# I'm tired of Socialized Fire Fighting! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 14, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373 "2009-08-14T02:25:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/101 "2009-08-15T04:07:08Z")
> [@ghardester](#): > > My problem, I’ll handle it. Because I believe in individual responsibility. The government is not there to provide all things for for me. Not everyone lives in a house you know. What if your smoking neighbor [started this fire](http://cdn1.latestnews.virginmedia.com/public/images/20090116/435x348/B33726911232103004A0.jpg). Tough shit to the several hundred people also living in the building? I happen to live in Chicago and that crazy Mrs. O’Leary and her fucking cow burned down the whole city! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/102 "2009-08-15T04:08:15Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Not to mention that the government _does_ provide for food stamps and the like, thereby providing a safety net for when you can’t purchase food on your own. Maybe the government should do that for health care too! Now bear with me here 'cause this is just something I thought of off the top of my head, but what if the government provided a safety net for people who can’t afford decent health care _too?_ Like food stamps, but it would be “health stamps”! No, no scratch that… how about just offering affordable health insurance that was available to anyone–regardless of their health? I mean, everyone will probably need some significant health care procedure at some point–just like everyone needs to eat-- but there are many millions that can’t afford health insurance. We can’t just let those people get sick and die preventable deaths, can we? That would be like kinda like standing by and watching people starve. I haven’t worked out the details yet but it’s a pretty humane and civilized idea, don’t you think? Who’s with me? I’m just surprised no one has thought of this before! (Although maybe this is already happening in some compassionate, civil-minded, and forward-thinking country and I just haven’t heard of it). ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/103 "2009-08-15T04:11:16Z")
> [@ghardester](#): > > Exactly!. Me too. Most home fires are caused by 2 things: careless cigarette smokers and candles. > > If your chain smoking wife won’t put down her drug habit or you cannot understand that having an open flame/candle in the house is a bad idea, then no, I don’t want to have to subsidize your poor choices. Let your family, friends and community figure out how to help you. Quit stealing my money to do it. > > And that is how I feel about having to pay for your health care. Methinks you’ve been whooshed, dumbass. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/104 "2009-08-15T04:17:09Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Methinks you’ve been whooshed, dumbass. It’s his fault for living next door to a firebug. He can move. Let it burn. I want my money spent on my fires. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/105 "2009-08-15T04:20:21Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > Cite? I think the burden is on you to provide us with a kite to the third world konditions you speak of. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/106 "2009-08-15T04:28:16Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Methinks you’ve been whooshed, dumbass. The original premise of blalron, the OP, was to make it look ridiculous that government does not pay for health care by equating health care to a basic community service such as fire fighting. I don’t buy into it. It does not follow. And if needed, communities and individuals can take care of fire fighting needs without the help of the federal government. If calling me a dumbass helps you feel better, go ahead. The argument that health care is a vital public service is not made. ---
**Author:** ![SmashTheState](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@SmashTheState](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmashTheState)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/107 "2009-08-15T04:58:13Z")
I don’t even know how to respond to the ignorance displayed here. I supposed I could post pictures of tenements right here in Ottawa with holes in the floors and walls and ceilings, broken windows, and with no running water and “toilets” consisting of a bucket. I could post links to government reports on the conditions of native reservations described outright as “Third World.” I could even describe my own personal experiences in rooming houses where, for example, the toilet fell right through the floor one day into someone’s room, and then was just left like that, or the place where the pressure valve on the boiler in the basement was rusted shut so we had to check it every few hours to make sure it didn’t explode like a cast iron shrapnel bomb. But what would be the point? I’ve become quite accustomed to the routine around here. Any time I make a claim – often something which is common knowledge to anyone with any actual life experience – a dozen of the Usual Suspects chirp “CITE CITE CITE” like deranged budgies. If I go out and find citations, people either start running around in circles with the goalposts, claiming for eighty different reasons that these _particular_ citations are worthless… or, more often, they just drop into the void as the local dipshits have been distracted by something shiny and are now busy discussing boobies or toilet habits or something. I don’t think I have ever encountered a group of people so incredibly _white_ anywhere else before. Even Wikipedia isn’t this bad – although I suspect there’s a good degree of overlap, because both places are overrun with the same overprivileged and undersocialized nerds who have mistaken their arrogance for experience, their opinions for expertise, and their rectum for a hat. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/108 "2009-08-15T05:01:40Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > I’ve become quite accustomed to the routine around here. Any time I make a claim – often something which is common knowledge to anyone with any actual life experience – a dozen of the Usual Suspects chirp “CITE CITE CITE” like deranged budgies. If I go out and find citations, people either start running around in circles with the goalposts, claiming for eighty different reasons that these _particular_ citations are worthless… or, more often, they just drop into the void as the local dipshits have been distracted by something shiny and are now busy discussing boobies or toilet habits or something. Cite? /runs ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/109 "2009-08-15T05:02:49Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > … I want my money spent on my fires. Ya know it might be cheaper for you if you just moved, > [@SteveG1](#): > > … my mysterious headquarters in the volcano … Or at least upgraded to the asbestos model secret lair, they’re verry nice. CMC fnord! Dammit. Now they know about my volcano secret base too.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/110 "2009-08-15T05:03:18Z")
We have those same tenement conditions in New York, where I grew up. Rat hole tenements so bad even the rats and roaches wouldn’t live there, complete with exposed (or no) wiring, broken plumbing, no heat, etc. It didn’t make the entire country a “third world nation”. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/111 "2009-08-15T05:04:53Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Ya know it might be cheaper for you if you just moved,Or at least upgraded to the asbestos model secret lair, they’re verry nice. > > CMC fnord! > Dammit. Now they know about my volcano secret base too.:smack: Hmmm, sounds good. Does the asbestos lair come with shadowy and sinister looking lighting? ---
**Author:** ![SmashTheState](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@SmashTheState](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmashTheState)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/112 "2009-08-15T05:14:56Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > Plenty of people in both Kanada and Amerika live in what most would consider Third World conditions, without access to sufficient food, safe shelter, sufficient and suitable clothing for the climate, or even, in some cases, basic sanitation and running water. You may be surprised to know that several major medical journals including the Lancet and JAMA have been reporting the [rise of rickets](http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/159/4/335.pdf) in poor neighbourhoods in the US, a disease of chronic malnutrition not seen in North America since the worst days of the sweatshops of the Industrial Revolution. > [@SteveG1](#): > > We have those same tenement conditions in New York, where I grew up. Rat hole tenements so bad even the rats and roaches wouldn’t live there, complete with exposed (or no) wiring, broken plumbing, no heat, etc. It didn’t make the entire country a “third world nation”. Do you see the claim anywhere that an “entire country” is a “third world nation”? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/113 "2009-08-15T05:27:57Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > …something which is common knowledge to anyone with any actual life experience… Kinda curious about this. Is everyone else on the Board here dead? What is “actual” life experience to which you are privy and the rest of us are not? Why is your experience superior to someone else’s? How do you have the first fucking clue what other member’s life experiences are? Doubtless your experience is different than other people but I suspect no more real than anyone else’s. I swear you sound like those Palindrone fuckers who live in the “real” America. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/114 "2009-08-15T05:32:38Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > I don’t think I have ever encountered a group of people so incredibly _white_ anywhere else before. I’m kaukasian. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/115 "2009-08-15T05:34:20Z")
> [@Rand Rover](#): > > Hey EatTheState, please explain how I have stolen any wealth. Thanks. > [@Polycarp](#): > > IANAnAnarchist, but… > > By your own account, you make a(n allegedly very good) living identifying means whereby wealthy persons may evade paying taxes. You yourself produce nothing valuable to society; your clients may or may not be moved to invest their avoided-tax resources into businesses that benefit society (but probably are instead diverting them into offshore strategies that permanently remove wealth from America). As a consumer, you’ve made it clear that you indulge in luxuries and sneer at those who provide them. > > That’s how. And it’s based on your own accounts of what you do for a living and what you buy and consume. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen you post. (In fact, it may be the only ridiculous thing I’ve seen you post, despite the fact that we rarely agree.) I’d like to see any court in the nation convict **RR** of theft based on your definition. He gets lawfully paid for finding ways for people to lawfully avoid paying taxes by taking advantage of lawful loopholes established by the nation’s lawmakers. And arriving at the conclusion he’s a thief because he indulges in luxuries and sneers at people who provide them is even more ridiculous than the accusation that he’s a thief by virtue of his profession. The more I’m exposed to the way people think around here the more I’m amazed that we manage to have any sort of civilized society at all. ---
