Firefighters let house burn to the ground...

While that situation is straight retarded it should be noted that he was a COUNTY resident, not a resident of the town that asks to be paid to show up.

The problem is the county needs their own services...
 


ShlomiKalfa said:
I dont know what will happen with this case but i really hope that his son assaulted
that cock sucking mother fucker firefighter's ass and sent him to spend some quality time in a hospital thinking about the stupid move he and his moron friends at this firefighter's department did to this guy!.

this Shit really get me outrages! i mean what the fuck !
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Really gets you outrages? Ya, your location is "USA". Lol.
 
justo_tx said:
I saw that piece in Salon too, I've never read anything on that site that indicates any of their authors understand economics, markets, or anything even remotely business related. They were HuffPo for the 10 years before HuffPo existed.
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That's good to know. I'm ignorant regarding the site as a whole. The only reason I visit Salon is to read Glenn Greenwald. He's great on the Constitution-liberty front. :)
 
Glenn Beck's take on this story:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jrWEdeGGvw"]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

I pretty much agree with him.
 
What do you expect from a bunch of redneck fucktools whose county borders the "Gooch wildlife mgmt area"??

Maybe their city recreation area is called "Grundle Park". Lulz.

gooch.jpg
 
mont7071 said:
I'm shocked by the number of commenters on here that truly think this homeowner was "wronged", and that the city/firefighters were evil/lazy/greedy, etc.

Did you READ the story? He DOES NOT live in the city, it is a nearby CITY fire department. They offer AS AN OPTIONAL SERVICE protection for $75, payable in advance (for obvious reasons) to people in the nearby county, of course the actual cost of battling a blaze is >$75, he doesn't get to just pay $75 AFTER the nearby city fire dept risks their lives and incurs their expenses because his dumbass kid started the place on fire. They don't owe him anything, his tax dollars don't support that city's fire department, so what's with the sense of entitlement? Why would any of you think you can buy insurance after you wreck your car? If you could, would you expect the cost of fixing your totaled vehicle to only be the same cost as if you had purchased insurance beforehand?? Of course not.

The fact that he said "oh, now that my house is on fire, I'll pay anything" is the most convenient, self-serving thing I've ever heard. I'll try that one out the next time I decide not to renew my health insurance, and then end up with serious medical issues that I want covered on somebody else's dime "Ya, now that I'm sick with the Plague, where should I send my $60 monthly premium to again?" Ridiculous. To those that say they should have fought the fire and just billed him for it; somehow, a guy that didn't pay the $75 up-front doesnt sound like too good of a credit risk after a fire department risks their men and runs up a couple thousand dollar bill fighting it.And kiss goodbye to ever gettting the upfront $75 from any other homeowner who hears about that deal.

This isn't a political question, and it's not an issue of "now only the rich get basic gov't services, durr." If a city fire department provides free service to the much larger county population in surrounding areas, it will go broke, and there will be NO fire service for the city residents whose taxes DO pay for it. He took his risk, he paid the price. Whether he "forgot" to pay it, or chose to spend that money on something else is immaterial; he did not pay the fee, he knew what the fee was, and he wasn't covered. Period. If my house was robbed, I wouldn't expect police in the next state over to work overtime to catch the thief, but all of you pro-homeowner posters think this guy is somehow "owed" something by any/all government within a hundred-mile radius, on the backs of the people who DO pay for it. Shocking.

<done raging, back to work>
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The farmer offered to pay the ENTIRE fee for whatever it cost to put out the fire...not simply pay the $75 he owed.

Same way it works with health insurance...if you decide not to buy it, but then come down with the plague they will let you cover the entire cost in order to save your life.

If someone was withering away, and said I will pay the entire $300,000 medical bill that coincides with saving my life even though I do not have health insurance.

Do you really think doctors would just pull the plug?

That is the major difference here.
 
DrewClement said:
The farmer offered to pay the ENTIRE fee for whatever it cost to put out the fire...not simply pay the $75 he owed.

Same way it works with health insurance...if you decide not to buy it, but then come down with the plague they will let you cover the entire cost in order to save your life.

If someone was withering away, and said I will pay the entire $300,000 medical bill that coincides with saving my life even though I do not have health insurance.

Do you really think doctors would just pull the plug?

That is the major difference here.
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That's a huge headache if the farmer defaults on payments. The only difference between this and health insurance is that this is not a life/death situation.
 
This is a weird story, since you'd assume his taxes would cover it. But this only speaks for less government involvement and total privatization.

Imagine if he could just call up a private firefighting company. They would be there immediately, charge less, and save his house.

This story only promotes the belief that we need pure capitalism. Instead the government has a monopoly on certain services, and as we can see, that can sometimes prove incredibly destructive.
 
BenPOF said:
That's a huge headache if the farmer defaults on payments.
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Doubt it, nobody is going to expect the fire department to start hiring accounts receivable people. If somebody is tracking who pays the $75 dollars now, the same person can track the "ad hoc fire extinguishing" fees when a situation like this occurs. Home owner defaults, no problem, the FD hands it over to the district attorney for a lawsuit and/or lien, fire dept goes back to doing what they do and DA does what he does. It could be similar too, and as easy as, a mechanics lien (go have your transmission replaced and find out how much of headache it isn't for the auto shop to keep your car if you don't pay.)

