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Miss a fee and firefighters watch your house burn. Maybe?

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  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Are we seriously arguing against a government run tax funded fire department?

    It can be privately-run whilst being tax funded, as I wrote on the second page of the thread. Or government-run while being privately funded, as occurred here. The two issues are pretty separable. In this case the difficulties revolve almost entirely around private funding and how it is structured; that the fire department involved was run by a government is essentially irrelevant.

    Regional governments can contract with private operators to cover a given area and so on, funding said contract using tax. Whether or not this is better than running it themselves depends on the region's history.

    ronya on
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  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    How is a fire department not one of those services like policing that falls within the generally expected benefits that the government is supposed to provide for? Neither policing nor the fire department in their modern forms are that old.

    Couscous on
  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Apparently some rural areas have never had firefighting on their local government budgets, relying on other factors to make sure fire doesn't spread.

    Organized firefighting is an outgrowth of urbanization.

    e: and, of course, mass suburban populations and different approaches to firefighting date to as recently as the postwar period.

    ronya on
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  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Because the people living there actively said, 'no, we don't want it.'

    Gabriel_Pitt on
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Organized firefighting is an outgrowth of urbanization.
    So are police departments.

    Couscous on
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Because the people living there actively said, 'no, we don't want it.'

    Completely unconfirmed as far as I know, so cite that if you can.

    Styrofoam Sammich on
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  • mythagomythago Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Saammiel wrote: »
    [My reference to the courts was just my saying that we did in fact have mechanisms that made an effort to alleviate damages between citizens.

    Yes. Those mechanisms are not free, either.

    I wonder what happens the first time this fire department loses somebody's proof of payment. "Sorry, sir, but you'll have to show us your receipt. Oh, it's in the burning house? Too bad then."

    mythago on
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  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    mythago wrote: »
    Saammiel wrote: »
    [My reference to the courts was just my saying that we did in fact have mechanisms that made an effort to alleviate damages between citizens.

    Yes. Those mechanisms are not free, either.

    I wonder what happens the first time this fire department loses somebody's proof of payment. "Sorry, sir, but you'll have to show us your receipt. Oh, it's in the burning house? Too bad then."

    At which point this guy deserves just the smallest smidgen of credit for claiming that he did pay the $75, using a money order or something. The media coverage would have been insane.

    Tox on
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  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Couscous wrote: »
    Organized firefighting is an outgrowth of urbanization.
    So are police departments.

    Actually, no. Even non-urban communities have had sheriffs for a long time. The notion of someone legitimately tasked with enforcing the law by force, at least in Anglo-American tradition, dates way back to the 1300s.
    Because the people living there actively said, 'no, we don't want it.'

    Completely unconfirmed as far as I know, so cite that if you can.

    Well, this says:
    The first point that needs to be noted is that Obion County Tennessee does not have a county fire department. Secondly, no county tax revenues are even ear marked for county fire protection.

    More formally, we have this, from 2008 (warning: PDF):
    Fire service is without question a basic life/property saving emergency service. It is no less important than law enforcement, rescue, and emergency medical services. No other emergency agency responds solely on a subscription basis, ability to pay basis or under the threat of not responding if you don’t pay your bill. Counties will be called upon to provide higher levels of fire protection services and must begin to plan for these issues prior to the occurrence of a crisis or catastrophe.

    On January 19, 1987, the Obion County Commission passed a resolution establishing an Obion County Fire Department, but no action was taken to implement the resolution. Therefore, Obion County has a county fire department on paper, but is unmanned, unfunded and not operational.

    [...]

    Three (3) of the municipal departments are offering services on a subscription basis, and five (5) municipal departments are offering services on an as needed basis without subscription or ability to pay for response. The municipal fire departments which utilize a subscription service are not bound to and do not respond to fires on rural properties which do not have a subscription for fire service. The only rural property owners guaranteed to receive fire protection services are those who choose to pay for it. If they choose not to purchase an annual subscription and require fire protection services, they fall on the mercy of a municipal department who provide services on an as needed basis. When such occurs, the responding fire department normally provides those services without compensation.

