Apparently the latest person to lose a home by fire in Obion County didn’t have home insurance either, again based on the philosophy of “It can’t happen to me.”
Good thing that wasn’t an actual bet. But not really surprising; part of the libertarian mentality is a sense of invincibility. “That’ll never happen to me!”
Here’s what I don’t get. The article says they don’t have the funding to “go to every house.” But they were there, thus meaning they did have the funding to go to this guy’s house. In fact, because they aren’t allowed to let people get hurt, they have to arrive everywhere anyways.
“If firefighters responded to non-subscribers, no one would have an incentive to pay the fee.” Or, you know, you could charge them more for not paying ahead of time. You know, hefty fines work for the police.
Also, notice how everyone in the comments seems to agree that this is horrible. On freaking Yahoo!, where there’s always a conservative v. liberal fight.
I honestly wonder about the mayor’s and the firefighters’ mental health.
I clicked thinking OP sounded interesting only to discover … I started the thread. :smack: Tell me again the early symptoms of early Alzheimer’s. 
I reviewed the thread, and found I’d already made my points. I will remark that this is a thread where I learned about 1 or 2 of our fellow Dopers’ cognition. For example:
At the time, I might have been curious which way Mr. Knight was whooshing. I’m afraid I no longer care.
What I don’t get is why the voters of Obion County like this system. Why don’t they agree to raise a tax – which would be less than $75 per property – and get fire-fighting services from Fulton City? It would save a lot of anguish and aggravation.
But they don’t have to use all of their consumables up which probably isn’t cheap.
They did that, but people didn’t pay often enough and they lost money.
How much do you charge the losers who burnt down their uninsured trailer home? They still have to fix up their home, make it livable again, and I’m just guessing that they don’t happen to have multiple thousands of dollars burning a hole in their pocket to pay for your fire services. Oh, and God Forbid the house be a total loss, good luck getting paid for your “services” that wound up doing jack squat to help the homeowner. Paying post-service is just an invitation for billing nightmares, and an underfunded system.
The fire service in question is funded by taxes on the residents of a neighboring town. County residents can have their homes covered by the service, if they pay a fee. The town fire service doesn’t have to go out there at all, for any reason, it’s a totally different municipality which is responsible for managing their own fire service. That municipality has chosen to give that responsibility to individual homeowners, which anyone with a functioning brain can tell is idiotic. Apparently, they can’t tax homeowners to pay for a inter-local agreement that covers all residents, because taxes are evil.
Several decades ago, when we lived in an area with no emergency services, the fire department required a credit card before they would come out, to get around that non-payment problem.
I know one family that watched their house burn to the ground because none of them had a credit card to give the FD over the phone.
We would have loved to pay $75 annual for fire coverage.
I’m no libertarian, but these people are idiots.
They can’t tax couty residents because it’s a city service - not hard to understand. The city cannot tax the county. They have no choice except to offer the service on an individual basis (or a voluntary group basis, but it amounts to the same.
Frankly, I think it’s a good case of evolution in action. If people choose stupidity, they pay for it. Idiocy may not be a crime, but it gets punished no less often. Whether it’s a good deal overall for the county is up to them. They didn’t ask us, and I don’t see why anyone needs to care: the afflicted people evidently didn’t feel it worthwhile collectively or individually, which suggests it’s none of our business.
I’m not surprised to see the usual suspects pretend this is a case of evil Libertarianism despite the fact that (a) it’s not and (b) it’s blatantly not. This is a case of one government agency offering service to another government’s people, and some of them shrugging.
Perhaps most interestingly, this area is heavily liberal and always votes Blue.
It might not be Progressive enough for Der Trihs, but West Tennessee is as reliably Donkey as it gets. It isn’t a hotbed of Libertarian sentiment.
What I mean is the county can pay the city to provide fire service for everyone, and pay for it out of the taxes the residents pay to the county.
It’s popular here, one neighboring town buys fire service from our town, they get full coverage, just as if they had their own town FD, it’s all arranged through an “inter-local” agreement.
Sure, they could, and chose not to. I do love how you assume it’s because “taxes are evil” or some rot. They chose to allocate their money a certain way, and offer a way for citizens of the county (very rural, and where damage to neighbors is extremely unlikely) to get fire service if they chose. Those who chose not to might suffr for it, but it’s not like they can pretend they weren’t warned. Their choice, their consequences. I don’t see what the issue is. If they change their mind, they can do otherwise.
