Life in fantasy land
Remember those government employees following government rules and letting house burn as sanctioned by government regulations contracted with another government? Seems that is a fundamental flaw in libertarian philosophy.
Ok, then.
October 7th, 2010 at 10:12 am
The firemen could have put out the fire and just sent the guy a bill for the total costs. Sort of paying the bill and not the 75 dollar insurance. That way they could have both avoided the problem of only people with fires paying the yearly fee and the problem of them being dicks about it.
October 7th, 2010 at 10:13 am
“Government sponsored fire department lets house burn to ground. See this is why libertarianism will never work.”
Simply awesome. I hate being a libertarian 🙁
October 7th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Sure. If they were driven by the market.
October 7th, 2010 at 10:29 am
The system in place combines the worst features of collectivism with the worst features of the free market. No wonder it sucks.
October 7th, 2010 at 10:30 am
What alan said.
Rather like wall street where we privatize gains and socialize losses.
October 7th, 2010 at 10:58 am
I think your sarcasm went over some’s head, SayUncle.
October 7th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Given that the firefighters were restricted by the government regulations and the insurance policies, it seems to me the only legitimate way for them to try to put the fire out would have been to throw lots and lots lawyers and liberals on it in hopes of smothering it.
October 7th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
JKB,
Nah, both would insist on talking, which would simply feed the flames lots of fresh oxygen and flammable BS.
October 7th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
They tried that. Less than half of them paid. The same is true for EMS: about half of the people are freeloaders. Come to think of it, isn’t it true that half of America doesn’t pay income tax, either?
I think that I have the makings of a working hypothesis:
“In any given population, approximately half of all people are drains on society, leeches sucking the lifeblood out of the productive members of society.”
October 7th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Oh- even better:
Of course, you have the alternative: You turn the $75 fee into a property tax, and anyone who doesn’t pay has his house foreclosed on and taken away by the taxing authority to pay the taxes.
This taxing authority also needs staffing, and so hires personnel to handle the taxes. With this new overhead, the previously voluntary $75 fee is now a mandatory $150 tax.
If you do not pay, they take your house. When they send the sheriff to your house to evict you, if you resist, he activates the SWAT team, and they gun you down. Then they raise the tax to $250 so they can cover the expenses of the SWAT team.
Isn’t that much better?
October 7th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
” throw lots and lots lawyers and liberals on it in hopes of smothering it.”… OMG that sounds like a lot of fun.
October 8th, 2010 at 2:35 am
Divemedic: They didn’t go far enough.
Make the homeowner sign over the home as collateral to pay the bill before fighting the fire.
No pay after we save your ass? Then we foreclose and sell the house.
October 8th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Kristopher: They tried that. Only half the people paid, and a contract that is made under duress is not enforceable. This was not the first fire that happened at this house. The FD had been there before, in 2005, and had allowed him to pay the $75 then, but after a time, the FD decided that the system wasn’t working.
Everyone wants free stuff, no one wants to pay for it.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:15 am
Here is an idea….
You come to my house to watch a BBQ because i didn’t pay you 75$ you fat f*cking pig?
OK i will pay each of you 0.35$ ….. IN LEAD
Seriously folks … a certain FD needs to be turned into a slaughter house
October 9th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Bad judges then.
The contract was not made under duress. The man is perfectly free to let his house burn. If he was stuck inside the house, it would be another matter.
October 9th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
fuckdapigs: A certain FD needs to shoot back at your ass.
Too stupid to pay for emergency services, and then willing to try to force people to put out your goddamned fire at gunpoint?
You desperately need correction.
October 10th, 2010 at 2:02 am
Wait wait ….. what if I don’t pay my 75$ to the cops….
will they still come and correct me?
Ya know in my old town we had some piece of sh1t thugs that refereed to themselves as “emergency services”…
… but that’s still called extortion.
A failed public service is no service at all.
October 11th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
The fire department had zero obligation to the homeowner.
He was not a taxpayer or resident of the locality they are supposed to protect.
He has not seperately contracted with them to for them to support him.
They showed up for two reasons, and only two reasons:
1. To make sure humna life was not endangered.
2. To make sure that people who ARE paying for the service are not endangered by the external fire that is this guy’s house.
What, exactly, did they do wrong?
If you live in Trenton, do you expect the NYFD to come to your house and put out your fire?
October 11th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
What everyone seems to be missing is that the libertarians in this story aren’t the municipal fire departments who let the house burn to the ground; rather, they’re the county authorities who chose not to fund a fire department to serve the rural areas where most of the fire call originate.