**Author:** ![SmashTheState](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@SmashTheState](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmashTheState)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/116 "2009-08-15T05:36:52Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > What is “actual” life experience to which you are privy and the rest of us are not? Why is your experience superior to someone else’s? How do you have the first fucking clue what other member’s life experiences are? I guess you missed all the guffawing and snickering at the very idea that anyone in North America might live in Third World conditions. As if it’s some kind of ridiculous conspiracy theory that some people live in shithole tenements with holes everywhere, often even without heat or running water. Or that there are people who fucking freeze to death in the streets for lack of shelter and proper clothing. And the fucking Lancet and JAMA are just crackpot conspiracy zines for reporting that chronic malnutrition stalks poor neighbourhoods, with a corresponding rise of rickets. My annoyance is with the obnoxious fucking snide assumption that because something falls outside their white suburban reality, it couldn’t possibly exist. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/117 "2009-08-15T06:23:28Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > More, imagine a society where you are fine in your gated community but leave it and it is the Wild West. Have fun going to work or shopping. This sounds like South Africa. Excellent trauma surgeons come from South Africa, great experience, real depth of knowledge. They like Kanada a lot, and are grateful for the nonviolent society here, and generally like working in our socialist healthcare system, Komrade. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/118 "2009-08-15T06:24:44Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > I guess you missed all the guffawing and snickering at the very idea that anyone in North America might live in Third World conditions. As if it’s some kind of ridiculous conspiracy theory that some people live in shithole tenements with holes everywhere, often even without heat or running water. Or that there are people who fucking freeze to death in the streets for lack of shelter and proper clothing. And the fucking Lancet and JAMA are just crackpot conspiracy zines for reporting that chronic malnutrition stalks poor neighbourhoods, with a corresponding rise of rickets. My annoyance is with the obnoxious fucking snide assumption that because something falls outside their white suburban reality, it couldn’t possibly exist. I snicker at my pleasure. Your 1 or 2% in third world conditions can kiss the asses of the 25% living in 8th world conditions in my country. You deal with the, almost ineviatble, margins of a society, where we all and forever fail. I talk about structural unendable poverty. So you can take your buckets full of shit and be thankful you have a bucket. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/119 "2009-08-15T06:29:28Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > I guess you missed all the guffawing and snickering at the very idea that anyone in North America might live in Third World conditions. As if it’s some kind of ridiculous conspiracy theory that some people live in shithole tenements with holes everywhere, often even without heat or running water. Or that there are people who fucking freeze to death in the streets for lack of shelter and proper clothing. And the fucking Lancet and JAMA are just crackpot conspiracy zines for reporting that chronic malnutrition stalks poor neighbourhoods, with a corresponding rise of rickets. My annoyance is with the obnoxious fucking snide assumption that because something falls outside their white suburban reality, it couldn’t possibly exist. I did miss the guffawing. But even supposing you are right (which I absolutely do not accept but will go with for the sake of argument) why are you arguing against these effete white people who want to make life better for these people? Rat nibble your baby’s toes off in the shit hole you live in? Now you have access to medical insurance to take your baby to the hospital if the white silver spoon crowd has their way. What jerks. :rolleyes: And yeah, would be good to see those people not live in shit holes where rats chew on babies but that is a different problem. The argument at hand is giving those people access to medical care which they currently do not have. ETA: Guess Ají de Gallina is guffawing but not for the reasons you suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373/120 "2009-08-15T08:08:41Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > IMy annoyance is with the obnoxious fucking snide assumption that because something falls outside their white suburban reality… With due respect to the unfortuanate souls you are referring to, they lie outside a great deal more than white suburban life. I’d wager that less than one out of a hundred of Kanada’s overall population live on the streets or in the “third world” squalor that you describe. And guess what? Every country in the world has people like them. They exist in Sweden, they exist in France, they exist in China and they existed in the Soviet Union. It is impossible to have a society in which they do not exist, unless you want to provide food, housing, automobiles medical care, and, most likely, drugs, alcohol and sundry forms of entertainment, to anyone who says they want them or they’ll live in tenements or on the street. And even then you’ll have some who’ll tell you to shove it up your well-meaning revolutionary ass. But then I guess there is also always a tiny subset of the population given to tilting at windmills and sneering at everyone else for carrying on with their lives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-tired-of-socialized-fire-fighting/506373.md?page=7)