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[Joxam]

And in response to marsdragon, the idea is that the whole thing is bullshit and that they should have a policy in place wherein you get charge a fine for not paying the fee if you need their services. That is not a hard rule to make or enforce. In wisconsin if your fire gets out of hand and you burn anything they already do that, so I don't think its hard to imagine that TN can do it also.

[Classic]

Note to self: Calm down and read whole article before posting. I'd gotten up to the point where he expected service in spite of not chipping in and flipped. Then came back and read the thread replies but didn't actually finish reading the article.

It seems like the owner was operating under bad assumptions, like that it was fire insurance*. Insurance schemes operate under the assumption that services are available, and the limiting factor is cash. It could be that the individual contributions of each household were necessary to keep the fire department able to stay up-to-date and able to provide its services.

The article makes it seem like the mayor's kind of a cretinous oaf, but I'm going to hold off on saying that more than once because I've already done enough stupid things today on account of being "emotional" and not doing enough "thinking."



*Also I am of the growing notion that basically all insurance is treated as a protected form of gambling. But as you may have guessed I've been extra *** today and just need to stop being insane for a while before I try and make rational assertions.

[Brentai]

As much as people hate compulsory shit like this, I think none of this crap would have been an issue, ever, if there had been a fine in place for not paying your goddam fire insurance.

[Doom]

basically all insurance is treated as a protected form of gambling.

[Kazz]

I think some of you guys are mixing up their responsibilities as firefighters/civil servants and their responsibilities as decent human beings.

This is not really about the fee.  This is about people refusing to help someone in need.  The situation where a firetruck drives to a fire and watches it burn a man's house down is beyond farcical.  If this had happened in a book or a movie, I'd have thought it was a wild exaggeration.  Every day I find a new reason to be livid with humanity.

[AČ]

The other day, someone (Brentai?) mentioned that nowadays, Jon Stewart simply reads the news, rather than make fun of it.
My response was that it's hard to make fun of something that's dead-set on exceeding all forms of parody.

[Shinra]

Aren't pretty much all fire departments funded at least in part by state governments? In a roundabout way, wouldn't state and county taxes have paid for the fucking thing in the first place?

It sounds to me like the township this guy had the misfortune to live near had some kind of extortion racket going, to be quite honest. I'd like to see the state pull any state tax-based funding from the town for a while to see how they like it.

[Brentai]

Shit like that's not really so uncommon.  We all pay for trash pickup around here and it's Orange County California.

[Rico]

This is not really about the fee.  This is about people refusing to help someone in need.  The situation where a firetruck drives to a fire and watches it burn a man's house down is beyond farcical.  If this had happened in a book or a movie, I'd have thought it was a wild exaggeration.  Every day I find a new reason to be livid with humanity.

I don't know, do you really have an obligation as a decent human being to risk your life to preserve the property of someone who calls you worthless?

[Shinra]

Well, here's the thing with trash pickup; Trash pickup is usually organized by waste disposal companies who are contracted by the city. The city has a budget and spends that budget on hiring waste disposal companies, and then subsidizes the cost to the taxpayer. Alternatively, the city provides no waste disposal service, and it's on the taxpayer to hire a company to pick up their trash out of pocket. In either case, it's a privately owned and operated company. If the town or county had a fire prevention and management company come in, and it was up to taxpayers to pay for their own fire protection, it would be one thing, but everyone at the fire department is an employee of the city, and in turn of the county and state. Taxpayer dollars are going directly into their pockets, though granted in a roundabout way. Having to pay the 75 dollars is actually insulting, because he's paying for those firemen every time he pays his taxes, be it county or city sales tax or income tax or whatever.

This is not really about the fee.  This is about people refusing to help someone in need.  The situation where a firetruck drives to a fire and watches it burn a man's house down is beyond farcical.  If this had happened in a book or a movie, I'd have thought it was a wild exaggeration.  Every day I find a new reason to be livid with humanity.

I don't know, do you really have an obligation as a decent human being to risk your life to preserve the property of someone who calls you worthless?

This would be like a cop letting a woman get raped in front of him because she refused to buy a ticket to the policeman's ball. Emergency workers don't have the option to decide not to do their job when they're unappreciated. That's the entire point of having emergency workers. When shit goes down they're supposed to save you regardless of how they feel or how well they're being paid to do it.

As for risk their life, don't sign up to get stung by bees for a living if you're allergic to, or afraid of bees. Seems pretty fucking simple to me.

[Brentai]

This would be like a cop letting a woman get raped in front of him because she refused to buy a ticket to the policeman's ball.

Wrong.  It's more like letting a woman's purse get stolen in front of him.

It's just personal property.  She herself is not suffering any harm, she's just very, very inconvenienced.

Of course in this case the purse had three dogs in it who burned to death when the purse was stolen.  This is the best simile.

