship with him either, and thus no obligation to put out the fire.

It especially bugs me to see a volunteer fire department being criticized like this; it's not like they are being paid to be on call in the fire house in case they are needed; when they get a call, they have to leave their regular jobs to go fight the fire. Not unreasonable that they didn't go.

Re:Insane

[Ymerej]

It may not be rocket science, but it's not 3rd grade math either. It's very likely that the house/land in question was worth much less than $100,000. If that was the fee, they couldn't have or wouldn't have paid it. To answer your question, it appears that the people of the rural county that this man lived in did not in fact have any form of social responsibility or compassion. The government in that area, which was presumably expressing the will of its constituents, had apparently decided not to arrange for fire protection for all of the people outside the city who could be served by the city fire department. The people had decided to to leave it up to each individual as to whether or not to get the protection. The City had, after seeing that the owner of the house had not paid the fee, called him and written him a letter. For whatever reason, even after those communications where he was told what the consequences would be if he didn't pay and his house caught on fire, did not pay. It is sad, indeed, that this man subjected his family and pets to the consequences of his inaction. Many people decide not to live in cities because they don't like to pay higher taxes for things like city water, city sewer, fire protection, city garbage collection, city building codes and inspections, etc. They also don't want to have to play by the rules that go along with city life. It's a choice -- you get what you pay for.

do the math

[t2t10]

No, a $1500 fee would not be reasonable; that would translate into a 1:20 risk of having any given house burn down each year. Actual risk is more like 1:2000, and you need a 2x penalty to discourage opting out. So, we're at a $300k on-the-spot fee, which is probably more than the house was worth.

Re:It's been said already and in different ways, b

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus fucking christ. Just kill yourself. This might just be the thread that makes my lose my last inch of faith in humanity.

That's an Inflatist's assinine remedy.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a proven fact that Police have enticed crime in order to gain kickbacks from government to support prosecution; I've seen prostitutes hired as temporary under-cover COPS to solicit drugs and "protection money" out of random passers-by; even the CIA works with these goons to disclose their drug-dealers to document what people are slinging drugs, so they can gain leverage on their $17billion home-seizure business for anyone in contact with drugs. It's the same with all privileged infrastructure in a region. Ambulances, anti-Fire teams, tax collectors, dentists and plummers: you name it, they are cheating the people. Just consider that there is no demand for dentists in regions where the water isn't fluoridated, or how the plummers aren't on call because pipes of fluoridated water break in 5 to 10 years rather than 30 years. Job security all around. No civics to speak for because Statism is all around the table of privileged privateers advertising their self-worth by non-performance when the time is most evident of their use.

The reason why there exists a republic is because people know the value of CIVICS, so there are volunteers stationed to perform these Union dues. It's typical that a Corrupt system would punish ill-prepaired people with a bill 10-times what their actual operating costs are. That is no different than a charitable Catholic Mission or a Christian Church demanding payment of a Bill they entered you into on auspices of Surprise and Disposition if not a compelled Emergency. Let alone the fact that this all behaves nothing more than a Limited Liability natural affair that re-construes the event from being handled as a Emergency because it is the expected default action to be covered by someone else.

You would think those Fire-bringers or Water-fighters would be more pleased to put-out the fire because the risk of it spreading to the subscribed Neighbors would would warrant such a charity. Instead, NO: we're going to be dicks, send them a bill for doing something we would've been pre-payed to perform anyway, we're going to rub the sarcism hard into this non-payer that is trying to balance their budget, and we are going to take the time out of our busy schedule to watch you cry rather than waxing our GOVERNMENT-bought trucks. Yea, we aren't those swauve men of the Dragon looking to burn your books: we burn your house because if you don't pay us, then things will burn whether by our flame or people around you. Nevermind all those professional arsons traced to almost-layed-off Fire men over in California. Never mind similar job-security nuances of similar Departments. Pay Your DUES!

I'll do you one better

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the house of a friend of mine who owes more than a 100.000 euros in taxes he hasn't been able to pay for years (got screwed by a bad business partner) was on fire, we'd still put it out.

Somewhere else I read they initially had a system whereby a person would be charged $500 for putting out a fire, but half the people wouldn't pay and had to be taken to court. No problem, just raise it to a couple of thousand and then get them to also pay the cost of court, bankrupt them if you have to. You just can't let someones house burn down this way, it insanely immoral and very dangerous to people living nearby. Much worse than someone not paying his dues for the fire service.

I guess that is true USA chrsitian behaviour

[kubitus]

and those firefighters will show up at the next service in their church as good citizens.

With a good story to tell after the service.

I read your comments

[cthubik]

I don't want to live on this planet any more.

Poor animals.

[Anonymous Coward]

They SHOULD NOT have let those animals die, though. Sure, the guy is at fault for not paying this fee, or whatever, but animals do not deserve to be burned alive. It's not their fault. This story sickens me for that reason.

Re:Poor animals.

[Straif]

From what I've read the home owner had ample time to remove the pets. The fire started outside, slowly spread to the shed and then to the house. It is not the Fire Departments fault that the home owner didn't think enough of his pets to have them removed from the house.

It's worse than you think

[narcc]

The fire department arrived before the fire had spread to the house. The fire started in two burn barrels, spread to a tool shed, then to the house.

It would have taken just a few minutes to prevent this disaster.

There's a good story about it on TYT:Firefighters Let House Burn Down Over $75

How do you pay for the fire dept. then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is your FD sponsored by Halliburton?

Re:How do you pay for the fire dept. then?

[tmosley]

Property taxes, generally. Sales taxes could be used as well.

To mangle an old quote

[anyGould]

There's no conservatives in a house fire.

Guy has no problem "forgetting" to pay his fees until it's his arse on the line. Then suddenly it's time for the government to bail him out.

Re:To mangle an old quote

[sstamps]

Works for Wall Street. .

What about the insurance company?

[wanax]

A point which I haven't seen mentioned: This guy (according to the Olbermann interview) HAS homeowners insurance, including fire coverage! Why wasn't the insurance company allowed to pay the fee for him? (or, if they were why didn't they?) And why wasn't the insurance company allowed to separately contract with the city fire department to provide fire-fighting services for their policy holders (this is the way firefighting was funded in most of the US prior to the civil war)?

Setting up a situation where somebody (intentionally or inadvertently) not paying a $75 fee can cause tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and fees for themselves, their neighbors (at least one had direct property damage) and the other policy holders of the insurance company is stupid and unjustifiable regardless of moral, political or economic perspective.