    According to survey information, over 75% of all municipal fire department’s structure calls are rural. All fire departments in Obion County charge a $500.00 fee per call in rural areas, but collections are, less than 50% and the fire departments have no way of legally collecting the charge. Therefore, the service was provided at the expense of the municipal tax payer.

    [...]

    A major portion of Obion County has been furnished rural fire protection free of charge for decades.

    Statistics indicate that the majority of all fire calls are rural in nature and are responded to by municipal fire departments. These departments are solely funded by the tax dollars belonging to each individual town or city. It is becoming more difficult to convince municipal leaders that the municipal fire departments responding to calls outside the municipal boundaries and for which no compensation is guaranteed is “just the right thing to do”.

    Presuming this narrative is right: the cities realized that the rural areas were freeloading off their fire protection and seem to have wanted to cut it off for some time (which would explain why the Mayor of South Fulton ordered the fire brigade to sit on its hands in this incident, as some reports claim).

    As late as 2008 the municipal fire services would have put the fire out anyway, attempted to recover costs ex post, fail in most instances (both the UCFD page and the Obion County Fire Department proposal claim this), and then cover costs by appealing to Federal aid assistance, or simply letting the city pick up the tab. Something changed since 2008 - the "city fathers" finally decided that paying for fire services outside their tax base just wasn't their responsibility - and Mr. Cranick got to be the first rural resident to experience the change.

    ronya on
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  • Irond WillIrond Will WARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!! Cambridge. MAModerator mod
    edited October 2010
    HEY FUCKERS

    BEHAVE YOURSELVES IN THIS THREAD. AVOID PERSONAL ATTACKS AND DEAL IN POLITE ARGUMENTS

    LAST CHANCE

    Irond Will on
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  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Actually, no. Even non-urban communities have had sheriffs for a long time. The notion of someone legitimately tasked with enforcing the law by force, at least in Anglo-American tradition, dates way back to the 1300s.
    The modern police force mostly developed in the cities in the 1700s. Before that, most of the work now associated with the police would have been done by privately hired people and were vastly different in goals than modern police forces. Night watchmen weren't even hired by the government in London until the 1660s.

    If you are talking about authorization by the government, the King granted permission for citizens to form watches to put out fires in many places.

    Couscous on
  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Couscous wrote: »
    Actually, no. Even non-urban communities have had sheriffs for a long time. The notion of someone legitimately tasked with enforcing the law by force, at least in Anglo-American tradition, dates way back to the 1300s.
    The modern police force mostly developed in the cities in the 1700s. Before that, most of the work now associated with the police would have been done by privately hired people and were vastly different in goals than modern police forces. Night watchmen weren't even hired by the government in London until the 1660s.

    If you are talking about authorization by the government, the King granted permission for citizens to form watches to put out fires in many places.

    It's not authorization by government but funding and administration by the government. Accepting the existence of voluntary brigades isn't tantamount to what you claimed, i.e., that the government is supposed to provide such services. Because it isn't providing it; volunteers are. If the volunteers go away, or fight among themselves, the City of London would not step in. At least until fairly recently.

    And the US still has places with entirely voluntary and entirely charity-funded fire departments, or even places with nil fire departments at all. But there are exactly zero places in the US that are 'outside' some law enforcement's jurisdiction.

    ronya on
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  • RedTideRedTide Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Just a couple key things I'd like to touch on that I don't know if they've been brought up or not:

    1.) If it had been a case where (human) life safety was in jeopardy upon the FD's arrival, I do not doubt that they would have taken action to enact rescue at that point. Whether they would have withdrawn and let the fire take the building after that is neither here nor there.

    2.) Considering the nature of both manpower and resources of your typical rural, volunteer fire department theres a considerable chance this fire could have taken the house anyway. But I imagine thats little comfort to the effected.

