The Glade 4.0

I don't consider a home a luxury, I consider it a necessity. As such, all logic and arguments you guys are laying down, still don't sway me from my opinion that letting this guy's house burn down was deserved and/or a good way to teach someone a lesson.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I would feel a lot worse if someone was injured or dead as a result of it, but he lost possessions that are replaceable. A good Christian, as I'm paraphrasing from Farther, wouldn't even worry about their worldly possessions because good Christians aren't supposed to be concerned with such things. This case just shows where personal responsibility is in America. It was $75 too. If it were a $1000 a month I could sympathize, but his cable subscription (which I'll bet money he had) cost more in a month generally than that was in a year. For a mere pittance, he would have had them put the fire out and lost a lot less. Now he has to deal with the consequences of his piss-poor planning.

Farther

The firefighters were acting under the rules set up by their God ordained authorities. The equipment they had and their time on the clock belong to the citizens of that city. The Bible says they get to set a fair price to provide fire fighting equipment and personnel. So the many peoples right to that property IMHO is greater than the one mans right to have the fire put out (if one even exists)

Kate
It isn't so much he deserved to have his house burned down as he didn't deserve to have the city owned department put it out.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I can respect that position, and when it comes to personal, individual behavior, I agree. However, I notice you have started using referring to the fire fighters as individuals with ability to make personal decisions that don't impact others. That isn't the case, and while you may not agree, it makes all the difference.

An individual fire fighter driving down the road and stopping to watch a house burn or stopping to help.. one gets my respect, one not so much. However, FD committing limited resources to respond to a problem for someone that had the opportunity (and multiple warnings) that could cost others that took the responsibility to be prepared? Don't agree.

To clarify, the moral vs. legal thing was just meant to be a quick aside to indicate the parameters of my point; the main distinction I was trying to draw, and that I think libertarians often miss, is between moral rights/entitlements and moral obligations. In my opinion, charity and mercy are moral virtues and their absence is a moral failing (i.e., they are moral obligations), yet they are, by definition, entirely about giving that which the recipient has no right to demand. A man who never deprives another of their rights/entitlements, but who is otherwise utterly selfish, ruthless, and unforgiving, is not, in my view, a moral person.



No, I don't take anything close to every pro bono case that I could, but like I suggested in my last post, charity (like morality in general) is not an all-or-nothing proposition. I'm more charitable than some and considerably less charitable than many others. That doesn't make me a hypocrite; it makes me imperfect. That said, I don't think legal work is particularly analogous to emergency services. Yes, people often need lawyers because they find themselves in sh*tty circumstances, but it's rarely, if ever, an emergency situation that can and must be addressed on the spot: "Omg, the bank is foreclosing on my house! Quick, Random_Lawyer_01, I need you to run over to the courthouse right now and file for an injunction on this case you know nothing about!"

The simple fact is, different circumstances have different moral implications. As most everyone here seems to agree, for instance, the moral calculus of this situation would be different if there had been people trapped in the burning house. In my view, that's not because the homeowner who didn't pay his fire department fee would be more entitled to services he didn't pay for; it's because the danger to human life imposes a higher degree of moral obligation on those in a position to provide charitable assistance.

Owning a home is a luxury and for a mere $75 a year, he would still have most of it. Now he has either has to raise enough money to buy another or do what a lot of the population does, including me: rent.

That's a side topic that hasn't even been addressed, but could have been a factor in his decision.

I recently finished a project in a rural area with a documented 20+ minute response time from the closest FD. Because it is an assembly occupancy, even if the code hadn't required a fire suppression system, we would have installed one. However, the system designed and installed didn't make saving the building a consideration, only providing enough time for any occupants to exit the building.

At that kind of response time, the building is going to be a complete loss, and even if the FD could respond faster, the amount of damage done the building by the efforts of the FD to extinguish the flames is likely to match or exceed that of the fire. It wouldn't be less.

He may have made a very conscious decision based upon similiar factors. Of course, if that was the case, one would question whether it was a good call if he was reversed with his neighbor, and their fire spread to his property, which probably could have been contained, but wasn't for lack of payment.

And as a necessity, one would think he would take the steps, especially considering how ridiculously cheap it is, to protect that necessity. And its not just him that will learn the lesson.

I am sorry LK I am not getting how you are missing the point that if you let one guy get away with not paying for fire-service then no one will. If you make any exception to the rule then it is no longer a rule and the expectation is that you will be granted the exception too.

Everyone here is talking about budgets, let me put it another way. How do you pay for a fire truck if no one pays their fees?

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That's great, but the posters here aren't "many people". The fact that some people may do this with all services does not somehow mean that those of us here can't be willing to demand only essential services and taxation for them without also doing the same for nonessential.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I agree with this position. However, though I may dislike the morals of the person in your example, and exercise my freedom to not associate with them, supporting a position that forces them to surrender what is theirs because of my moral compass is equally immoral. If they chose to be ruthless, then that is their decision, and just as with the homeowner here, they can live with the consequences.


You must not do any family court, as that is exactly what happens, though it involves TPRs, etc.

However, my point was that if you followed what you put upon the FD here, responding to all emergencies potentially makes it impossible to actually perform for those clients that are paying to you zealously advocate their position. Could the FD have put out the fire? Sure, but given this is a rural area, so likely no hydrants, they would be expending the water in the tanks to do so... expending the oxygen in the tanks to do so... incapacitating a truck to do so (takes time to put the hoses back, etc). Should they be held responsible, or even accountable, because they had to make decisions about the limited resources, and their obligation to those that entered into an agreement with to provide services?

He's in some danger, but not to the level that he needs emergency services to preserve his life. He can easily drop the hose and run away. By that logic, he was in danger as soon as he started burning trash, which is a dangerous activity and the fire department should come put out not just that fire, but any fire, simply because having a fire in the first palce involves some danger.