Re:What about the insurance company?

[LanMan04]

Setting up a situation where somebody (intentionally or inadvertently) not paying a $75 fee can cause tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and fees for themselves, their neighbors (at least one had direct property damage) and the other policy holders of the insurance company is stupid and unjustifiable regardless of moral, political or economic perspective.

I see you've never had health insurance in post-WWII America...

Potentially abusable...

[the_one_wesp]

This couldn't be used to persecute your enemies. I little midnight excursion into city records, proof of payment removed, and a little "accident" could lead to a call something like this:

911: "I'm sorry, you're not on our list. You must not have paid this year."
Homeowner: "But I paid! I swear I did!"
911: "I'm sorry we have no record of that. If you could show us your receipt, then we could do something about it."
Homeowner: "It's in the house that BURNING DOWN!"
911: "I'm sorry, if you can't show you paid, we can't help you."

They had 2 hours to get animals out of the house.

[maillemaker]

I do not understand how pets died. The news accounts say that 2 hours elapsed from the time the trash fire got out of control to the burning of the house.

Surely there was time to empty the house of animals and even significant amounts of property?

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[lgftsa]

Here in Australia, the car has to have third-party liability insurance. It is part of the yearly car registration, and while you have choice of insurers, it is not optional. This covers the case where the car is stolen and causes damage, or an unlicensed or uninsured driver causes damage.

Exactly!

[maillemaker]

>Because you idiots don't think the consequences through.

Exactly. Wish I had mod points for you.

Social services are not provided just for, or even mainly for altruistic reasons. Social services are provided because society AS A WHOLE is better off when when these services are provided.

Re:It's been said already and in different ways, b

[Straif]

But putting these fireman's lives in danger to simply protect this mans property (they had already assured no human life was in danger) seems perfectly ok with you?

And they knew what was there. The home owner was on site talking to them.

Even here in the city I live (about a million people) I've seen buildings allowed to burn simply because the cost and risk to save them was considered too high. The FD just ensured there was no chance of the fire spreading and then allowed the primary structure to burn. I'm pretty sure the idea that an armed nuclear bomb is sitting in the living room surrounded by 'dirty' material does not much enter into the fire chiefs calculations about whether it's worth risking his men or resources to save it.

More importantly, since they were acting outside of their jurisdiction and not on the property of a person who had contracted their services and not performing an action to save a life there is also the very distinct possibility that if anything had happened to the fireman while putting out the fire they would not be covered by their insurance policy.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

The animals died. Yeah, OK not human lives, but still pretty fucking despicable to stand by whilst they burned to death.

don't pay........ don't wine

[rpatton]

they do operate in a similar way yes they could've billed him $7500 but would he have paid that bill like he didn't pay the $75? He didn't pay the simple $75 why would he pay 100 times that amount. Yes they could've put out the fire but someone has to pay for it so you that are againest welfare and public assistance thats what he would have been getting on the spot until the debt was actually paid. Fire equipment isn't cheap someone has to pay for it His neighbor paid, his neighbor was protected. I wouldn't vote that way i would have paid the simple $75 bucks. what is crazy is that his insurance company is actually giving him anything. WTF !!! no wonder the insurance rate are so fucking high in this country. pay for fire insurance on my house but dont pay the local fire department there fee seems like it would defeat the purpose. thats like paying the electric bill but not your mortgage why have electric if you have been kicked out of the house for not paying th mortgage. get your priorities straight before you start bitching about something that you yourself could've prevented

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[nomadic]

And a lot of states require proof of insurance before they'll allow you to register your car (and registering your car, is of course, mandatory). This is outside any requirements for liability insurance for a driver.

The suckage is only beginning for him

[Yakasha]

when he files his insurance claim.

99% of home-owners insurance policies state you must have fire coverage. When he files his claim he's going to find out his policy is void.

though something about this story hints he didn't pay his insurance premiums either.

Question for you

[zooblethorpe]

I don't insure my car.

I'm curious -- does this mean you do not insure your car against damage, or does this mean you do not have any vehicular insurance of any kind, including liability insurance?

If the latter, I must admit I agree with state laws requiring that drivers (or in some states the cars themselves) be insured for liability, to prevent situations where Bob totals Alice's car and puts her in the hospital, but leaves Alice in the lurch and gets off scot-free because he doesn't have liability insurance and Alice doesn't have the resources to pursue him in court.

We know that traffic accidents happen. It seems reasonable to me to insist that people have proven means of taking responsibility for covering the costs of any accidents that are their fault, before granting them a driver's license. Sure, there are good people of means, who would do the honourable thing on their own volition and pay the costs of someone they've run into. But there are also skivers and the less financially blessed who might not want or be able to pay such costs, even when it may be clearly their responsibility to do so -- which is where required liability insurance makes sure that no one is left high and dry after being run into by someone else.

But that's just my 2p. :)

Cheers,

Re:Question for you

[commodore64_love]

I wish people learn to understand plain English. "I don't insure my car," means precisely what it says. I do however insure the other guy's car, plus his body, plus incidental property damage (like hitting somebody's fence).

But "I don't insure my car," means what it says and nobody should force me to do it. Neither should anyone force me to pay $75/year to a fire company if I don't want the protection.

Pro-Choice is better.

Re:Question for you

[zooblethorpe]

I do apologize for piquing your frustration, but it bears noting the English is a muddy medium. Elsewhere in this thread, it became clear that there was some confusion as to quite what "insuring a car" specifically meant -- according to lgftsa, nomadic, AK Marc, and Firethorn, it sounds very much like, at least in some states, the liability insurance you describe -- I do however insure the other guy's car, plus his body, plus incidental property damage (like hitting somebody's fence) -- is attached to the vehicle(s) owned by the insured, which some people interpret as "insuring a car". I also recall reading somewhere (maybe AAA's insurance materials?) that auto liability policies in WA insure the vehicle owned by the insured person against liability by any driver.

Hence my question seeking clarity regarding your intended meaning. In any argument, it's generally more productive if everyone agrees what they're all arguing about. :)

Cheers,

Re:Question for you

[shaitand]

"We know that traffic accidents happen."

Alice knew it too which is why Alice should be responsible for the risk she assumed when driving in spite of it.

The correct avenue for removing irresponsible drivers from the road is the police. Beyond that, everyone assumes their own risks on the road. Furthermore, the idea that one of the participants is always responsible for the accident is something invented by the insurance companies. If you weren't driving recklessly (aka are going to be arrested) then you aren't at fault in an accident, you just had one.