    RedTide on
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  • SavantSavant Simply Barbaric Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    There is so much wrongness in this thread, I don't know where to begin. We're dealing with the failure of basic government services here for reasons that need not exist.
    Modern Man wrote: »
    This is nonsense. There are systematic ways to approach this that reduce costs for everyone involved and ensure maximum safety, and whether those ways are popular at a local level means horseshit.
    It means quite a bit in the real world, where fire departments are mostly a local affair and where there is little or no political will to overhaul a system that works relatively well. We can talk about some ideal system run by the feds or the state, if you like, but that's not a system anyone is ever likely going to champion in this country.
    Yes, if everyone wants to vote against a tax to pay for fire protection then they can do that. Much like if somebody wants to hammer a nail into their dick, they can also do that. Neither of those things are good ideas, so if your entire point in this conversation is "sometimes people do dumb things!" thank you for your incredible insight.
    Given the costs involved to provide such services to rural areas, I think the decision to not provide people in this area with government-run fire services is quite reasonable. Sometimes not doing anything is the best choice, when you weigh all the costs and benefits.

    See, you keep talking about this being a local issue as if that it is supposed to make it ok. However, there's a key detail that you are glossing over here: county and city governments are not sovereign entities. The US is somewhat unusual in that it has dual sovereignty between states and the Federal government, but that does not extend down further to more local levels of government, which are only structured at the behest of state and federal law. Leaving fire protection to the counties and cities is something the state makes an affirmative decision to either do or not do. In this case it was not dealt with by the state and left inadequately dealt with by the country.

    And treating this as an edge case on fire protection is rather intellectually dishonest in my opinion. It's not as if this house was 10 miles from his nearest neighbor and 100 miles from a town with a fire department. Of course in that case not much can be expected from the government if your house catches on fire. In this case, he was close enough to be within the area of a nearby fire department, and they had the resources and capability to show up, and they even did. They simply did not help him due to the lack of fee payment.

    This financing mechanism through fees and specifically not helping those who didn't pay created pretty demonstrably poor results. The firefighters still had to spend time and resources to show up to protect the neighbors who did pay, but still let extensive damage happen. It should be painfully obvious that something is odd because the difference of a $75 dollar fee is what determined the outcome.

    This is like a textbook example of what is wrong with letting essential government services being handled in an a la carte manner. Unnecessary destruction due to the foolishness or shortsightedness of specific individuals, expending resources to not even prevent that destruction, and externalities with damage done to the neighbors who did pay. There where resources available to properly respond to the fire, they were just improperly applied due to failures in the state and local governments.

    Sure, you can try to shoehorn this into the idea of insurance, but the first thing that came to mind to me on this case was not so kind. Rather, he didn't pay the protection money, so his house burned.

    Savant on
  • Simjanes2kSimjanes2k Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    The conservatives in this thread are so hung up on "taxes bad" that they forget that goverment exists for this very reason. They would let the entire country burn to the ground rather then pay one more cent in taxes.

    Heh... I like how you made that plural.

    I'm not going to continue to post in this thread after this thought, since with the infraction I earned, it's clear my opinion is not welcome, and I like other threads enough to not throw away this account on something this dumb.

    The point is, the system is NOT a bad one just because bad things are allowed to happen. That mode of thinking gets us into major trouble. Car accidents and cancer are "allowed" to happen because we are not federally mandated how much risk we can take with our vehicles or bad food or cigarettes. We are generally only limited to how much we can put others at risk with them.

    In this case, one person sustained MINOR damage to his property due to the choices and actions of his neighbor. That is "allowed" to happen in nearly every part of American life, as it should. The alternative is too much control from the government if we are never allowed to put anyone near us at risk from anything, ever. It means no guns, no cars, knives, etc.

    It is very easy to proclaim that anyone who resists additional control over their lives by the government is a libertarian nutcase, but there is a balance that everyone desires somewhere along the scale. Many people, although not those present here, believe that the proper place on the scale allows room for some communities like the one we are discussing to exist.

    I just wish the type of people that frequent these forums (intelligent but very left) were more accepting that there may be other valid opinions in the universe besides the one they all share with each other.

