# Cranick's Folly: Libertarianism at its finest? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2010, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104 "2010-10-05T09:02:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/101 "2010-10-05T17:49:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The only reason this situation was even possible was because of libertarianism gone awry. The way this _should_ have happened would be that the $75 was a tax, the homeowner is obligated to pay it, and the fire department is obligated to fight the fire. If that were the situation, then we wouldn’t even be having this discussion right now. Instead, though, because a community decided that they’d try to apply a political philosophy that can’t cope with freeloaders, when someone inevitably tried to freeload, the system broke down, and we got a situation that was lose-lose for everyone. 1. The government doesn’t have the constitutional right to force people to pay for things they don’t want. The founding fathers said nothing about fire protection. 2. If it’s a “tax” that just means rich people will pay for it all, and poor people won’t, but both will get the same crappy watered down coverage. When the crappy underfunded system is shown to fail, we’ll have to make the rich pay more, or run deficits. 2-b. If we tax the rich we’ll kill out golden geese. The rich will move to Caribbean Islands where they are free to chose the fire services they want. Then we’ll lose out on all that tax revenue. 2-c. If you burden businesses with taxes and regulations, they won’t hire people or expand so your GDP will shrink along with your tax revenue. 1. Resources are limited. If it’s something people want, they’ll pay. 2. If we allow socialized fire services, we’ll have to allow socialized everything, then we’ll be socialist. This is just another step down a slippery slope to communism. You don’t want communism do you? 3. If you remove the direct cost to the consumer they won’t respect it. It makes an incentive to start fires, since after all someone else is paying for it. You end up with old people calling every time their cat is in a tree. Lonely housewives will call for company. People will be reckless with their candles and oily rags. The financial cost is a disincentive to starting fires. 4. without disincentives, fire houses will be over burdened, and as a result quality will suffer. 5. the government sucks at running things, do you really want the government running your firefighting services? look at how bad public schools and public roads are. you really want your fire house to end up like that? 6. if you give the government control over the cost, they’ll want to make demands. first they’ll insist you change the battery in your smoke detector, then they’ll demand that you buy a fire extinguisher. before long they’ll be an entire “fire code” and an overpaid bureaucrat going around fining people for not complying. cite: EUROPE! or Cuba, I forget which. > [@septimus](#): > > it overlooks my big question which is What has America come to? Did you just get here? This is how it’s always been. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/102 "2010-10-05T17:52:34Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > [link](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/10/firefighting-obion-county). > > The South Fulton fire department provides fire protection within the city limits, presumably paid for by residential taxes. The Cranicks live outside the city limits, in an area that has no fire department at all, they do not pay any taxes towards running a fire department. > > The city generously offers folks outside the city the ability to get coverage by subscribing with the city, these jokers figured they could save their money and the fire department would put out their fire anyway. > […] > > The real answer is to have the county (where the Cranicks live) fund firefighting service through their property taxes. They can have their own separate service or contract through municipalities like South Fulton, whatever works. Ah, I did not know these facts. Good points, but I still think it’s a shame to lose the house because the county government fobbed responsibility off onto optional uses of city services. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/103 "2010-10-05T17:54:42Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > > > [link](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/10/firefighting-obion-county). > > > > The South Fulton fire department provides fire protection within the city limits, presumably paid for by residential taxes. The Cranicks live outside the city limits, in an area that has no fire department at all, they do not pay any taxes towards running a fire department. > > > > The city generously offers folks outside the city the ability to get coverage by subscribing with the city, these jokers figured they could save their money and the fire department would put out their fire anyway. > > […] > > > > The real answer is to have the county (where the Cranicks live) fund firefighting service through their property taxes. They can have their own separate service or contract through municipalities like South Fulton, whatever works. > > Ah, I did not know these facts. Good points, but I still think it’s a shame to lose the house because the county government fobbed responsibility off onto \*\*\*optional \*\*\*uses of city services. Wait, optional? You mean Mr Cranick had the choice to pay? Why is it the country government’s responsibility? ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/104 "2010-10-05T17:56:08Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Ah, I did not know these facts. Good points, but I still think it’s a shame to lose the house because the county government fobbed responsibility off onto optional uses of city services. Why do you assume an abdication of responsibility by the government when it’s the people in that county who have chosen not to pay for said services? That’s like a parent who consistently votes against school levies bitching because the school is falling apart. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/105 "2010-10-05T18:06:46Z")
Has anyone stopped to consider why a county might not have the same emergency fire response service that you would typically find in a municipality? I bet it’s just a little more complicated than “we don’t want to pay high taxes.” One of the problems with a county is that the rural areas are not only sparsely populated but they are rather spread out as well. Obion County, where South Fulton is located, has a population of 32,000 spread out over 555 square miles. Contrast that with nearby (relatively) Memphis which has 67,000 people within 313 square miles. So if your the county government and you want to build a county wide fire department where do you put it? You’re not going to put it in the municipalities even though they have the most people because they already have their own fire departments. It’ll be hard to build the fire department in a central location that can service the entire county because of it’s sparse and dispersed population. Build more than one fire station? Well, does the county have the tax base to support this? Probably not. Emergency services are a big problem in a lot of rural America. It’s not because people don’t want to pay taxes it’s because there’s a budget problem. Odesio ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/106 "2010-10-05T18:06:54Z")
Taking these claims seriously… > [@emacknight](#): > > 1. The government doesn’t have the constitutional right to force people to pay for things they don’t want. The founding fathers said nothing about fire protection. It does so all the time, and couldn’t function without doing so. > [@emacknight](#): > > 2-b. If we tax the rich we’ll kill out golden geese. The rich will move to Caribbean Islands where they are free to chose the fire services they want. Then we’ll lose out on all that tax revenue. Garbage. That’s just an excuse the rich use to try to weasel out of paying anything to keep up the society they are leeching off of. They’d never leave; no other country would give them the kind of luxury and near worship America does. > [@emacknight](#): > > 2-c. If you burden businesses with taxes and regulations, they won’t hire people or expand so your GDP will shrink along with your tax revenue. Please. Without regulations they’ll kill people right and left and treat their workers as near slaves. And without taxes the country collapses. > [@emacknight](#): > > 1. Resources are limited. If it’s something people want, they’ll pay. No, demonstrably they won’t. > [@emacknight](#): > > 1. If we allow socialized fire services, we’ll have to allow socialized everything, then we’ll be socialist. This is just another step down a slippery slope to communism. You don’t want communism do you? A silly argument, this has nothing to do with communism. > [@emacknight](#): > > 1. If you remove the direct cost to the consumer they won’t respect it. It makes an incentive to start fires, since after all someone else is paying for it. You end up with old people calling every time their cat is in a tree. Lonely housewives will call for company. People will be reckless with their candles and oily rags. The financial cost is a disincentive to starting fires. No, making it a fee based setup like this is an incentive for the fire department to start fires to drum up business. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it turned out this fire was an example of arson by the fire department, to spread terror and intimidate more people into paying. > [@emacknight](#): > > 1. without disincentives, fire houses will be over burdened, and as a result quality will suffer. No, as a for profit setup quality will suffer because like all insurance type arrangements they make money by doing as poor a job as possible. > [@emacknight](#): > > 1. the government sucks at running things, do you really want the government running your firefighting services? look at how bad public schools and public roads are. you really want your fire house to end up like that? They are better than private businesses at some things, including running a fire department. After all, that’s why we switched from for profit fire departments in the first place. > [@emacknight](#): > > > [@septimus](#): > > > > it overlooks my big question which is What has America come to? > > Did you just get here? This is how it’s always been. No, it hasn’t been. This is a throwback to a century or more ago. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/107 "2010-10-05T18:07:06Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > And lastly, the fee is “only $75” because of a group based policy. Everyone chips in $75 so that 1 in 1000 get $75,000 worth of fire response. Do people really believe it only costs $75 to have a fire crew there? That wouldn’t pay for the diesel to drive to his house. :rolleyes: Your point is valid in general, but the cost of response is still closer to $75 than to $75,000. Fire Trucks are heavy, but diesel’s not all that expensive. They could set up a policy that saves the property while costing the owners a moderately large amount of money. Wow, if only there were some institution with the power to make “rules” that coerce behavior for the sake of a greater good, & the authority to collect funds from the community against their will for their own good. :rolleyes: Yep, the problem here is systemic. Regardless of the deadbeat nature of the Cranicks, in a larger sense this case is indeed an indictment of small-government theory. > [@Odesio](#): > > > [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > > > File it under “Actions speak louder than words”. You can easily intimidate someone with deeds moreso than words. > > Their deeds weren’t the least bit threatening either. You’ve never heard the word “omission” have you? As in “act of omission”? (Hint: It’s not the same as “emission.”) ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/108 "2010-10-05T18:22:05Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Emergency services are a big problem in a lot of rural America. It’s not because people don’t want to pay taxes it’s because there’s a budget problem. In this county, the city fire department can do it for $75 per house. What is stopping the county from reaching an agreement with the city that it will tax everyone a bit less than $75 per house, and pay the tax to the city for fire protection? That sounds like a bargain to me. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/109 "2010-10-05T18:24:30Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > You’ve never heard the word “omission” have you? As in “act of omission”? (Hint: It’s not the same as “emission.”) An act of omission isn’t intimidation. Nor was it an act of omission because the South Fulton FD was not under any obligation to put out the fire. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/110 "2010-10-05T18:25:50Z")
On reflection, I’m modifying my answer. > [@emacknight](#): > > Yes. I’m sorry, but yes. I don’t want the guy’s house to burn down, but that is the basis of risk/reward. > > He was told in advance: pay $75 a year and we’ll provide fire protection, don’t pay and you won’t have fire protection. > > _ **Maybe** he crunched the numbers: He’s had that house for 57 years, that’s $4,275 (plus interest) for the 1 in 1million chance his house would burn down. Over the past 57 years he made the right choice. Maybe his house/stuff is worth less than the $75 a year. Maybe he’s got great insurance and this will get him a new house and better stuff._ > > He made a choice. You’re right. He acted rationally\*–not idiotically–\*& then things went south. The FD reacted rationally in this case, thinking about all the deadbeats out there. This is what you’re missing: **All of them behaved sensibly, given their own understanding of the situation, _and given the system as set up._** That’s why the system is at fault. This is what small-government planning gets us. Blaming the FD for letting his house burn, or Cranick for not paying, is missing the point. We need a system wherein there is **not** a strong rational incentive to risk nor to cause massive property damage. That means we should be leery of a low-tax, low-service, fee-based, heavily privatized public service régime. And because populist democracy tends to neglect serious public safety planning in favor of short-term “advantage” in the form of tax cuts, that also means that we need rule by experts who are concerned with the popular welfare, not the public’s wishes. _Salus populi suprema lex esto,_ not _Vox populi vox dei._ > [@](#): > > > [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > > > Back-charging the non-paying household $1000 for saving their house despite not paying the $75 yearly fee would be quite a deterrent to anyone else deciding not to pay the $75 a year. > > If they own a house and you have to back-charge them money, slap a lien on the property if they cannot pay. You’d have their address, right? > > I’m going to try and find a cite for this, a few years ago I had the pleasure of riding in a Minneapolis ambulance. Afterwords I was trying to find out how much it cost and the article I found describe it as $1200, and included the point that they expect half of all clients won’t pay. So as a result, those that DO pay are actually paying \*\*twice \*\*as much. Which ultimately leads to more people not paying. > > Any of this sound familiar? This is exactly why I believe in direct public funding of medical care. Further, such should be done against the wishes of the people, because the people are too stupid or too rationally ignorant to comprehend or even to consider what is in the public good. All this does is convince me more that democracy is a mistake & should be abolished, _inshallah._ ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/111 "2010-10-05T18:26:30Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > 1. If we allow socialized fire services, we’ll have to allow socialized everything, then we’ll be socialist. This is just another step down a slippery slope to communism. You don’t want communism do you? Even gullible **septimus** figured out this _had_ to be a “Whooosher.” (spelling?) I even did a click-click to check some of **emacknight** ’s other posts. It appears he’s ecumenical, happily whooooshing on both sides of a debate. Does that pretty much sum up your contributions here, **emacknight**? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/112 "2010-10-05T18:30:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Ah, another ‘attack libertarianism with a straw man’ argument. > > Many libertarians, myself included, understand exceptions have to be made in the case of externalities, and having a fire burning in the middle of a residential neighborhood is a textbook case of externality. Many libertarians, including myself, understand the free rider problem, and understand that you can’t allow a situation in which people can refuse to pay for fire service, knowing full well that firemen will protect your house anyway. We also recognize that it’s wrong to NOT protect your house. > > There are a few obvious solutions here: > > 1. Treat fire protection in a city as a public good, make it universal, and tax everyone to pay for it. Like we do in most places now. Only the most extreme libertarians think all public services should be privatized and made voluntary. All the ones I hang with are perfectly willing to make an exception for essential services like fire protection and police. > > 2. Treat fire insurance as fire _protection_ insurance. In other words, if you pay the insurance and have a fire, the fire department puts it out for free. If you don’t have insurance, you pay for the cost of the fire department’s work. Which could easily be thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. But either way, your fire gets put out promptly. > > 3. Make fire insurance mandatory, but contract it out. > > The case in the OP is the stupidest way to deal with the problem there is. AND, it involved government action. So making this an indictment of libertarianism is just silly. I agree with you on solutions, Sam, but the Yank right-wing that you typically defend makes these kinds of foolish arrangements all the time, & justifies it because “private is always better than public.” And it’s very popular. Yanks really are too stupid to have a democracy; we need a Tsar to rule over us because we can’t or won’t take care of ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/113 "2010-10-05T18:31:06Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > In this county, the city fire department can do it for $75 per house. What is stopping the county from reaching an agreement with the city that it will tax everyone a bit less than $75 per house, and pay the tax to the city for fire protection? That sounds like a bargain to me. I don’t know what “this” county is. If you’re referring to Obion County this isn’t the case. The South Fulton FD only operates their rural subscription rates within a 5 mile radius of the municipality and not with the entire county. If you’re referring to another county, well, I can’t really answer that. I can’t even really answer why they don’t do it in Obion County. Counties, like states, have different demographics, geography, and other factors that might require a different approach to solving similar problems. What works in Tarrent County, Texas or Dallas County, Arkansas might not work so well in Obion County Tennessee. I’m simply pointing out the possibilities that fire service isn’t so great for reasons other than tax avoidance. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/114 "2010-10-05T18:39:27Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > That said, I’m _okay_ with taxes being used to fund these sorts of services so as to avoid these sorts of situations. That said, I still think a privately funded fire insurance would have served exactly the same purpose. Akin to how I have uninsured motorist insurance, in the event that I get in an accident and the other driver is fully at fault but uninsured, then that same sort of coverage would have protected the neighbors, and then they could pursue the freeloaders. Hell, that sort of social pressure from being the one person in the neighborhood without coverage, forcing the responsible owners to pay the uninsured fee, would probably be enough right there. A nice solution which I would consider quite reasonable if it were possible to get blood from a stone. There are limits to this sort of propertarianism. What if the Cranicks had died & all their property was lost or claimed by other creditors? All the more so in a society with neither guaranteed income nor legal indentured servitude, where there may be no way to make the negligent party pay even if he survives & is debt-free. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/115 "2010-10-05T18:45:15Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I agree with you on solutions, Sam, but the Yank right-wing that you typically defend makes these kinds of foolish arrangements all the time, & justifies it because “private is always better than public.” And it’s very popular. Yanks really are too stupid to have a democracy; we need a Tsar to rule over us because we can’t or won’t take care of ourselves. I say we split the country - right wingers go south, the rest go north. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/116 "2010-10-05T18:46:50Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > On reflection, I’m modifying my answer.You’re right. He acted rationally\*–not idiotically–\*& then things went south. The FD reacted rationally in this case, thinking about all the deadbeats out there. Well, actually…no. Cranick didn’t act rationally, he acted stupidly. A homeowner has no excuse for leaving his home without fire fighting services when it only costs him $75 annually to secure it. I have no sympathy for this guy. But this gets to one of the main problems with libertarians: they tend to make dubious assumptions about human behavior. They think “OF COURSE nobody would willingly go without fire department protection. Take away the government and the individual citizens acting in their own interest will produce a collectively positive result.” Well, guess what? People aren’t always rational. Many are quite stupid and short-sighted. And the ability of individuals to mitigate the poor decision making of their neighbors is subject to various constraints, including access to information (people in this thread seem to assume that anyone in the community could have found out or cared to find out whether Cranick had paid his annual fee). I’m actually not opposed to the system in place in Obion Co., TN, given the sparse population and limited resources available. But if you’re advocating small government (not you personally), you’re necessarily accepting that certain people will inevitably make bad choices that they have to suffer the consequences for, even if the consequences are dire and pitiable. If you believe this is the way things should be, don’t try to gloss over the negatives with some half-assed “no true Scotsman” argument. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/117 "2010-10-05T18:49:11Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Emergency services are a big problem in a lot of rural America. It’s not because people don’t want to pay taxes it’s because there’s a budget problem. You’re not talking about this thread, right? 😕 😕 Because they did have the budget to bring their firetruck right to the Cranick’s house, but declined to water his house since he’d not paid the $75 fee. (And, risking redundancy, be aware I’m neither condemning the fire department nor condoning the Cranick’s delinquency. _ **I’m condemning the hyper-libertarian mindset that led to this** _ and that makes America the laughing-stock of the Western world.) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/118 "2010-10-05T18:49:21Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > You’re right. He acted rationally\*–not idiotically–\*& then things went south. The FD reacted rationally in this case, thinking about all the deadbeats out there. > > This is what you’re missing: **All of them behaved sensibly, given their own understanding of the situation, _and given the system as set up._** I don’t think so. What the department did was very foolish, and if kept up borders on the suicidal. Who do you think would end up the scapegoat if neglecting a fire the way they did this one lets it get out control? And as I said, this is practically begging for someone to lose it and start killing fire fighters. We could very easily have been talking about “the Cranick mass shooting” today. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/119 "2010-10-05T18:54:42Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Who do you think would end up the scapegoat if neglecting a fire the way they did this one lets it get out control? And as I said, this is practically begging for someone to lose it and start killing fire fighters. We could very easily have been talking about “the Cranick mass shooting” today. So doctors should treat patients for nothing in case one of them decides to shoot them for not treating a chronic, uninsured disease? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104/120 "2010-10-05T18:59:36Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > > [@Sam Stone (emph. added)](#): > > > > Libertarians also don’t generally have a problem with neighborhood zoning laws, given that you have a choice of which neighborhood you choose to live in. So\*\* in a libertarian world \*\*there would be nothing stopping a neighborhood from demanding that everyone in it pay into a fire protection fund which is then used to pay for blanket fire protection for the entire community. In fact, that would by far be the most likely result in a libertarian world. > > On what basis do you assume this would be the most likely result when we have a crystal clear example of that NOT being the result? Duh. “In a libertarian world.” A different universe with different people with different instincts. > [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > The guy was just trying to get something for nothing. Sounds more like your standard-issue liberal to me. > > PS the guy says he [‘forgot’](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/?GT1=43001) to pay it. Right, because no one in the perfect libertarian world ever forgets anything. All your brains are perfect. Oh, if only those _stupid liberals who want things_ would all be destroyed by their own imperfection, that you & yours could inherit the earth & make it perfect & Godly! Of course, when you get older & start forgetting things, you’ll become a “liberal” too. :eek: [/snark] And I forgot this is not the Pit. > [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > > [@emacknight](#): > > > > If losing this guy’s house is such a big deal, carries such a high cost, than the “local community” should have known that, you know, last year, and paid for his $75. > > They should have known that, but didn’t. Actually, no, they had no way to know that. Why do all of these libertarians assume that we all know everything & are up in each others’ business? Libertarian solutions don’t work because no one has complete information. _People, if they are conscious & free, act rationally based on their understanding of the situation._ This is a “by definition” thing in macroeconomics. To an economist, saying someone acted irrationally & stupidly, & thus deserve their poor outcome, is just after-the-fact moralizing & excuse-making. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cranicks-folly-libertarianism-at-its-finest/556104.md?page=7)