Birds fly into large windows and crack them. Do you force everyone to pay bird insurance or do you let it work itself out? Those with more large windows have greater risk and therefore will end up paying more as a whole for window repairs. Don't want to pay for window repairs from accidents that 'aren't your fault' don't buy large windows.

But that's not fair!, cries the Slashdot nanny. Well life's not fair. Just because you feel it is reasonable to drive doesn't mean you don't have to pay for the real risks you assume and not the risks which would be 'fair'.

Libertarianism Gone Wrong

[njfuzzy]

To me, this is the perfect argument to make me question my often-Libertarian leanings. The reason we have governments is so that, as a society, we don't have to worry about situations like this. So we can extinguish the fire, without wondering if it was paid for. So we can protect the neighborhood (or surrounding land). Fire departments are in place to provide a necessary protection for society as a whole, and that system breaks down if one person can opt out-- or even be put in a position to have to choose whether to opt out. Fire departments should not have a fee associated, they should be covered by a tax.

I knew you'd post that

[bonch]

I knew that this story would hit Slashdot. I knew someone would use some local incident in Fulton County to extrapolate a statement on the entire nation, because it makes certain people feel insightful and intellectual to criticize the nation they're living in in a contrarian fashion. Left-wingers on sites like ThinkProgress and Alternet have been pushing the story as proof of how "conservative government" does things, ignoring the fact that the "subscription fee" is essentially the same thing as a tax you can opt out of at your own risk.

If you don't pay, if you can't pay, you will not get services

America's privatized hospitals don't turn people away from the E.R. They treat them and bill them later. This story should be a criticism of the local government for not doing that. There's really no story here except that there should probably be a policy of billing people if they request service but haven't paid yet.

We have turned into the Randian utopia of rugged individualists who have given up on treating each other as human beings.

Your nickname is accurate, because this has nothing to do with Ayn Rand. The fact nobody took up the guy's offer to pay means there's a lack of a free market and a government monopoly on fire protection, a distinctly anti-libertarian situation.

We treat each other like consumers.

This is so corny. You even double-spaced it for dramatic effect. You may as well have ended the sentence with "maaaan."

It's sad, and it's one of the things I had hoped the Obama era would overcome. Unfortunately, it seems like the problem has only been exacerbated.

Governments are the most corrupt and clumsy organizations in the world. If you believed big government is miraculously problem-free compared to free markets, you probably deserve the lesson that the Obama era is teaching you.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Unkyjar]

No person would stand around and watch a crime in progress.

Kitty Genovese would have to disagree with you on that one. But your point is taken. It is more likely that if the police department is pay for service, they'd just not investigate the murders of people who don't pay the fee. It's really a common trope in science fiction writing.

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[zooblethorpe]

In CA and WA, the most recent two states where I've gotten a driver's license and registered a car, the proof of insurance you're required to bring is for driver's liability. Is this not the case in the states you mention? Do they require some kind of property insurance on cars? If so, that strikes me as a bit odd -- liability insurance at least has to do with protecting others, but property insurance is just about protecting one's own property value.

Curious,

Jury Nullification

[Firethorn]

Would jury nullifaction hold once the prosecution presents all the evidence? The reasoning behind the chief not putting the fire out?

As has been stated elsewhere, the cost for fighting a fire ends up quite high, and post-fire billing doesn't collect anywhere near enough to cover it.

Re:They had 2 hours to get animals out of the hous

[Unkyjar]

I asked myself the same thing. Plus it was a Mobile home...there really aren't many rooms to deal with when finding the cat.

I've seen this before with more hilarious results.

[tazan]

It happened in the small town I lived in. The fire department showed up said he was on the wrong side of the street and hadn't paid up and they couldn't do anything. Turns out the city had been sending him tax bills for years though and he'd been paying them. They had to buy him a new house.

like mortagages require fire insurance...

[doug141]

his fire insurance should have included the $75 fee.

If the firefighters are just going to sit around..

[ohiovr]

and watch someone's house burn to the ground they should at least have the common decency to bring some marshmallows and beer.

Fire insurance used to be this way

[wickerprints]

We didn't always have multi-peril homeowner's insurance. Insuring your home typically involved separate policies on specific named perils, and fire insurance was in its earliest days a mutual agreement between insureds to pool the risk. A community typically established a volunteer firefighting force using funds set aside by the undersigned parties. You would put a plaque on your home that indicated you were covered under such an agreement.

Clearly, this arrangement was inefficient and led to organizational issues, which is why firefighting--especially in urbanized areas--quickly became incorporated under the umbrella of public services, so that nowadays, we think of firefighting as a public good paid through taxes. But we should be reminded that this was not always the case. In rural areas, such agreements between the homeowner and the fire department are still prevalent.

Incidentally, the life insurance analogy is not really valid because there are numerous variations on the type of policy offered, with different pricing structures. For example, some life insurance policies are structured such that the failure to pay the premium merely reduces the benefit according to an actuarially determined formula. But in a situation like this, there is no option to fight x% of the fire--you either fight to eliminate it entirely, or you let it burn. This is precisely why fire insurance moved to an agreement between the insurer and insured, and left the firefighting to a third party. You wouldn't want your doctor to only treat half of your disease because you only paid half your premium. That doesn't make any sense. Instead, you have the doctor bill your insurer, and your insurer determines your financial responsibility based on your level of coverage.

teabagger future

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can justify this, you are a heartless piece of crap. No seriously, the fucking Grinch only stole presents, he never burnt down a fucking house. The poor bastard offered to pay the entire cost, between him and his neighbor had $5,000 to pay on the spot, but no fucking way, you didn't pay your protection money, now you get to learn your lesson. Its not like there were not other options. The fire department could of found funding any number of ways, including getting federal stimulus funds, but that would of required them to be humane and put out everyone's fire. But they turned down more money than they would of had, provided from out of state, so they could drink the privatization Kool Aid. And this is what we get, more expensive, more complicated, less useful, less efficient. But at least there are no fucking freeloaders. You people make me sick.

This is what the teabaggers and democrats are offering. They are totally against socialist organizations, like fire departments.

If you don't like it, vote Democrat.

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[Firethorn]

Many states require liability insurance before they allow someone to get a driver's license, and thereby provide all drivers a measure of protection from the potential malfeasance of other drivers.

Small correction here. Most states allow you to get a license without any insurance at all.

What they don't allow you to do is register a vehicle without insurance.

