Accept responsibility for your own actions.

[OPIE]

I find this to be just absolutely hilarious. http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101005/pl_yblog_upshot/rural-tennessee-fire-sparks-conservative-ideological-debate

Long story short. Guy CHOOSES not to purchase fire protection services for his home and expects "coverage" when a fire actually breaks out. I laughed really really hard.

The main part of the debate is that the fire fighters were there because his neighbor had fire protection and had called them to make sure the fire didn't spread to his house. But why should the fire fighters put the fire out when he didn't pay for the services? This would just spread a message to all the others out there that Hey it will be ok to not pay and they will come any way!

From what I understand this particular county doesn't have a fire department or a volunteer fire department. So the county next to them offers to take time out of their schedule to answer this counties calls. This would mean another county is paying for this counties fire services. This is why the $75 YEARLY fee is required so they can get fire protection services. I say he's shit out of luck. He made the choice not to purchase the "insurance" it's his own stupidity. If they are arguing that this only helps the "better off" citizens. This is where I tell the liberals to just STFU. I am sure there was money he was spending for "pleasure" on himself in which over the course of the year he could of sacraficed to save $75 for this essential protective service. Thats just like saying you hate the police when you get a ticket for doing something wrong but when they are there saving your life or protecting you putting their own life on the line for YOU, you absolutely love them!

The fire fighters were acting under orders so I am sure some of the fire fighters wanted to help the guy but they were held back because of those orders so boohoo their morals got shot down. Also he offered to pay for the services NOW that his house ACTUALLY caught fire. Heres my reply. How can they be sure he could pay them if he has not paid before? How many years has he not paid? Can he pay for all the previous years he has not paid? This is the simple case of both iggnorence and arrogence put into a retarded mixture of a cocktail. The whole "It won't EVER happen to me!!!! I'm INVINCIBLE! I see it happen to people with my EXACT attitude all the time but noooooo can't happen to me". Congratulations you're an idiot and have learned the lesson the hard way! Lets hope you don't repeat it! And if you don't have home owners insurance...oh man you should move to Texas because I hear they execute retards and well the world is better off without a guy like him in it.

[OU8]

There are 3 professions which I view as "altruistic". 
Medical
Fire
Police

Meaning, a true firefighter should NEVER sit around and watch someone's house burn down for any reason, let alone a seemingly token $75 unpaid "fee".  (Similar to a doctor not treating or withholding treatment based on having insurance or your ability to pay.) These firefighters lack of action stinks of mob thuggery.  Not only did they not do the right thing, their lack of action led directly to the neighbor's property catching on fire.  I would be PISSED if I was the neighbor who suffered needlessly because of the "politics" going on.

Not to mention, what is the policy if a neighbor calls to report a fire in a house of an "unpaid" person?  Do they still not respond?  What if someone is inside, passed out due to smoke inhalation?  There's just WAY to much risk to innocent people to let a building burn. 

Simple solution:  pay your $75, or if they have to respond to a fire of an unpaid person, that person gets a bill for $10,000 (or whatever).  The house owner doesn't pay?  Fine, they file a lien on the house and it can't be sold without that being paid off (with interest).

They way this was handled is the way we did things in the 1800s.  I thought we had evolved past that.  I guess not everywhere (thank you Tennessee).  When it comes to Fire, Police, and Medical attention, these people should ALWAYS act, and let the politicians worry about the red tape.  You don't leave these things open to a choice of acting or not.  The people doing the job should just do it...every time...no questions asked.  (And we should all be thankful they do.)

I could care less about what happened to lead up to this event.  The lack of action on the part of these firefighters saddens me.  Let's hope they too have learned a lesson and come up with a different solution to address the non-payers other than "let it burn".

[Blimigerite]

I don't think the fee should be mandatory.  Maybe it's that region that it's more common but I can't imagine Fire not being a part of the county taxes collected.  I think under the conditions the firefighters were legally fine but morally they are all assholes.  Then there is the 'what ifs'   
What if this was in a dry season and the house fire sparked a wildfire that was too out of control due to the fire fighters not responding with the initial 911 call.
What if there was a person still in the house?  Would the firefighters sit there on the property line and say "Well if only you paid your fee..." 

Give me a break.  The services should be automatic.  Bill it in the county property taxes.

[Asus]

It seems there was no fire service before 1990 until the other county offered and I guess it was agreed to be via a fee (not taken out via taxes where the residence live). So they are following what arrangement is in place and no one has wanted to change it yet (enough to make it happen anyway). I don't know exactly the timing of when they showed up (by call of the neighbor just in case) but the house could have been already burned enough not worth saving (fee paid or not) so they could have just been on watch and why they did not put out the fire at all.

If any blame goes around it really should be on that county for having no fire department or an arrangement that most people would expect for fires. They could set it up so 75$ from taxes goes to the other county rather than it being a fee to pay or not as you will. But that is up to the views and politics in the area. Let them shoot themselves in the foot if that is how you view it.

