Tennessee Firemen Ignore Burning House Over Unpaid Subscription Fee

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

I think that allowing someone's house to burn down for the lack of a 75 dollar fee is a stupid one.

So is not paying the 75 dollar fee in the first place.

Life is about taking responsibility for your own actions.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

So is not paying the 75 dollar fee in the first place.

Life is about taking responsibility for your own actions.

Never said the guy wasn't stupid. But we don't generally provide public services only to those who pay an opt-in fee. We call people stupid who don't plan for retirement but we don't let them starve. In the society I want to live in, we might call this man stupid for not buying homeowners insurance, but the firefighters would try to save the house because that's what they do.

No one's going to convince me that having an optional fee is a good idea for either the locale or the individual (whether it was this guy or someone whose house didn't burn down) so I'm afraid we're at an impasse. I fail to see how "well it gives him the choice and cost/benefit analysis means he tried and whoops he was wrong so he was dumb" makes any of it make sense.

[Ghostwriter]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

So is not paying the 75 dollar fee in the first place.

Life is about taking responsibility for your own actions.

Ditto this.

Also, if the firefighters had gone ahead and put out the house fire how many people would pay the $75 for the next year? The ability to assist anyone at anytime would be compromised.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Note that it wasn't the neighbor's house, but their field.

The radio report I heard said it was the neighbor's house. Field or house, either way, the neighbor suffered property damage.

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

So is not paying the 75 dollar fee in the first place.

Life is about taking responsibility for your own actions.

I could agree with this IF and ONLY IF it could be guaranteed that by letting this person's property burn, it would not affect any of his/her neighbors. Since this is impossible to guarantee, I cannot accept this as an argument. If a fire like this sparked a wild fire that burned hundreds of thousands of acres, took lives, etc., would you feel the same way?