BenPOF said:
The only difference between this and health insurance is that this is not a life/death situation.
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I read three dogs and a cat died in the fire. It's a stupid situation all the way around for everybody involved.


Edit: the fuzzy logic for finding similar threads pulled a few lol'erific gems
 
ShlomiKalfa said:
I dont know what will happen with this case but i really hope that his son assaulted
that cock sucking mother fucker firefighter's ass and sent him to spend some quality time in a hospital thinking about the stupid move he and his moron friends at this firefighter's department did to this guy!.

this Shit really get me outrages! i mean what the fuck !
Click to expand...

You're retarded. If they save his house and he doesn't pay, then what? All his neighbors say, "What's the point of paying?" They stop, the Fire Department's screwed, and you have a bunch of freeloaders.

It might have cost one house, but all the neighbors learned a GREAT lesson. Everything costs money, there is no free lunch, pay up or get fucked.
 
justo_tx said:
Doubt it, nobody is going to expect the fire department to start hiring accounts receivable people. If somebody is tracking who pays the $75 dollars now, the same person can track the "ad hoc fire extinguishing" fees when a situation like this occurs. Home owner defaults, no problem, the FD hands it over to the district attorney for a lawsuit and/or lien, fire dept goes back to doing what they do and DA does what he does. It could be similar too, and as easy as, a mechanics lien (go have your transmission replaced and find out how much of headache it isn't for the auto shop to keep your car if you don't pay.)



I read three dogs and a cat died in the fire. It's a stupid situation all the way around for everybody involved.


Edit: the fuzzy logic for finding similar threads pulled a few lol'erific gems
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Yeah, its a bad situation but I see why they wouldn't take after-the-fact payment, it destroys the incentive for a pre-paid system.
 
BenPOF said:
Yeah, its a bad situation but I see why they wouldn't take after-the-fact payment, it destroys the incentive for a pre-paid system.
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Then explain the existence of the multi-billion dollar health insurance industry.

If the fee for putting out the fire was high enough for the so called "free loaders" they would be disincentivized to not opting in to begin with.

If he would have been on the hook for say $10K to the city for not opting in that would have been just as big a wake up call to the rest of the county residents. So what if he defaults... boom, lien or eviction, he sure as shit isn't going to leave the country with his house. That's why I don't buy the arguments of people saying this entire situation could have been avoided with purely private fire service. There would still be a logical set of repercussions for the home owner that would prevent a "freeloader" domino effect, if the existing city/county arrangement had allowed for the chief to offer service at a steep fee.
 
I'm a hardcore libertarian. So there's probably not much I can say about this. I'm sure it will be used for politicial points.. just one of many reasons libertarians are not elected to office. Though I'm sure this will be used ( wrongly) against Republicans who are not remotely libertarian.

In my Libertopia, these services would be voluntary or at least closer to this than a tax based public service. However, IMHO in such a society it would be rare for neighbors ( relatively speaking) to let each other's house burn down. I think in the worst case scenario they would make payment arrangements right then and there and put it out for the guy and would not refuse to grant him liberal payment terms.
 
justo_tx said:
Then explain the existence of the multi-billion dollar health insurance industry.

If the fee for putting out the fire was high enough for the so called "free loaders" they would be disincentivized to not opting in to begin with.

If he would have been on the hook for say $10K to the city for not opting in that would have been just as big a wake up call to the rest of the county residents. So what if he defaults... boom, lien or eviction, he sure as shit isn't going to leave the country with his house. That's why I don't buy the arguments of people saying this entire situation could have been avoided with purely private fire service. There would still be a logical set of repercussions for the home owner that would prevent a "freeloader" domino effect, if the existing city/county arrangement had allowed for the chief to offer service at a steep fee.
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Well health insurance is different because you're dealing with human life as opposed to a material possession. You can buy/rent another place to live.

Seeing how this is a county and it's an opt-in, I could see how they could easily benefit more from allowing post-fire payments.. but then the people already making annual payments would literally stop. Having only a 10k penalty is far less severe than losing a $xxx,xxx investment so I would disagree that being on hook for $10k is just as big as a wake up call.

Fee's $75/YEAR, not steep in my books.
 
Some things just can't afford to wait for payment. The fire department is something that needs money even if there are no fires because they have to be prepared for fires. You can't let people pay when they want. If he was paying taxes to cover it it would have been different, but he opted OUT of the fire service.

Also, let's consider 10,000 homes at $75 a year. That is $750,000 a year. You think there are enough houses going to catch on fire every year. There is roughly a residential fire for every 748 people in the US. Being that there are 29,500 people in the surrounding area that comes to about 39 house fires a year. I would imagine it being less since it is a rural area. This would mean for every fire someone would have to pay $19,230 for the city to get the same monetary benefit.

Being Wickedfire, I would think many of the members would see it this way. The city did the right thing.
 
You guys are all missing a very important point - that man's constitutional rights to the protection of his personal property was violated, and the US Constitution trumps any city, county or state laws for that matter.

Government only exists to protect our property rights, and our lives from encroachment by others. Every law we have on the books is based on these tenets.
 
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