[Kayin]

I think I actually side with the firefighters on this one. I don't care about the "Be a decent human being nonsense" -- that isn't how this works. So what, they pay the 75 bucks and then everyone goes "Oh hey no need to pay the fire fee, we'll just pay if we get our house set on fire! :D" and then hey wow fire department hits a massive budget deficit. Perhaps if this was the first time this happened in a long time, they could accept the fee and make a big deal out of it and say "NEVER AGAIN" but even then, people probably wouldn't find out because not as big of a deal would be made out of it. Even if you charged something crazy to put out the fire, but even that can fuck things up. It's a tough decision.

As a human being, the urge is to help. I'm betting all the firefighters on the scene WANTED to put out the fire. But this is why adminstration exists -- to kill people's dogs keep policy in line because thats important to the survival of the fire department. Now anyways that said, while I think the decision was rational (I'd be more happy if they helped and tried to be clearer about this to everyone but who knows how difficult that would be). As for the cop example, it's not the same. Cops all work directly for the government and local powers and have a civic duty. Sometimes this is true for firefighters, sometimes the fire department is completely privatized. It's Apples and Oranges. In this case the fire department was contracted out of their town. If anything it's the town of origin's town for not just raising taxes a bit. Some would argue that it could be a person's right not to pay -- and if so, this is a result. Still, if there is any issue, in my opinion, is that the system is set up in a way where things like this can occur. You can't just give out free services. You can play the humanity card all you want, but shit does not work that way. So the only recourse is to either have the town pay for everyone and make it up in taxes or just deal with stuff like this.

Alternatively you could have the fire department harass the crap out of you about how dumb it is not to pay if you haven't paid. That'd be good too. But still, while stuff like this tugs at the heartstrings, that masks the reality of the situation.

[Joxam]

No. I don't think anyone here was saying the dude should only have had to pay the 75 bucks, kayin. That isn't it at all. In that respect it is like insurance. If you don't pay your premiums (in this case, the 75 bucks) then you have to pay for EVERYTHING out of pocket. Even if the cost for wages, gas, equipment, whatever type of insurance firefighters must have to have, etc, is astronomical. That is how you get someone to pay the 75 bucks, not by letting their house burn down.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, I don't know how anybody can cite "sending a message" as a valid reason. I'm pretty sure that charges amounting to five or six figures are a good enough message when all you're trying to do is get someone to pay a $75 annual fee, regardless of whether you call it a tax, insurance, a municipal fee, or the goddamn fireman's liquor slush fund.

Look at it like this. The penalty issued by courts for most criminal offenses - or transgressions of any kind - are almost all less severe and less barbaric than what was meted out to this man by the locals idiots. Being effectively "sentenced" at a drumhead to have your home burn down for not paying $75 is on par with places that still practice stoning and an eye for an eye. These guys were supposed to be  firemen. Not Judge fucking Dredd. Justice is in no way served by this idiocy.

[Kayin]

If you charge 6 figures, you'd come out behind as people just end up having to file for bankruptcy.

Now granted that might be a workable dissuasion in the long run, when someone has to make a call about giving services to someone who didn't pay for it. Either way, we're destroying someones life so whatever I guess.

[Joxam]

Its called a fine. The term fine almost literally means financial punishment. Its supposed to suck, but that doesn't mean its going to suck any more than having to rebuild, furnish and finish a new home.

BUT my point was, if this rule was in place, and now I can't say for fact so I'll state that also, but what I am saying is, if this rule was in place I'd be pretty willing to bet people'd be a hell of a lot more likely to fork over their 75 bucks, and no one's house would have to be burned down to send a message.

[Kayin]

Hey I actually agree with that, all I'm saying is, given the situation, letting the guy's house burn down is entirely reasonable. I wasn't meaning to imply there wasn't a better answer or solution, but more, within the rules of what were established, that is this the expected outcome. I can't get all morally outraged by 'sociopaths' or whatnot like some people in the thread. But let me throw something out there. By the looks of it, this hasn't happened before over there and someone had to make a snap decision. Perhaps now they will consider such policies, but at the time, someone has to give an answer while trying to predict legal ramifications. Going with the clear cut response giving the system in place is the safest response.

I mean, yeah, this is a shitty system and we can all name a million ways things could be better, but I'm just saying that, given what was going on, the response was not unreasonable.

[Brentai]

I guess the bottom line is that firefighters were the one authority figure we still expected better from.

Past tense.

[Frocto]

Nobody calls everybody on Brontoforumus a nut because Catloaf talks sometimes.  We should extend that same courtesy to most of the country.

You might be surprised about the massive generalizations some people make!

[Brentai]

Boy oh boy I sure do enjoy seeing you guys' catty bullshit every ten posts.

Can you just kiss and make up and get over whatever unpopular RPG system got ruined by some French guy accidentally giving his wife sperm poisoning already?