Still, it's generally a good idea to get a 'un/under-insured motorist' clause on your policy. That covers you if you're hit by a drunk driver with a revoked license driving a uninsured or stolen car.

Wrong on so many levels

[SpaghettiPattern]

This is wrong on so many levels. Apparently the city of South Fulton delivers fire fighting service to Obion County and demands their inhabitants to pay a fee for that. That's very fair.

Gene Cranick apparently forgot to pay for the service this year and he deserves a jolly good bollocking for that. But he offered to pay a surplus to South Fulton in order to have them over anyway but South Fulton replied that was too late and refused to take any action. Until, that is, a neighbour -who did pay the fee- called and the fire fighters had to eventually scramble to Obion County to protect the neighbours house but still refusing to do anything for Gene Cranick.

The thing that strikes me most is the blatant neglect by South Fulton of a potentially dangerous situation. When there's a fire you have to move in order to minimise damage but more importantly to prevent calamities. This fire could have spread wild, endangering people, life stock and maybe even a whole village. South Fulton preferred to scratch their testicles and to eventually move very reluctantly.

South Fulton also missed an opportunity to cash in on Gene Cranick by charging him handsomely for the service. I believe he would have gladly paid a very good price for the service. To my knowledge, letting a cash opportunity slip in the US is a mortal sin, even worse than driving a Lada.

South Fulton showed themselves as an aparatski from the long gone communist era doing everything by the book.

South Fulton should have simply helped Gene Cranick. Afterwards I'm sure they'd settle the bill amicably.

And then there's the simple human thing.

South Fulton, incapable of assessing dangerous situations, inept at making money for the tax payer, horribly formal and without any trace of humanity in them. What a bunch of bastards.

To all the reading comprehension failures above

[DinDaddy]

Everyone who has posted this is like asking to be compensated by insurance by offering to pay a premium after you have a car accident or other similar incorrect analogy:

First read Rochberg's post:
http://idle.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1810528&cid=33810384

The firefighters had already COME TO HIS HOUSE. They were THERE. He offered them payment for ALL THEIR EXPENSES.

If you want to make a retarded car analogy, this is like refusing a parking brake repair from your mechanic, and then when he sees you get out of your car on a hill near his shop, him running over to where you are, and then refusing to help you stop your car as it starts to roll down the hill where it will smash into a wall, even when you offer him the money for the original repair and more.

Even absent all that, I can't believe the number of assholes who think he deserved it when they were already sitting right there. The same crowd who thinks the RIAA is out of line asking for $250,000 for a $.99 song. What happened to punishment (and that is sure as hell what this was) fitting the misdeed?

The hard line I would take on this is they put out the fire, then bill him for the full cost of the emergency call. He fails to pay, put a lien on his house and foreclose for the amount plus costs. I bet he'd trade that situation for the one he's in now.

Better example

[fishbowl]

Take the same property, same owner, same situation of the unpaid bill.

But the owner isn't the resident. It's a rental property. The tenant has no idea that there is an unpaid bill. On the other hand, he does have insurance on the property with a company that aggressively takes action.

Are the firefighters in no way responsible? Exactly how are they indemnified?

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[nomadic]

I think you're mixing up the ideas here; I pointed out that despite OP's assertion, in many states you are required to get insurance if you own a car, as opposed to just if you're a driver. I didn't limit it to property insurance, I'm sure it's just liability, but the point we're arguing is whether the government can force you to get insurance for ownership of a vehicle.

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[Mr. Slippery]

Do they require some kind of property insurance on cars? If so, that strikes me as a bit odd -- liability insurance at least has to do with protecting others, but property insurance is just about protecting one's own property value.

In Maryland, liability insurance is required to register a vehicle (i..e, put tags on it). You can't drive an unregistered vehicle; you can't even park one on the street.

You are not required to purchase property insurance (collision or comprehensive).

The policy generally will cover both you and other drivers in your household (you have to tell the insurer about them, so they know your 16-year-old leadfooted daughter is driving your heap), and (usually) others who might occasionally use your car -- e.g., I loan my station wagon to my neighbor for a trip to the lumber yard.

You are not required to purchase insurance to have a driver's license, but you can't drive a vehicle that doesn't have insurance. Thus, someone with a license but no car could drive a work vehicle, for example.

WA does req ins for drivers, not for licensing

[zooblethorpe]

Small correction here. Most states allow you to get a license without any insurance at all.

What they don't allow you to do is register a vehicle without insurance.

Thanks, Firethorn. It's been a while, so clearly my memory's a bit rusty.

Digging around, it sounds like WA does not require liability insurance to get a license itself (link), but they do require either insurance or some guaranteed means of paying up to $60 K in liabilities by way of either a bond or certificate of deposit (link) before allowing someone to drive. I'm not sure how this is enforced; it would make more sense to require the insurance/bond/COD before giving someone a license, rather than after the fact, but far be it from me to understand bureaucracy.

Cheers,

Re:WA does req ins for drivers, not for licensing

[Firethorn]

I'm not sure how this is enforced;

Reading the rules, they have to provide proof of insurance before they'll register a vehicle for the road.

it would make more sense to require the insurance/bond/COD before giving someone a license, rather than after the fact, but far be it from me to understand bureaucracy.

Because insurance is normally attached at least somewhat to the vehicle(civics are less prone to more expensive accidents than BMWs).

Getting a driver's license takes more work and somebody with a license but no vehicle can drive a rental(using the rental's insurance), a friend or relative's vehicle, etc...

Oh, and driving without insurance is a $450 fine, per your site.

Re:WA does req ins for drivers, not for licensing

[zooblethorpe]

Cheers, thanks!

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[zooblethorpe]

Yah, I belatedly realised I was partially conflating ideas here, and posted a separate question to commodore64_love directly.

To belabor the point however :), if the required insurance is liability coverage for a driver, then technically speaking the insurance is not on the car itself. WA, for instance, requires insurance for the driver, regardless of car ownership (link). But then again maybe I'm misunderstanding something here; I'm no insurance expert.

Be that as it may, I'm curious to see what commodore64_love has to say.

Cheers,

Melbourne's Metro ambulance service

[alchemy101]

In Melbourne (Australia) we can choose not to pay for Ambulance membership; In the event that we do need emergency services the Ambos won't sit back and do nothing when they find out we don't have membership, they do there job and we get a bill (that's signifigantly higher than the cost of membership).
We can also choose to take out private health insurance that would cover the cost of the Ambulance (so we don't need to pay for both ambulance membership and private health insurance).

Worse than that...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is worse than this expresses....

