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Author Topic: Fire department lets house burn.
Glenn Arnold
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Is this what libertarian government would be like?
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Mucus
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It's certainly what a dysfunctional government is like.
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Blayne Bradley
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This is precisely the example of why Libertarian models of gov't are unworkable, immoral, unethical, and stupid.
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mr_porteiro_head
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a) The guy knew that there was no county fire department.
b) The nearby city (which this guy does not live in and does not pay taxes to) has a program to allow people to be covered by their fire department for a paltry $75/year.
c) This guy chose to not be covered by the city fire department, and then when a fire happened he assumed that he'd be covered anyway

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Jenos
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There is a difference between actively choosing to not pay for a service, and forgetting to pay money for a service. Things like this are why opt-out solutions are preferable, make an opt-out solution of paying for it, and that way you can't just forget.
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kmbboots
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We don't know that he forgot. According to the stories, they get mailed and phone call reminders to make sure.
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mr_porteiro_head
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quote:
There is a difference between actively choosing to not pay for a service, and forgetting to pay money for a service.
Good point. I hadn't actually read this article, I was just going off of what I read in two other articles on this subject.

That does change things a little.

But in this situation, it's not possible to have it opt-out. The city has no authority over people in the county.

The real problem here is that the county has no fire department.

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Glenn Arnold
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mph,

The guy has paid the fee in the past, and he claims he forgot to pay this year. You're starting off on the wrong foot by claiming you know his intent.

Then there's the many other problems with this story, such as the fact that the guy offered to pay "whatever it takes" to put the fire out, or that the fire department was present (even fighting the same fire) and could have easily put it out, but stubbornly chose not to. I hope the insurance company sues the daylights out of the fire department and mayor.

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MattP
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He also offered, on the spot, to pay their actual costs. They declined.
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Strider
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Forget about all the facts of this story. about the lack of a fire department, about the $75 fee to be covered. Imagine you are a human being standing next to a man's house which is burning to the ground, and in your hands you have the means to put out the fire. How in the hell do you not act out of goodwill to your fellow man?

This is what gets me more than anything about this story.

plus what Glenn and MattP just said.

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mr_porteiro_head
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Glenn-- see my post above yours.

quote:
the fire department was present (even fighting the same fire) and could have easily put it out, but stubbornly chose not to. I hope the insurance company sues the daylights out of the fire department and mayor.
What could he possibly sue them for? Not fighting a fire when one has the ability to is not a crime.

quote:
He also offered, on the spot, to pay their actual costs. They declined.
I'm not surprised that the firemen are not authorized to make on-the-spot transactions worth tens of thousands of dollars.
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mr_porteiro_head
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quote:
Imagine you are a human being standing next to a man's house which is burning to the ground, and in your hands you have the means to put out the fire. How in the hell do you not act out of goodwill to your fellow man?
Well, they're not just people standing there who could put it out -- they're people with hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment that they could use to put out a fire. Equipment that they don't own, and that they're not authorized to use to fight that fire.

It wasn't the firemen's call -- it was the mayor who made the call that county citizens who did not pay the fee wouldn't be protected. If those firemen went out and fought fires on the city's dime because they wanted to, I'd expect them to be fired almost immediately.

While it would have been nifty for the city to have the goodwill and charity to extend firefighting services to people that didn't pay for it, I can't fault the mayor on making this pretty reasonable financial decision.

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King of Men
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This is not a failure of libertarian policies. A private firefighting company would, in such circumstances, charge a tenth of the value of the house, and make a nice profit. Firefighters of the local government have no such authority. This is a government failure born of inflexible policies.

But then again, the guy clearly has some major fail on his side as well. If you 'forgot' to pay your car insurance, would you expect the insurer to pay up after you crashed? Perhaps you could offer to pay them "whatever it took", eh?

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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by MattP:
He also offered, on the spot, to pay their actual costs. They declined.

As Porter indicated the firemen could have very good reasons for not putting out the fire anyway. In fact in one of the articles the man explicitly states he doesn't blame the fireman.

The firemen themselves could lose their jobs if they use the equipment in an unauthorized fashion. A whole bunch of stuff went wrong before those firemen ever showed up at the scene of the fire.

