Apples. Oranges. I only said what the Insurance company would do. If I were a JUDGE I would rule that the insurance company owes him. But you’re not making a valid comparison.
No.
Because the fire department declining to help him is an immediate safety risk to other properties besides his own?
Somewhere, Rand Rover is skipping.
Here’s a link to google maps for the area in question:
There is no danger of wiping out a city because this guy’s house was allwed to burn. Firefighters were on the scene and could control the blaze should it spread to neighboring property, which it did, and it was controlled by spraying water along the property line to prevent the fire from spreading.
I don’t like the idea of fire subscription service either, but in this case it’s how things are done, and I damn sure would have made sure I paid it every year.
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?
Clearly, the local community MADE THE CHOICE that they are okay carrying that cost. Why? Because it means they don’t have the added cost of establishing and maintaining a fire house, and collecting taxes, and all the other burden. There is a cost to having a providing fire protection services. His community decided it was too high to bother with, that they’d rather go without. HE decided to live there. This didn’t sneak up on him.
So, “the local community” benefited for years with this system. At some point over the past century, they weighed the cost, and DECIDED if they only lose 1 house a year they come out ahead. That’s how risk/reward works. My god man, you just said you work in insurance, how are you not familiar with this?
In other words, the cost of losing this guy’s house is of no concern to the community, which is why they didn’t care enough to provide fire protection. Remember, they had a choice, no one forced this on them or Cranick.
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.
No one owes him anything that he CHOOSE not to pay for.
No, it’s not impossible, but experience shows they have a less than 50% chance of actually collecting it. I imagine that failure rate goes up with the premium added to cover non-payers.
Honestly, I think the system they have in place, while not perfect, is absolutely defensible. Scarce resources and all that.
The $75 fee was an insurance policy for fire protection, if there is a fire, the department will help.
I pay $800 a year for home owners insurance. If my house burns down they’ll pay for a new one.
If I don’t pay my premium, does my insurance company owe me anything? Forget the fucking neighbours that don’t exist. If I don’t pay my premium, does my insurance company owe me anything?
So just add +20% on top of that, problem solved.
This is exactly right. This isn’t a case of liberatarianism gone awry. 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’ to pay it.
Because I deal with financial risk. Comparing that to the actual risk of your house and someone else’s burning down is comparing apples vs oranges.
Thank God I do not live in such a hell hole.
They should have known that, but didn’t.
Except that this puts others at risk for paying for his choice.
Look, dude, I can see you’re getting all fired up about this. How about this. You move there, and I’ll stay away from there. Deal?
Trying to get something for nothing is as libertarian as it gets. Liberals on the other hand are anything but. Tax and spend, remember?
And the difference between libertarians and anarchists is that libertarians are anarchists who want just enough government to keep the people they exploit and abuse from coming after them.
I don’t think anyone here would want to live under such conditions. I’d move away, in fact (though while I owned property there I’d pay the fucking $75, and maybe do so for the houses on each side of me. No one thinks that this outcome is good or just or proper–but this outcome is the obvious predictable consequence of the circumstances they made for themselves, despite repeated attempts to fix it the way it should be fixed. I’m not going to save my tears in a bottle for them.
I’m surprised by the large number of posts claiming that fire district should have acted to preserve its tax revenue. While this may be valid in its own narrow financial discourse, it overlooks my big question which is What has America come to?
Frankly it sounds extremely similar to what exists now, except for a few misconceptions, such as
(1) you gloss over the need for coercion: funds would be mandated by a 51% vote (or perhaps 67%), not unanimity.
(2) you overestimate mobility. people have roots, friends, non-fire protection needs and it’s silly to imagine them selling their home and moving to save a few dollars on fire protection.
(3) you seem to assume for-profit fire-protection services will certainly be better than government-provided. (Let’s agree to disagree quietly on that as there’s no shortage of GD threads on that question.)
So, all in all, once these misconceptions are set aside, it’s great to see libertarians endorse what is essentially the present system of fire protection (outside the hyper-libertarian system applied to the Cranick’s). I apologize if I misrepresented intelligent “libertarians” as hyper-libertarian. I’m deceived by some vocal but less intelligent posters on these boards. (Several threads ago, BTW, I specifically asked for a libertarian “platform” and received only one response, and it was instead a barely intelligible version of “fiscal conservatism.”)
Quoth Sam Stone:
This isn’t a strawman. We’re not in one of Skald the Rhymer’s threads with a silly hypothetical involving an invasion by time-traveling aliens who want to abduct Natalie Portman. This is a real situation that really happened in the real world, because of real people making decisions based on libertarian principles.
Exactly, we don’t live in the world where pure libertarianism would work, so we shouldn’t try to apply pure libertarianism.
Quoth Mr Smashy:
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.
Losing the house & its contents is a loss not only to the Cranicks but to the total wealth of the community. As many times as I’ve seen rightie propertarian types complain about deadweight losses & broken window fallacies, it would be hypocritical for them to now claim that this loss is for the greater good.
It’s a matter of putting wealth of the nation above your own interest–& not even your own economic interest–more precisely, above your own wounded pride. There is a right answer, & it’s save what you can from destruction, even if it’s not yours.
Note that this principle does not necessarily apply to theft. One may still rationally allow police & courts to be pay-to-play. I think it’s better for police & courts to be completely publicly funded. But I am sure that preventing the destruction of the material value of a house is morally worth doing even uncompensated.
No, thank god you can make the choice. That’s what this is about, choice.
This guy made the choice not to pay.
I’ll ask you again, if I don’t pay my insurance premium, does my insurance company owe me anything?
This isn’t the first, nor the last time this happened. They know, and they’re okay with that cost. if they weren’t, they would pay.
No, it puts them at risk for THEIR choice. It’s all about choice. His neighbours know that it’s an opt out system, the community knows that it is an opt-out system. Everyone involved is fully informed, and has made their choice.
As I said, if the neighbour wants fire protection, he can choose to get it. If keeping Mr Cranick’s house from burning is in his best interest, he can choose to pay that too.
That’s the beauty of choice. If his neighbour feels at risk, he can choose to move to a place with socialized fire protection.
Why the hell would I want to live there? I CHOOSE not to because that system sucks. I choose a neighbourhood with extremely high property taxes and a massive fire department.
Mr Cranick made his choice, no one owes him anything.
Another data point: in 2007, Crannick’s son caused a fire in his house. The FD came out, put the fire out, and let Crannick pay the $75 the next day with the understanding that he now saw the value of the subscription fee. Instead, the lesson Crannick apparently took was that he didn’t have to pay at all.
Wow, you just spray painted the Star of David on the wall of a mosque with that statement.
I don’t know what you mean.