For years our local volunteer fire department sent us an annual 'dues' request. I paid it. Then I discovered that they wouldn't come to our house because we're over the line. %$#@*& greedy SOBs. I stopped sending them money. I consider that pretty nasty on their part to 'bill' us for all those years when they knew they wouldn't serve us.

Our old house was a >200 year old tinder box. When I built our new house I built it out of stone. There is virtually nothing in it that burns. I did get a break on my home owners insurance as the insurance company recognizes a home built like mine just doesn't have much chance of burning. It is the better solution.

Think of the value of life

[Anonymous Coward]

If a person decides to enter their dog in a dog fighting contest, they are evil. They need to be charged with a federal offence. P.E.T.A. needs to scream in an uproar, they need to go to jail, and be harassed for ever after. Be ordered by the court to never be able to own a dog again. But if the fire department stands around on the scene and watch that dog get burned alive until it dies, and refuses to do anything, oh well that's ok. No charges, no uproar, nothing. Its somehow ok now.
I wonder if there was a person in the house, who knows, elderly, disable, infant, etc and they were allowed to be burned alive over $75, what would be the reaction. Would it still be, that's what the owner gets? Or does it now become the fire fighters should've done something?
I say if the owner didn't want to pay and his house caught fire, the fire fighters should have put it out anyway. Then bill him for the ENTIRE costs of putting out the fire. Then put a lien on the property until paid, and the property seized if unpaid after a period of time, to recoup the expense.
The value of life should trump all the petty nonsense in priority.

Re:Libertarians get blamed for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I heard somewhere that the neighboring city providing the fire department services is actually in Kentucky so annexation may not be an option.

Ancient Rome

[tru3ntropy]

Correct me if im wrong but isnt this how they did it in Ancient Rome; going around setting fires and if the owners didnt pay up they would let the place burn to the ground?

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[AK Marc]

You are right in principle, but 100% wrong in fact. You do not insure the driver. I have been a single man, living alone, with three cars. I had to insure all three cars, and the discount is a little, but not nearly what it should be if I was the only driver. They assume you lend the car, and the car is still covered for almost all cases of lending a car. Of course, as an insured driver, if I were to borrow someone else's car without insurance, I'd be covered if I hit someone, but not adequately covered if I was pulled over and forced to show proof of insurance. Those cards have the VIN on them. Why would that be necessary if the person, not the car, was insured?

How does the slippery slope get started?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you'd immediately stop paying if they'd put out a fire for free in your neighborhood?

Reprehensible

[Anonymous Coward]

This is absolutely reprehensible.

Not responding to the call at all is one thing. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can understand it. After all, the house was (sort of) outside their service area. But they did eventually send firefighters out to the location, AFTER the fire caused damage to a neighboring home -- and once there, they stood around their fire truck, held their firefighting equipment, and watched this family's home and beloved pets burn to the ground.

I don't care the economics of it. I'm talking about basic human decency. Regardless of what the fire chief ordered, the men who were there are the ones who ultimately had to make a choice. They chose to just stand there, watching a family's home burn and their pets die, when they had the tools necessary to save it at their fingertips. Those men are absolute scumbags.

If anyone's feeling righteously indignant or just plain cranky, you can reach the South Fulton Fire Department at 731-479-0213.

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[zooblethorpe]

Thank you for laying that out. Your post makes me realize I was interpreting the phrase "insure the car" to mean more damage insurance covering the value of the car, rather than liability insurance covering the possibility of an at-fault accident.

Cheers,

Not a fine, a BILL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since he didn't pay into the insurance, any service would be billed at full cost. You're not allowed to get insurance on your car right after a wreck, and then claim it, right? So why should he be allowed to simply pay $75 once the fire had started? TOO LATE!

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case, the trailer was outside city limits. The Fire Department in question is paid by the tax payers of the city. The tax payers have a right to demand that their resource is only used by those paying for it. The owners of the trailer was given the option to buy in to the city's fire protection plan for $75/year, but opted not to do so. They gambled and, in this case, lost. It's like buying any other kind of insurance, really.

The Fire Department did show up to make sure that there was no danger to human life, or the property of those neighbors that had paid in to the city's fire protection system.

BE A FUCKING HUMAN BEING!

[Joe U]

What the fuck is wrong with you? Someone's house burned down WHILE they were there. They were standing there and let someone's house burn down, and they had the equipment to stop it.

Act like a human being for once in your sad fucking life and help someone who needs it.

Re:BE A FUCKING HUMAN BEING!

[Anonymous Coward]

The homeowner should have acted like a human being and coughed up a measly $75 to the people he expects to protect him from fire.

Re:BE A FUCKING HUMAN BEING!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, whatever, do the world a favor and go play in traffic.

So what if...?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what if a man who paid his $75 was trapped inside a burning house belonging to a man who did not pay his $75?
What if the children of people who did not pay their $75 were trapped? Or are the children also required to pay for themselves, in case their parents don't?

No good samaritans among the firefighters? Sad...

[mykos]

If I were a firefighter, I would have done what I could to put out the fire. I'd scold this douchebag homeowner for not considering his property, his pets, and his family as being worth paying $75 to protect, but I'd put his fire out.

And just to add to the pile of anecdotes...

I used to do a lot of satellite antenna installations in the country, and I must say that this guy's refusal to pay anything is typical of most of the rural customers for whom I installed. They choose to live in the country and then complain about how they can't get services like phone, terrestrial internet, road plowing, etc without paying a crapload of extra money. Well, duh. If you choose to live in the country, there are associated costs. If you refuse to pay them, why should anyone provide them?

This used to be the case around here also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... We have a small museum near us, and part of it is a firefighting section - and this is one of the things they talk about... you used to have to pay, then you got a tag for your house or what not - and if you were not covered, they would show up and not put it out. I had no idea it still was actual practice in parts of the country... I am speechless (luckily this is typing).

Not really a good argument

[Anonymous Coward]

You are characterizing a whole group based on their most wacko component. Most republicans have no problem with roads, police, etc. Those are the things everyone agrees on and I think you know that.

This is akin to saying all liberals want to abolish civilization and live in grass huts to be more in balance with nature.

Budgeting for a warmongering nation...

[VendettaMF]

Ever wondered just how America can afford to keep wasting money on sending legions of goons overseas to re-write everyone else's politics down the barrel of a massively overpriced indiscriminately slaughtering automated drone?

Simple.
They just deny the basic services and protection (Education, Health, Fire, Police, Public transit) to their own people and use the savings to train swathes of the ill-educated and desperate to kill on command with no thought involved.

Incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

In the haste to demonize "teabaggers" people like you will use any excuse to characterize their attitudes in an unfavorable way - ascribing every value you hate to them whether it is true or not.

The truth is almost nobody is against basic services like this. They just have opinions about where government size and power should stop. Quite to the contrary of what you are claiming, this sort of locally-run and locally-funded service is exactly the sort of thing a "teabagger" would be in favor of. Local governance and state rights are a big part of that platform.

TL;DR: They want smaller government, not NO government. Stop lying.

I'm done with /.

[ProteusQ]

Since I can't delete my account, I thought I'd let this be known in this forum on the slight chance that anyone would notice -- because if I've had enough, others probably have had enough, too. I've had enough of socialist geekboys who mod everything they disagree with as either Flamebait or Troll. It's not funny any longer. You simply can't take criticism even as you pretend that you are more mature than those you disagree with. Can't you see that that's just an extension of the masturbatory universe you've created for yourself? You act as if you were still 15, angry because no girls will touch your penis, nursing passive-aggressive tendencies, and rant that your political enemies are somehow beneath you.

And the best I can hope for in response from those of your ilk is a snarky, sarcastic, 21st century version of: "I know you are but what am I?!"

At least for me, I'll get my news elsewhere. What a rotten site this is sometimes.

Firefighters let house burn

[edmsing]

Fire does not know if an account is paid up or not, fire is a danger to all...

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Eunuchswear]

Well.. sure.. except TN does not tax personal income, only dividend and interest income..

'cos they're commie scum and hate capitalism?

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Eunuchswear]

LEOs are not obligated to provide you any form of protection. So, fee or no fee, they could stand there and as you get raped anyways.

In the US. Please remember that the law is not the same everywhere.

Real cost

[The_Noid]

The real total cost for putting out a fire is the total yearly cost for running the entire fire department divided by the average number of fires per year.
I think that that comes out a lot higher than 7500 dollars. Of course I don't do accounting for a fire department, so I'm not sure.

Just aint right

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed that this debate seems to be running far longer than it should. It's simple this is just extortion. The fact is that if say neighboring cities charged you a fee to put out a fire and say that you decide to pay one, so when a fire starts say they are busy with another fire, then your sol, because you didn't pay fees to another? Or say you didn't pay the fee and a fire broke out in a neighbor's house and spreads to yours due to no fault of your own? Or the worst case say the fire department actually caused the fire, from arson, or some action they took when puting out a neighbors house, or they fail to put out a forest fire in time. In those cases under this logic they still don't have to put the fire out, is that still right? Then there is the reverse, what if you pay and the fire department fails to put out the fire, are they going to reimburse you for your losses?
Then there is the whole loss of life deal, the fire department has no way of knowing if there is anyone alive inside, in this case 4 pets, is it right for you to stand there and just let them die, especially when you know you can save them? If i were the department then i would have just charged him for any back fees owed. in fact where i live they do charge for just that reason, if they show up to your address even for false alarms they have a $500 service fee.

The plain fact here is that what they did is just immoral, there should be no debate over that. Their job is to save lives not put out fires, and that is the job of every human on this planet. If we as a society fall into this pit then we are no better than the criminals we despise. That fire department should be brought up on charges for willful endangerment, animal cruelty, and destruction of property. And every one of those firefighters who responded and just stood there should be immediately fired, at least for being unethical. I wouldn't be surprised if land values in that area drop drastically, i know i wouldn't want to live in an area that has an fire department of assholes who won't put out a fire just be cause of $75 fee.

Same here in Germany.

[RichiH]

And that is the only way it can be. It _must_ be that way.

Some services are public, to be paid for by everyone via taxes.

you get raped even if you pay and call cops

[Anonymous Coward]

cops are not required to protect you, by law

also, fire companies, since they were first invented, unless fully funded by the goverment (majority are not, theyre private companies),
never had any duty to protect your private property, even if you pay taxes, because taxes dont pay them

Your figure is too low

[fantomas]

You've come up with some figures that cover the costs of the firefighters going out for 3 hours to fight a fire. You're forgetting the other overheads involved, the cost of running a business has to cover more than just the actions of the moment.

- Training of firefighters
- Equipment for firefighters (wear and tear on clothes and kit, need to be replaced every year or so)
- Fire station for housing the fire truck and firefighters kit
- Running costs of fire station (water, electric, ongoing maintenance, etc)
- Admin overhead to pay for the billing and manage the fire department staff

The cost of fighting a fire has to also in some part cover the cost of when there is a fire truck sitting in a fire station not fighting a fire, say the next 24 hours before the next fire, not just the 3 hours when it's out on a call.

As others have noted the USA is so screwed up by a legal culture then you probably have to factor in the "lawyer on year round standby" charges to cover the fact that some of the people who are charged then try to get out of paying the charges and have to be taken through the courts to recoup the money.

Plus the fire dept. will need to pay for its own insurance to cover itself in the shortfalls that occur when they turn out to fight a fire and bill the residents and the residents don't or can't pay and the fire dept. needs to be covered for the $20,000 or so lost.

My guess is that a man who refused to pay 6.25 / month before the event would be unlikely to freely hand over 10,000 or more after the event even if he claims he will. He'd probably claim he was forced to sign under duress as his house was burning down and would try to hire a lawyer and try to get out of paying. I can understand the fire chief making the decision that as nobody was at risk of injury or death, and the homeowner had decided not to pay for the fire protection service, his first priority was to protect the lives of his own firefighters and stand off and just check the fire didn't develop further but rather guard it and let it burnt out.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[kencorbin]

This was a tax paid department funded by property taxes paid by residents of their fire district! The fire apparently occurred in a neighbor area that was not covered by its own fire district. Very few fire departments will respond to such areas unless there is a life and safety threat. The response policy is set by an elected fire board, not by the fire chief, and the elected board has a responsibility to their own taxpayers to send the funds they receive appropriately. Equipment and personnel are purchased and positioned to protect the residents of the fire district, if those resources are routinely sent out of district, their are fewer resources to respond to emergencies in their own district, putting their own residents at risk. That being said, a policy of responding to neighboring unprotected areas for an annual fee, however helpful it might have sounded at first, is going to put that department in an awkward position and has to potential to blow up into a real negative PR issue, as seems to have happened here. The most likely outcome of this unfortunate event is that the fire district will stop accepting fees to protect houses in the neighboring areas, in hopes that those neighboring areas will either set up their own fire districts, or ask to be annexed into an existing one.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[digitect]

The case you point to has nothing with the police "standing by" and watching a crime occur. It absolves negligence as responsibility. Big difference between that and willfully watching a house burn to the ground. I feel certain that the Cranicks have a tort case that we'll learn more about in the following months and years.