    /conservative done

    Simjanes2k on
  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    I doubt your infraction was for expressing your opinion. I think it was for this:
    Simjanes2k wrote: »
    This shit is scary. I picture it being said with some hippie's lips and tongue already preoccupied with Obama's dick.

    which is, I daresay, not subtle enough for you to claim that you weren't really saying Bowen was a cocksucking hippie.

    ronya on
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  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Savant wrote: »
    stuff

    Savant, complaining that a la carte funding is inferior is not meaningful unless other means of funding, like taxes, are considered acceptable by the relevant states or lower governments.

    Saying "but this is a basic government service!!" is not meaningful unless it comes along with "so here is a basic tax to fund it!". Spending is easier to advocate than ways of funding said spending.

    ronya on
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  • SavantSavant Simply Barbaric Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    ronya wrote: »
    Savant wrote: »
    stuff

    Savant, complaining that a la carte funding is inferior is not meaningful unless other means of funding, like taxes, are considered acceptable by the relevant states or lower governments.

    Saying "but this is a basic government service!!" is not meaningful unless it comes along with "so here is a basic tax to fund it!". Spending is easier to advocate than ways of funding said spending.

    I left out the tax part because that had already been covered earlier, but yes the obvious way to deal with fire coverage is through taxation, as long as there is enough of a community formed for there to actually support at least some form of fire response. There's lots of different ways to tax that would work acceptably, though if it is outside of the scope of an incorporated town or city but close enough to warrant fire coverage it should probably be handled by the county or state.

    A property tax seems the most obvious choice to me, but it's not the only one.

    Edit: And also remember that there should be at least some measure of fire prevention in states beyond simply municipal fire departments, if for no other reason than to deal with wildfires. Not that people would expect that to handle a routine house fire, but that would need a source of funding as well.

    Savant on
  • Guitar Hero Of TimeGuitar Hero Of Time Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    I don't understand how anyone could ever think that an optional fire service is a good idea.

    Let's say that my community decides to have an opt-in, fee based Fire Department, with no tax support.

    I decide not to pay the fee. After all, my house has been in my family for generations, and never caught fire. We're a careful people, not like some jobless slobs on the other side of the tracks! So I skip the fee and all is good.

    Eventually more and more of my friends start skipping the fee too. No one can tell us what to do....We aren't putting anyone else in danger. They can pay the fee if they want too and they will be fine. It's not like a fire can get out of control, right? We start to see commercials and fliers for the Fire Dept bake sale, and chuckle to ourselves.

    Soon so many people have thrown off the shackles of Too-Much-Government that the Fire Department goes under, because there aren't enough fees to operate.

    And then some jerk falls asleep while smoking and the whole town burns down.

    Guitar Hero Of Time on
  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Like I said, such fire services are a consequence of urbanization, such that whole towns can burn down. Once the damage caused by fire starts being limitable to property borders, the interest groups lobbying for lower taxes begin shouting louder than the groups seeking collective fire protection.

    ronya on
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  • mythagomythago Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Simjanes2k wrote: »
    I'm not going to continue to post in this thread after this thought, since with the infraction I earned, it's clear my opinion is not welcome, and I like other threads enough to not throw away this account on something this dumb.

    Your opinion very much isn't welcome (at least to me), but not because you're a conservative. It's because of the silly goosery of "I'm going to get in the last word and run away NO TAGBACKS!!!!!111", combined with the personal snit of how you're just forced to leave because of the ravening, clueless hordes.

    mythago on
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  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Savant wrote: »
    Sure, you can try to shoehorn this into the idea of insurance, but the first thing that came to mind to me on this case was not so kind. Rather, he didn't pay the protection money, so his house burned.

    Well, yeah. Exactly. Except, unlike gangsters, with this fire department it truly is protection money (not "protection" money)...they won't come set the fire to prove a point if you fail to pay. But, unfortunately, their only method of encouraging you to pay is to (even if they have to show up to protect your neighbor) let your house burn...otherwise you have no incentive to support their ongoing operations (and presumably you'd be unable to pay the entire bill for your incident...nor would anybody else...which is where the insurance angle comes in).