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Miro
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I didn't know there was anywhere in the country not covered by fire, police, and EMS. This makes me wonder, what if lives had been on the line? Does the city have a policy of responding to those types of cases?
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Strider
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I was thinking the same thing Miro. What if a small child was trapped in the house?
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mr_porteiro_head
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From another article on the event:

quote:
"If somebody is trapped in the house we're going to go because life safety is number one but we can't give the service away," Edmison said. "It's not South Fulton's problem. It's not Union City's problem. It's the county's problem. There is no county fire department."

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mr_porteiro_head
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Another quote from the fire chief in that same article:

quote:

"If we just waited to charge when we went out there, you'd be working on a per-call basis," he said. "With no more calls than there are, the money wouldn't be there in a sufficient source to buy the equipment you need."


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Miro
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Ah, thanks.

If the county can't afford to maintain their own fire department, maybe they should contract with the city to share the resources of the city's department. That way the city gets a steady stream of revenue for their services and the residents of the county get coverage (which I would have to assume would be less than the $75/household going rate). I'm still in disbelief that there are places not covered by any fire department.

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Strider
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Also, just to make clear, I'm not just upset at the fire department, I'm upset at the system and everyone involved that would lead any group of people to let a house burn down when they could stop it. Whether it comes from a philosophy of "fair is fair" or "rules are rules" or "that's not my responsibility" or "i don't have the authority" or anything else.
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mr_porteiro_head
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quote:
Also, just to make clear, I'm not just upset at the fire department, I'm upset at the system and everyone involved...
(emphasis mine)

You're not upset at the fire department, but you're upset at the individual firefighters?

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lem
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quote:
Then there's the many other problems with this story, such as the fact that the guy offered to pay "whatever it takes" to put the fire out, or that the fire department was present (even fighting the same fire) and could have easily put it out, but stubbornly chose not to.
quote:
He also offered, on the spot, to pay their actual costs. They declined.
The problem with this sentiment is that if people knew they could pay insurance only when they need it then everyone would stop paying and the whole system would be underfunded and collapse.

There is also more cost to running a fire department then just the actual costs of a specific incident.

The fire department did exactly the right thing to continue to get the resources they need to help the greatest number of people. The problem is that the outlying county is treating this as optional fire insurance. What they should do is work something out where they have their own local tax that the county then gives to the larger city that has firemen--that way everyone is covered like a regular city.

As long as it is treated as insurance it MUST be administered like insurance...otherwise the system fails. I agree they need to replace the system, but I absolutely defend the decision that was made. If the county without firemen refuses to work out a method of covering/funding everyone and it continues to rely on "fire insurance" from a neighboring city, then the firemen have no choice but to refuse service if payment is not made.

I am pretty sure there is a moral/legal obligation to save someone if you can--much like how ERs have to treat everyone who come in the door.

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Strider
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mph, I said i'm not just upset at the fire department, I'm upset at everyone involved. I don't think that's inconsistent at all. I'm upset a system that led to a bunch of firefighters standing around and watching a house burn down, regardless of whether they didn't have the authority to put it out. That lack of authority is part of the thing I'm upset at.

edit: switched to bold since it looked like i was yelling. [Smile]

[ October 06, 2010, 08:33 PM: Message edited by: Strider ]

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mr_porteiro_head
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Ah. Gotcha.
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mr_porteiro_head
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How far does that extend? Are you upset at the other cities in the county whose fire departments didn't put out this fire?
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Strider
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In part that would depend on how much they knew of the situation. But no, I don't expect the entire state's resources to descend on this guy's house.

A large part of the issue for me in this situation is that the firemen were on the scene of the fire.

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mr_porteiro_head
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They were there to keep the fire from spreading to somebody else's property.

Would you find them less culpable if they hadn't come out to the fire at all?

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Raymond Arnold
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There's a good blog post on this topic from a few years ago, about a town in Alaska.

quote:
If you had paid, they’d douse your house with water – no small trick in a place where the temperature got so cold that a cup of hot coffee would freeze into brown ice crystals when flung into mid-air. They’d put the fire out, and do their job.