Imagine the liablity

[wangerx]

Can you imagine the liability the city has opened themselves up to? This would be an entirely different story if there was a clerical mistake. If he really wanted to get the fire put out, he should have called and said he paid the bill. At that moment, they couldn't dispute it, no matter how good they thought their accounting was, they would have had no choice but to show up and put it out. If there was a check postmarked the day prior that appeared in their mailbox, they would be screwed! "I paid that on Monday!"

What an idiotic comment

[SmallFurryCreature]

The COST of putting a fire out is FAR FAR higher then 75 dollars. You can't PAY yourself for having a fire putout, that is why EVERYONE pays to have ANY fire put out, and when it is THEIR fire to be put out, then everyone else has payed for it.

The fire department can't buy a fire engine on the promise to the fire-truck company they expect 100 fires and the people will pay up afterwards.

It is insurance, or do you expect to go to an insurance company: Hey, my car was stolen, here is the first deposit, give me a new car?

So basically you want something for free. The FD in these backwards areas is PAID by the people, for the people who paid. Don't pay, don't get your fire put out.

What next, I don't pay for my lunch so I can get yours?

Insurance is NOTHING new, the mormons who refuse to have anything to do with it INSURE themselves by being neighbourly. If my neighbour needs help with his farm, I help him and then (I/E)NSURES he will help me.

In holland, black socks use the same. They are not insured against a lightening strike, but the entire community WILL help everyone.

But say YOU never EVER help anyone else. Willing to bet then that when YOU call for help, nobody comes out to help.

Super entitlement, you sure are entitled to it.

Eheh, insurance?

[SmallFurryCreature]

You think that someone who doesn't pay the fire insurance pays his fire insurance? How does that even work?

This guy doesn't want to pay for protection against disasters. Why do you think he has other types of insurance?

And why should people running a business go through these problems? Can I demand you supply me a product NOW when I need it and you are then just forced to go through the courts to claim the money if any?

No, this US citizen has chosen to life in an extremely capatilist society. He then can't claim socialist benefits when it pleases him.

Either you pay for the fire department or you don't get their help. End of story.

Another liberatarian who can't do math

[SmallFurryCreature]

What is the cost of putting out a fire?

Say you have a district in which there is no fire for a decade. It can happen. Ergo the cost = 0. Therefor payments are zero...

Right and those zero payments can keep the fire house and fire engine maintained, the crews trained?

Oh, if there is a fire, that person with the fire should pay ALL the costs of an entire decade of keeping a fire service going that can deal with a small disaster to put out his burning garden shed?

Fire services are like many services something only the community at large can afford and even then only on a large scale. It is easier for ten small districts to work together so that none have a huge fireservice but together they can mount a large force should a large disaster happen.

Libretarians like you just suck at math and try to wiggle out of it by claiming an individual can pay for the costs of running a fire service.

Don't work, never will work but thank god for idiots like this because it show just how stupid the idea of small government is.

Insurance problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming this guy does have some sort of insurance to cover his loss of property and posessions, I wonder if they have any contractual "outs" of paying his claim because of this... "reasonable preventative measures" or somesuch; like paying for service where required, for example.

This is why Libertarians are idiots

[SmallFurryCreature]

Oh for the sake of math. Grow UP.

Who is going to pay the magical fire truck, train the magical fire crew. The magical dollar fairy the grows out of Libertarians butts?

Fire services are expensive AND have no guaranteed income. So, who is going to start a fire service if they only get paid AFTER a fire (and they are not allowed to start one)?

Someone must front the money to set up the fire service AND keep it running regardless of the amount of fire AND the money you MIGHT be able to collect afterwards.

Really, if you can't see the countless flaws in your arguments... oh wait, you are a Libertarian, of course you can not.

It would be like starting a self help petrol station in 1600, hoping that one day soon someone is going to invent the internal combustion engine.

Any business must have some form of regular income. Whether that is a regular ensured stream of customers or some kind of fee paid in advance doesn't matter. But you cannot run anything with an upfront and maintenance costs in the hope that there might be some income in the future.

You would think a capatalists understands that. Then again, considering the US economy, perhaps not.

Bad karma

[lukipela]

My initial thought after reading this was 'thank fuck i live in the UK - that would never happen here'. And then i realised that with Cameron and Osborne in charge, there's now a good chance it might! Anyway, whether the guy paid the $75 or not, what about the animals inside that house? The firefighters could have at least tried to rescue them. It takes a hard-hearted kind of bastard to watch someone's pets burn alive while they have it in their power to prevent that happening. I hope karma bites every one of those firefighters in the arse.

They need a volunteer FD

[niftymitch]

I grew up in rural America and we had a volunteer FD.
Taxes and fund raisers paid for the trucks, t hoses etc.
Insurance breaks were common for folk with a pond that the FD could drop a suction hose into.
This is too much like the Arizona dilemma with border related problems.

Awesome interview with guy

[FryingLizard]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/

Skip to 5:20 in.

Gene Cranick (interviewed sitting in front of his incinerated house) is politely presented faced with many of the above arguments. ...comedy genius

The interviewer does his best to be nice... you can actually hear his brain start to boil at 8:50

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[amiga3D]

Try reading the article. He didn't live in the district so he didn't pay taxes there. He was offered the chance to be covered for a measly $75 but chose to pass on it thinking that if he got a fire they'd have to respond anyway. They didn't respond because they don't like deadbeats so his place burned down. Too bad...he rolled the dice and lost. As for the healthcare thing. If you think there is such a thing as free healthcare you're deluded. Someone is gonna pay. If you don't pay then someone else will have to pay for you. I'm sure if you're not working then you like having someone else pay for you. If you are working I'm sure you're going to enjoy paying out the ass for others to have healthcare. But it's not free.

This is what a Psychopathic Society looks like

[Anonymous Coward]

Psychopaths believe in game theory, cost/benefit analysis.

The Secret to Life, so that people have the freedom to live and learn and do so in relative safety, is to recognize that GIVING in a non-linear fashion generates more energy and resources for everybody.

Consider: The planet and its biosphere is a giant solar collector. Every day, more energy pours down on us than can be used. Humans through their actions actualize that energy, turn it into wealth of one kind or another. The more clever and efficient we are about it, the more we harvest.