You know perfectly well what kind of danger I'm talking about. Don't try to use semantics to make the goalposts easier to get to.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I really don't see that happening. There's always going to be a smallish minority of people who are happy to free-ride on others, of course, but I think most people, particularly in the kind of small-town settings where this fee-for-service arrangement usually exists, are willing to pay their share. Couple that sense of duty with some public shaming, and I'm sure you'd be golden. In this case, for instance, if the fire department had responded, saved the guy's house, then used the situation as an example of how fire-fighters are the heroic protectors of the community who deserve our support and only the lowest, dirtiest, moocher - like this guy - would fail to pay their $75 fee, etc., etc., I'm confident that the number of free-riders would go down, not up.

Didn't article state this was at least the 3rd time the FD had responded to his property and he still hadn't paid any fees?

In situations like this, it's rare that I care about the gov. side of things. Govs are made up of people, and it's the people side that is important. The community side.

Someone said that all he lost is things, and things can be replaced, but some things are not replaceable. Photos of deceased family members, for instance. Had those fire fighters decided to show a little compassion and human decency, would he have lost as much as he did? We'll never know, for certain.

Look, you're entitled to your opinion, but why you keep trying to make it about the $75 when its been clearly explained that is not the issue is beyond me.

It's not cruel at all to not fight the fire. No one made him lose his home; no one prevented him paying the money nor did anyone make him burn trash in the first place.

As for your examples of the community helping out: Those are examples of individuals making individual contributions in time of need. That cannot be done with a fire department. You need continuing contributions all the time to keep it working, and if you create a situation where people can get the service without making the contribution a lot of them won't make it. Even the same people who will help out after the fact with food and clothing because the emergency is now real to them will try to sqeak by without paying if they can and then you know what?

Then there are a lot more people in need of that charity of food and other help after the fact, because people who think it's all about being nice ruined the fire service for everyone by putting their emotional needs ahead of the practical reality of what it takes to have the service in the first place.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Aside from the appalling act of taking God's privilege of judging how much of a Christian anyone is upoin yourself, it has been repeatedly expalined that the $75 is not the issue.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The fact that doing charity is a moral virtue does not, in any way, make not providing it a moral failing or make it a moral obligation. Charity is in fact, by defintion, giving without obligation. The fact that someting is morally praiseworthy does not make it a moral necessity. That man you describe may not be very moral, but he is not immoral either.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Fwiw, the International Association of Fire Fighters is criticizing South Fulton for letting the house burn, and they make the same point I do, in different words: In an emergency, take care of the emergency first.

Fair enough. That's why I limited my comments to the moral rather than legal realm. Broadly speaking, I tend to take an obligation-based view of morality and a rights-based view of the law.

It sucks, no doubt, and its only going to get worse as he, or his family, start recalling exactly what it was that was lost, and that is probably going to be a continual issues over the next few months. I don't believe anyone here thinks otherwise.

Where I disagree with what I believe is your opinion is the fault... this entire situation is 100% on this homeowner... not the FD, not his neighbors, not the city... but him.

Could the FD have helped? Sure. Should they have? That's debatable, since I don't know the status of their equipment/resources to handle multiple fires and respond quickly. But based upon what was in the article, I'm going with the FD did it correctly (assuming they responded to make sure no actual emergency with risk of life).

I think you're being wildly overoptomistic. This guy had already gotten them to come and put out one fire and not paid the fee. That might be workable but now he's asking them to come out and do the same thing again.

That's not going to drive the numebr of fee-payers up. What it's going to do is piss off the people in town who pay taxes and don't get a choice at all, and people who do pay the fee are going to start saying "well, why am I paying? Cranik got them to come put out two fires by just waiting till he needed them and then paying."

This isn't Little House on the Prarie. You're relying on a highly idealized vision for this scenario.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Then the IAFF is evidently not taking into account the situation of rural Tenessee. Like most international associations, it is making judgements about situations in places it probably knows little about. I doubt very much it has many small-town rural firefighters amongst its decision-making members.

As for losing things like photos and such, those are property, and their value is to the homeowner alone. They are not a reason the firefighters should have fought the fire. Furthermore, this was a doublewide trailer, a structure not known for its fire resistance. It is doubtful whether putting it out would have saved much of anything, especially perishables like pictures. Firefighting water and chemicals can do as much damage as the fire itself.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think at least some of the disconnect here is due to differing opinions of when exactly the nature of the service being provided is relevant to the question of whether that service should be provided in the absence of payment. No one here would suggest that a tailor or mechanic should be under any moral obligation to provide services to a recipient who can't or won't pay, but most seem to agree that the fire department should provide life-saving services to a non-paying recipient (e.g. they should respond to the call if someone is trapped in the house). Where we seem to disagree is over whether purely property-saving services, in the context of a fire, should be provided. Some folks seem to think that it's just a straight property insurance-like situation - if you don't pay for insurance in advance, and something happens, you lose the property. Others seem to think fire protection is just one of those things that should always be provided in an emergency and the costs should get worked out later.

Yes, and that is where the larger "tragedy of the commons" issue (as it were) really comes into play. It isn't just an issue of whether the firefighters should act because they don't exist in a vaccuum. It's an issue of creating a situation where some people are able to get away with not paying, or paying only when they need the service, while some others pay to ensure the service is available but get the same treatment, and still others get the same treatment and are forced to pay because they llive in city limits and are taxed.

If I were the mayor, at this point I'd simply deliver the county an ultimatum: Enact a levy to pay us for fire coverage, or get no fire coverage. We're going to go back to just covering the city at the end of this year when current payments expire, until you get it together.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."