    If you want fire insurance to replace your property, buy that. If you want people to show up and try to keep it from burning, buy that. If you're smart, you'll buy both. And maybe this county will get off their asses and institute some rural fire protection of their own, funded by *gasp* taxes, now.


    Obviously I don't consider this to be an optimal system. Firefighting is something best paid for by taxes and offered universally within the taxed area (and, where necessary and feasible, even covered by taxes from other areas...state/federal grants and the like). But am I a bad person in that, in this case, the only real problem I'm seeing is the possibility of a paperwork SNAFU causing somebody who did pay their fee to appear that they didn't, causing their house to burn down? Because otherwise, as a homeowner (and a non-idiot), this would be the easiest $75 check I'd write each year.

    I mean, if you can eliminate the damage to other property (and in a rural area, it's fairly easy for the department to do that without saving the structure), and if you could eliminate the possibility of a paperwork problem fucking a resident over...well, I'm pretty much okay with this guy's place burning down. Somebody tried to be a free rider, and it bit them in the ass.

    mcdermott on
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    I don't like the possibility of a paperwork glitch preventing the firefighters from saving my house. I'd rather them save now, and find out what the fuck happened later. That's unnecessary in this day and age. Yeah free riders suck, but so does damage to compliant people's property that some underpaid clerk forgot to file or lost between the crack of their desk or something.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • ElitistbElitistb Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    bowen wrote: »
    I don't like the possibility of a paperwork glitch preventing the firefighters from saving my house. I'd rather them save now, and find out what the fuck happened later. That's unnecessary in this day and age. Yeah free riders suck, but so does damage to compliant people's property that some underpaid clerk forgot to file or lost between the crack of their desk or something.
    Agreed. However in this case the guy admitted to not paying it, right out. I haven't even heard him say that he claimed to have paid it, or anything. It would have been different if during the calls he complained that he paid it and they still refused to come out.

    Elitistb on
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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    He probably could've gotten away with it too since he'd already paid year after year. Then just given them the money after the fact as "here just cash this again."

    It's still a bad system in general, I would not be happy if I had to argue with someone on the phone that I've paid it too.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Saammiel wrote: »
    It seems that some people just have a problem that there is a calculus involved in determining how much saving someone's life/home/car/pet rabbit is worth. Unfortunately we live in a world of scarcity and human lives and property have a price tag attached. It doesn't necessarily make sense to put those resources into providing ubiquitious fire protection to sparsely populated areas when they could be assigned to something that alleviates far more material suffering.
    Basically, this. People who choose to live in rural areas of the country tend to be okay with this calculus. They know that if you live in the Alaskan outback, there isn't going to be a fire truck coming out to save your house from going up in smoke.

    People in these areas have simply chosen a different lifestyle than those of us in urban parts of the country. They're generally okay with the risks involved, or they wouldn't live there. The risks are outweighed by certain freedoms that urban people can't enjoy (such as very few zoning laws, the ability to shoot and hunt on one's land, no nosy neighbors getting in your business etc.).

    If people living in urban county X are okay with a low level of government services, that's their right.

    Modern Man on
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  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    bowen wrote: »
    I don't like the possibility of a paperwork glitch preventing the firefighters from saving my house. I'd rather them save now, and find out what the fuck happened later. That's unnecessary in this day and age. Yeah free riders suck, but so does damage to compliant people's property that some underpaid clerk forgot to file or lost between the crack of their desk or something.

    Yup, it's pretty much the only reason such a system is unacceptable to me. Like I said, in this actual circumstance I'm absolutely okay with the actual result of this policy. My only concern is with the hypothetical, not this incident in particular.

    Basically, the thread title doesn't bother me. Miss a fee and watch your house burn? Sure. Pay the fee and your house may still burn because somebody didn't file it? Yeah, that's an issue, and the reason this whole system fails.
    Basically, this. People who choose to live in rural areas of the country tend to be okay with this calculus. They know that if you live in the Alaskan outback, there isn't going to be a fire truck coming out to save your house from going up in smoke.