This energy is freely available; it pours onto the planet every day from the Sun. There is no bill. There are no service fees other than agreeing to be alive.

Greed and Fear, however, compel some people to hoard that energy into great piles which is then unavailable. Greed and Fear compels people to try to control others so that the populace is bound into a sort of pyramid system whereby they feed the energies and resources they actualize from the Sun into one of those black hole greed hoardings. This swells the hoard of un-used energies and resources and it creates artificial lack.

The true Freeloaders are those at the top of the pyramid. Do we honestly believe that the super-wealthy work for the stupendously huge hoards of energy and resource they sit on? Of course not. Slaves actualize that energy for them. The super-wealthy are just con-artists who have managed to train the population and the system to channel energy into useless holding wells.

Some people reading this now are recoiling; "That means we'll all be communists; unable to have cool cars and big houses! I want to work for a cool car and big house! How dare you prevent me?!"

Nonsense. Everybody doesn't have to be the same. If you really want and need that stuff, there's no reason you can't have it. If you do it right, you simply become a channel for a greater flow of energies. You take big, you give big. Simple. The problem only comes when you take big and don't give; then the energy flow is stunted and you start to create one of those black holes. In truth, most people when they get this stuff figured out don't really want or need big toys to feel happy and fulfilled in life.

Small fry free-loaders, the bane of the Glen Beck types, are actually inconsequential. (Except as an emotional touch stone to beat people with when trying to sell the con). And such freeloaders do indeed suffer for it; they create bad reputations and people naturally shrink from their company. When you get in tune, such people actually cause a kind nausea in those around them, and so they starve themselves in many ways by not giving back to their communities. If they refuse to give back and refuse to learn the lessons, then they become outcasts.

IF this man had through his life generated massive ill-will in his community, if he was a taker and refused ever to give and showed no sign of learning, if the community was pushed to the limit, then you know what? I'd probably let his house burn as well. But he'd have to be a pretty terrible person. A burned down home is a huge price to pay for such a small mistake; and a mistake which is based on a system which is entirely debatable in its value; it sounds to me like the government system could have been run much more efficiently. Olberman pointed out that the fire department itself presented five different systems which would have made a lot more sense, would have cost less and which would have allowed this man to continue learning how to be a better human without rendering him homeless in such a dangerous fashion.

If everybody plays by the rules of giving, if sociopaths and psychopaths are recognized and shunted from power, then we as a society plug into a resource base limited only by the age of the Sun and the measures of efficiency realized by technological limits and understandings.

Greed kills countries. This is why the U.S. is turning into a black hole. Its downward spiral isn't complete, but it will be and the end-result is nothingness.

-FL

Re:This is what a Psychopathic Society looks like

[Fantastic Lad]

The above got posted A/C because I'd modded a number of comments and then thought I should add my own two cents.

Posting as A/C still conflicts with previous modding, and it auto-undoes mods, which makes sense, of course. Basically, I'm a doofus.

-FL

I beg to differ ...

[Qbertino]

Let us not forget that most houses are built with a bunch of plywood or chipboard, and with loads of PVC; both release metric shitloads of dioxin when burned (way more than burning trees.)

I beg to differ. Most US American houses are built of plywood and chipboard ... and recylced egg cartons or something like that. The houses here are built of bricks, concrete, mortar and roofed with clay roofpans most of the time. Allthough you can also get other variants, like slate (http://www.cuersgen.de/images/Schieferdach-1-Gross.png ) which is pretty cool and lasts ages.

You USians over there ought to stop building shite that only stands until the next tornado season or collapses when someone inside sneezes or something. Aren't there any buildings left from the real-estate bubble that where build with lasting in mind maybe?

Anyway, when it comes to the local building code I am for once greatful for German burocracy. I allways cringe when I hear from my family that a californian summer fire has burnt some friends house down to the ground. I allways think: Why don't they just build a little smaller but in bricks and mortar? It can't be that difficult to get that idea, no?

My 2 cents.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

News flash .... the police are already not required to respond to any individual request for assistance. This includes tax supported, salaried police. SCOTUS has ruled to this effect on more than one occasion ... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html

There's a hole in your bucket!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Taxes buy civilization"

Son, you can't buy what ain't being sold.

When taxes are used to pay for the whims, peccadillos, and personal prejudices of politicians, rather than for essential social services, you'd be better off not paying them.

But the answer to government that doesn't work isn't "whine, cry and give up" it's "fix the goddam government".

People who want tax cuts or tax increases are fools. People who want spending cuts or spending increases are fools. People who want efficient government that gives citizens real value for every cent spent, those are the clever dogs.

Re:What is next a cop fee and if you don't pay rap

[Anonymous Coward]

All ready happened In 2005 the SCOTUS ruled that the police do not have any duty to protect you after the police sat idly by and allowed the womans exhusband to murder their children. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html

I agree we need to socilize fire protection.

Actually as of late more depts are billing the persons insurance for vehicle fires and extrication.

A German Style healthcare system would be the cats ass.

But with what we have. I supplement my police protection with a pistol, I supplement my fire protection with fire extinguishers and smoke alarms. and I supplement my health care with a first aid kit.

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[shaitand]

"then Kelly is stuck out through no fault of her own"

Not true. Even if it is Joe's fault Kelly assumed that risk when she chose to operate a vehicle knowing there was a possibility of getting into a collision. Additionally, there is a bogus assumption that someone is always at fault in an accident even so called 'no fault' states actually distribute the fault between the individuals. I would contend that in most cases both parties should pay for their own repairs/medical care especially since they knew the risk when they left the house.

Insurance is a gamble. You are betting you will pay less (including interest over time) than the insurance company pays out. Your odds aren't any better than playing slots.

The real problem is that people wouldn't put aside and invest those premiums and the people who may pay more over time but need to pay it early (which statistically is common, you have accidents young and just pay into the bottom line when older). There is no need for for-profit insurance companies to solve this. You can spread risk by using co-op insurance or banks could offer federally insured direct deposit accounts where you pay your premium and have some ability to select an investment strategy. If you have a large payout early the bank covers it on a low interest (but federally guaranteed) loan against the future payments on the account. In other words, if you have a positive premium balance you make interest, a negative and you pay interest. If you have a positive balance you can transfer to another bank, if you have no license you can close it. If you die it can be willed either to be continued or cashed out.

Re:Reqd car insurance is for liability, not the ca

[zooblethorpe]

What if Kelly is not in a vehicle?

Cheers,