[OPIE]

I still say screw the guy. He apparently did not care that much about his life should a fire of broken out and he passed out due to the smoke inhalation. If he had cared that much he would of paid the $75. Instead his ignorance and arrogance of "I thought they would of came any way" when it was CLEARLY spelled out to him and he was told they would not of come if he did not pay the fine is his own damn fault. This is like looking at the big red button that has a HUGE sign that says DO NOT PUSH but you push it anyway. We're human beings and we're all individual human beings. Which means every action we take as an individual there are possible consequences and some of those can be extreme. In this case it was a extreme consequence that he did not heath the warning to. If I was the guys neighbor and my house caught fire because of his house. I would not be mad at the fire department. I would be pissed at the guy for not paying the measly $75 fee. This is the same as if lets say your girlfriend cheated on you. I wouldn't be pissed at the dude she cheated on with, all my anger would be towards her because she knew what she was doing. That huge ice storm we had up here in NY in October of 2008, the particular street I was on had no power for 5 days due to our neighbor. He had a big tree in his yard that hung over power lines. The town tried to get him to cut branches off the tree or cut the tree down entirely. There was a technicality that didn't allow the town to just do it. This guy wanted the tree to stay. Come the 10 inches of ice that fell the tree broke and snapped a telephone pole in half. The entire block had no power for 5 days and most of them had to relocate to a shelter. We weren't pissed at the town we were pissed at HIM.

We live in a world where natural disasters happen and where man made disasters happen. He lives in a county that has no fire department so certain agreements and arrangements had to be made before he could receive help should the natural disaster or man crafted disaster of a fire occur. He was AWARE of ALL of this. Yet he decided NOT to pay the fine. It's 100% his fault. I say the fire fighters were not morally assholes and they did follow the particular and different rules that applied to that county. But then again since it's different it's not only viewed that way there will be a biased, negative view point towards it. But it boils down to a few fun facts.


#1. He knew of the dangers of not paying the $75 fee and CHOSE to ignore them.

#2. All of this was TOLD to him and the rules were explained in detail to him. He WAS told the fire department wouldn't be coming if he did not pay.

#3. This is a basic fundamental of life and is seen everywhere, even in raising a child. Tell someone not to do something and they do it any way they get in trouble. Person breaks rules, person faces consequences for breaking said rules.

Now don't take me for being completely cold hearted here. I would say I am more hardened then I use to be. I am not saying how their whole system works is the best way to do things. I agree that the $75 should be taken out of their taxes. But given it's two separate counties I am sure there are many many legal measures to be able to do this and it may of been more cost effective to have everyone pay individually. My argument is this guy KNEW of the dangers of not paying and he CHOSE to ignore them. So you can't blame the fire fighters for what they did....YOU CAN'T EVEN BE MAD AT THEM! You can be mad at the system in place, absolutely. You can't even say what the fire fighters did or what they were ordered to do was MORALLY wrong. Because Morals fall under personal beliefs and personal beliefs are opinions, not facts. To sum up everything, this basically falls down to if you sign a contract you are expected to uphold to that contracts agreements. Should you breach those agreements unless agreed upon you will get your ass sued.

This guy has a right to be angry at the fire fighters only due to the fact this is a "free" country and he can theoretically be mad at anyone. But his reason behind the right is unjustified and void. Essentially he was in breach of contract and faced the consequences.

And I am pretty sure if a call was placed that this house was on fire and the possibility that someone was still in the house they would of responded and rescued that person. I do agree a life is not worth any measure of money. I am also sure after the rescue they would of let the house continue to burn.

Basically look at the facts.

#1. HE called the fire department themselves and reported the fire, fire department said no because he never paid the fee's. He never said someone else was in the house.

#2. This is a scenario - Fire breaks out in the middle of the night. No one wakes up including man in house. Fire is never reported, house burns, dude died, sad but its a fact of life.

#3. Scenario - Guy wakes to see house on fire but has already succumbed to smoke. Neighbors wake and report fire and report no sign of house owner. Fire fighters respond for search and rescue. Rescue him and let house burn but contain it.

So all in all No rules were broken and this stupid arrogant guy who could of been abusing the system to begin with in the form of not paying but knowing they would show anyways got what he deserved and hopefully learned from it. People should be blaming the STATE for not governing their counties correctly so that everyone has some sort of funding for all emergency services.

[Kindred]

The issue is that this person decided to take a risk on chance of his house catching fire by not paying the nearest fire dpt, then had the balls to expect them to to put it out from which he decided not to pay.  This doesn't work because of the example it will set and makes complete sense.   If they put out the fire, then no one will pay the fee.  The fire fighters have to follow rules too.

[Grizzly]

I think the real issue is that the rule fundamentally blows and should be changed.

Give me a break.  The services should be automatic.  Bill it in the county property taxes.

I like this idea.

[Dens]

They easily could bill it... but that's at the discretion of the county. If the people of the county don't request it, then obviously it won't happen.

Save the people, let it burn - I totally agree with. Fire department still needs to respond (which they did) just to act as containment for other protected buildings in the area.

Sure, I personally agree that it should be mandated under taxes for all areas to cover police, fire, ambulance services. But not all people agree and if the county/individuals decides they don't want to pay - then by no means should they be granted a reprieve when they had been warned of the consequences in advance.

After seeing the conditions in Ghana back in March, I'm just glad to know an ambulance will arrive within half an hour. And I don't recall seeing a single firetruck in the country.

[El DeBarge]

I heard on TV from some talking head about a county somewhere that appears to have better rules .  They charge something like the $75 fee, but if someone doesn't pay and they catch on fire, the county bills them (they have no say in the matter) something like $2500 bucks plus other expenses.  I think this gets the point across in a much better manner, and avoids the hairiest parts of this situation's ethics.  In short, I don't feel especially bad for the guy who didn't pay his $75, but I think the county has some stupid rules that can easily be improved without going on easy on freeloaders.