    People in these areas have simply chosen a different lifestyle than those of us in urban parts of the country. They're generally okay with the risks involved, or they wouldn't live there. The risks are outweighed by certain freedoms that urban people can't enjoy (such as very few zoning laws, the ability to shoot and hunt on one's land, no nosy neighbors getting in your business etc.).

    If people living in urban county X are okay with a low level of government services, that's their right.

    This area doesn't seem like the Alaskan outback, it's not that rural. And the lack of rural fire protection seems more like a matter of inefficient county government and some fucktards sabotaging the system than any kind of consensus that livin' the country life is worth not having access to fire trucks.

    I've lived in some rural-ass areas. While the response time may leave something to be desired, we always had basic access to these services. Unless you live over a pass that's closed in winter, or something....which, again, not the case here.

    Like, I reject the assertion that 51% of people should be able to deny my county basic fire protection, if said protection is feasible, because they want to save $50 a year in taxes or some such. That's fucking retarded.

    mcdermott on
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Like I said earlier, no one should have gotten to vote on this particular issue, it should just be. But I guess I've done too much cock sucking for Obama this week.

    It's not like we all get to vote how our tax money is collected and distributed on a case by case basis, why should they get to vote on how tax money in the county is spent? That's stupid. I also thought that was the whole point of "elect me because I won't raise taxes!" not "elect me and I won't put a vote out to raise taxes!"

    bowen on
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  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    mcdermott wrote: »
    This area doesn't seem like the Alaskan outback, it's not that rural. And the lack of rural fire protection seems more like a matter of inefficient county government and some fucktards sabotaging the system than any kind of consensus that livin' the country life is worth not having access to fire trucks.
    There really is nothing preventing the people of this county from passing a law to fund a fire service out of taxes. They might do so after this case, or maybe not. Maybe it's not the ideal situation, but that's the nature of democracy. Maybe their local government sucks, but that's their choice.
    Like, I reject the assertion that 51% of people should be able to deny my county basic fire protection, if said protection is feasible, because they want to save $50 a year in taxes or some such. That's fucking retarded.
    That's democracy. You're really only entitled to the government services that you and the members of the relevant polity are willing to pay for, through taxes. If 50%+1 of your neighbors decide that paying for a fire department, paved roads and a public sewer system costs too much money, that decision may or may not be idiotic, but it is their right. Your options, if you don't like that decisions, are to move or try and get them to change their minds.

    I get a sense that people on this thread think that rural people shouldn't be allowed to make different decisions than urban folks when it comes to what government services they want.

    Modern Man on
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    Rigorous Scholarship

  • DarkewolfeDarkewolfe Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Alaska doesn't have an outback. That's Australia. It's called the bush.

    Darkewolfe on
    What is this I don't even.
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    I mainly have a problem because these are decisions that can affect my property too. I have lived in an rural area like that before and we actually did have a case where the fire department lost our payment and was very reluctant to send out an ambulance at 3:30 in the morning for my sister who was collapsed and having trouble breathing.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • DarkewolfeDarkewolfe Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    bowen wrote: »
    Like I said earlier, no one should have gotten to vote on this particular issue, it should just be.

    How on earth do you think that public policy comes to exist in the first place? No great moral legislator in the sky reaches down and makes things right and ethical. We conduct social experiments and (hopefully) legislate based on findings to support the common good.

    Darkewolfe on
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  • Modern ManModern Man Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    Alaska doesn't have an outback. That's Australia. It's called the bush.
    I don't go outside of the Beltway much.

    Modern Man on
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  • DarkewolfeDarkewolfe Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Modern Man wrote: »
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    Alaska doesn't have an outback. That's Australia. It's called the bush.
    I don't go outside of the Beltway much.

    I will take you sometime. There is much beer to be discovered.

    Darkewolfe on
    What is this I don't even.
  • Just_Bri_ThanksJust_Bri_Thanks Seething with rage from a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited October 2010
    RUNN1NGMAN wrote: »
    That would all be well and good if he lived in the county. HE DOESN'T LIVE IN THE COUNTY. They can't tax him. They have no control over him. He's free to do whatever he wants. Including not paying the fire department fee.