Yeah, that’s actually the exact reason why. Genius teabagger 'Murricans choose to live in rural Tennessee to get away from the government, not to be oppressed into paying for soshulism. I’m just glad the fire department is sticking to its guns. No free riders.
Basically the people are taking a gamble.
Its a bit like people not wanting to pay vehicle insurance, so don’t year after year while everyone else does and keeps the system going.
The shirkers hope that if their car is in the process of having an accident; that they can then sign up for insurance, and immediately claim off of that insurance, in the belief that everyone will soften their hearts at the parasites predicament.
And if this happened do you really think that they’d start paying for insurance AFTER the accident ?
No they’d wait for the next time and hope for the same result.
And having seen that result, how many other people who’d been faithfully paying the insurance up until then would bother paying until they too had an accident ?
Unfortunately the money needs to be paid as a continual process to put the equipment needed into service, and maintained.
AND these parasites wanted people to put their lives at risk to save THEIR property.
I don’t think so.
This may have been his last lucid thread.
This whole thing is about County leaders refusing to levy a tax to pay for fire service.
Oh, and a fun fact I got from here, this couple did not pay for a subscription, because they were not allowed to. The trailer does not qualify for homeowners insurance. Without insurance, you are not eligible to buy the subscription at all. They were completely SOL right from the beginning. Perhaps a county wide agreement would have allowed the fire service to act.
Am I correct that the $75 fee is independent of house value? If so, it certainly seems regressive and perhaps unfair. Without excusing irresponsibility, a disproportionate fee on the cheapest houses does affect the financial calculation.
But anyway, I thought the thread was about
Shouldn’t police and fire protection be publicly financed?
Instead, some prefer to use the incident to let them enjoy recreational outrage at stupid people trying to exploit America’s Best Citizens™ – the Job Creators. For example:
I wonder, Mr. Lust, if you think the in-city protection service should also be subscriber-only? Certainly more opportunity for moral outrage. And think of the lower classes sponging off taxpayer-financed FDA. Shouldn’t federal approval info be available only by subscription with unpaying indigents allowed access only to pharmacies where any “drug” is available and FDA notices are disallowed?
You’re spoiling the fun, Cheesesteak, or at least forcing the recreational outrage ilk to focus their venom on Mr. Cranick’s lazy ways that kept him from affording an insurable home.
BTW, this peculiar Tennessee fire district is not an isolated example:
[QUOTE=fireengineering.com]
… in 1978, when a Florida city PROHIBITED its paramedics from responding outside the city limits to assist a 16-year-old child who was struck by a car. As he was dying, Pinellas Park paramedics refused to respond because the boy’s body lay just outside the city limits. As seconds ticked away, two private ambulance companies were contacted; neither had units available…
[/QUOTE]
When your mobile home is on fire, is it even possible to put it out in time to save anything?
Of course, taxation is there precisely because of the free rider problem, if you don’t force people to pay then they will rely on others to pay. Now the city has no means to collect taxes outside of their city, but they offered a service. Are they under any obligation to offer the service at all? I don’t know the answer to that actually.
There are two issues at work here: 1) Does the county have a responsibility to level taxes for fire protection services as it may be perceived as a public good, if yes, then the county failed, not the city; 2) or if it is not perceived as a public good, which is entirely possible, then the owners are responsible and bear the blame. I do not see how under any circumstances the city is to blame for the loss of the home. You may want to argue they have a moral responsibility, but I think that is a stretch.
And is that because “taxes are evil,” or because the Democrats in charge opted not to go for it in a rural county area? You’re reading in your own assumptions about motives. Instead, why don’t you simply go ask them what they thought?
Please demonstrate the this county supports the Tea Party, or even Republicans, and that this is why they choose not to. You made a factual claim, so back it up.
What I expect is that you compltely ignore me or backtrack rapidly because you basically slandered the entirely of rural Tennessee in violation of the truth.
They elected this guy in 2010: Stephen Fincher - Wikipedia
Obion County went 2-to-1 for McCain in 2008. Their GOP credentials are pretty solid these days, even though they were historically “Yellow Dog” Dems.