    I realize this was several pages back, but I feel the need to interject here.

    Everyone in the United states lives in a county. The only way the county does not have direct authority over your or your property is if you are in an incorporated area, which this guy obviously wasn't.


    Another point which I feel isn't getting enough play in what I have read of the thread so far is that this is a fire that the man started himself. This wasn't an 'act of god'. He didn't lose a metaphorical dice roll here. He started a fire on his property, not having any sort of protections versus catastrophic fire.

    And it wouldn't have even been catastrophic if he had been practicing good fire safety.

    As for the firefighters not putting the fire out on his property, but tossing water on the property of his neighbors that were paid up:

    If he didn't call the fire department, and instead his neighbor did when the fire became a sufficient size to be noticeable from the next property then the point is moot. You can't save a double-wide when you are dealing with that kind of response time. It's gone. Since there were no humans at risk, and it is outside their coverage area the officer on scene is quite justified in simply keeping it from spreading to adjacent areas.

    Insurance is serious business, and run by suits with no fire training. If any of those fireman had hurt themselves in the response (a risk factor which is quite significant) they would have nothing.

    If it were me, my response to putting out the trailer would have been "What are you, nuts? It's already gone!"

    As for the pets that died, smoke inhalation kills fare more readily than the flames. Any pet that didn't get out before the fire department shows up from the nearby city is already dead by the time they arrive.

    The earlier observation that it is effectively triage is totally correct. Any fire fighter will concentrate on saving what they can save first.

    Should they have put water on the wreckage of the guys house? Perhaps. But if they didn't it wasn't because of a moral or ethical failure.

    Just_Bri_Thanks on
    ...and when you are done with that; take a folding
    chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
  • Just_Bri_ThanksJust_Bri_Thanks Seething with rage from a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited October 2010
    Crap-tastic connection keeps dropping out on me when I try to edit.

    Most fire trucks have a 1000 to 1500 gallon water tank on them. at full tilt they can discharge this water in about 60 seconds.

    A community that is not paying for fire service is likely also not paying for the infrastructure that a fire service requires, like a community water supply feeding to hydrants.

    When the water you have to work with is limited, you will be much more likely to not toss any of it at an un-savable structure and saving it for surrounding structures.

    Just_Bri_Thanks on
    ...and when you are done with that; take a folding
    chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    RUNN1NGMAN wrote: »
    That would all be well and good if he lived in the county. HE DOESN'T LIVE IN THE COUNTY. They can't tax him. They have no control over him. He's free to do whatever he wants. Including not paying the fire department fee.

    I realize this was several pages back, but I feel the need to interject here.

    Everyone in the United states lives in a county. The only way the county does not have direct authority over your or your property is if you are in an incorporated area, which this guy obviously wasn't.

    The county the man lives in has a fire department that exists only on paper, with no funding or personnel. The entire county lives off municipal fire departments which, correspondingly, have no authority over such people and cannot tax him to pay for the fire department upkeep.

    The county could, of course, tax the man involved, but it didn't.

    Note that some parts of the county apparently rely on municipal fire departments from another state (and county, of course). It so happens that the FD involved was in the same county. This seems to be where the confusion of differing counties comes from.

    ronya on
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  • Just_Bri_ThanksJust_Bri_Thanks Seething with rage from a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited October 2010
    Part of that was me misreading as well. I thought the statement was that the man doesn't live in an area with a county government.

    Just_Bri_Thanks on
    ...and when you are done with that; take a folding
    chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
  • KilroyKilroy timaeusTestified Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Reposting this into the right thread, because I'm silly.
    Kilroy wrote:
    The News Director from the radio station I work for is doing a report about the Tennessee fire on NPR today. You all should check it out on All Things Considered.

    Kilroy on
  • ElitistbElitistb Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Checked out NPRs website for it, however they have a completely incorrect audio clip talking about Pakistani Taliban stuff.

    Elitistb on
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