If not? They’d call the cops. They’d get all the pets and the people out of the building; the volunteer firemen of Alaska were not cruel men. They’d wet the houses next to yours, making sure that the fire didn’t spread to consume all of Fairbanks.

Then they would sit down and watch your house burn.

The cops were there to protect the firemen; it wasn’t uncommon to have some furious homeowner run up and take a swing at the firemen carefully studying the blaze. And it must be tough to sit there and watch, knowing that your home was so close to being saved and yet having the whole society working against you.

But it had to be done. Because if people knew that the firemen would save them free of charge, then nobody would pay. And if people knew that you could avoid paying the firemen up until the moment that first spark hit your curtain, well, again, nobody would pay.

And if nobody paid, everyone paid. As I’ve said, those firetrucks and hoses and buildings weren’t cheap. If they let a couple of people slide, soon enough they wouldn’t be able to afford the upkeep and everyone’s houses would burn.

I imagine the firefighters had a bitter satisfaction in knowing that they were correct, which might – might – have been enough to offset the cries of wailing children and shrieking families. But it was an ugly balance: this one crying child would be many more screaming children if everyone in town realized they could cheat the firemen. Who would be left then?

Basically, I agree with Jeff Woods at the end of the OP article - the law should be set up so that this can't happen in the first place.

http://theferrett.livejournal.com/2007/10/09/

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mr_porteiro_head
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It's not "the law" that is at fault -- the problem exists because there is no county fire department.
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HollowEarth
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So why doesn't charging people $25k (to pick a number) if they put the fire out and you haven't paid your $75 serve the same purpose without the stupidity?

This kind of stupidity is also removed if we pay for fire service out of general taxes rather than having a special fee (that you no doubt have to write a separate check for).

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BlackBlade
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quote:
So why doesn't charging people $25k (to pick a number) if they put the fire out and you haven't paid your $75 serve the same purpose without the stupidity?
Because we can't ask firefighters to also be a collector's agency. What are they supposed to do, get a promissory note? Have a debit card machine on the side of their truck? Take your sworn verbal statement? What happens when the person promises to pay the exorbitant uninsured fee and then they can't? What if the person in the heat of the moment says they will pay but now they won't?

What if the fire dept paid people to start fires at uninsured places just so they could collect more money?

The county needs a fire dept, it's a much simpler and less risky solution.

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Glenn Arnold
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quote:
"If somebody is trapped in the house we're going to go because life safety is number one but we can't give the service away," Edmison said. "It's not South Fulton's problem. It's not Union City's problem. It's the county's problem. There is no county fire department."
It's not just a matter of whether there is a life being directly threatened. Fires can and do take off with a gust of wind and consume thousands of acres.

quote:
Would you find them less culpable if they hadn't come out to the fire at all?
The firemen? Yes. There are a lot of breakpoints where I could see very different responses. Given the setup, I understand the 911 operator telling the guy that they won't respond to his call because he hasn't paid the fee. But that changes when the guy offered to pay. Likewise, when the fire department was fighting the neighbor's fire, I understand why they ignored the other property at that point.

quote:
The problem with this sentiment is that if people knew they could pay insurance only when they need it then everyone would stop paying and the whole system would be underfunded and collapse.
No it wouldn't. Fire departments have historically been volunteer, and funded by donation. In my town, we are sent mail solicitations to donate to the fire department, along with an estimate of "our fair share." Some people can't or don't pay, others pay more than their share. But the system doesn't collapse. If the funds are running low, they run pancake breakfasts, and raffles. We get more solicitations by mail. And people step up and fork it over.
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Raymond Arnold
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quote:
But that changes when the guy offered to pay.
This is only relevant if the guy has a clear and obviously reliable method of payment. Choosing not to pay and then saying "Oh I totally have money and can afford to reimburse you" while their house is burning down is not a statement that can be accepted as face value and making a habit of accepting those statements is not guaranteed to avoid problems.

If the system is getting enough in donations despite having a lax policy, that's one thing. But if you're in a town small enough that the donations are NOT enough (which I thought was part of the problem), then accepting promises from desperate people isn't going to help.

That said -

quote:
No it wouldn't. Fire departments have historically been volunteer, and funded by donation. In my town, we are sent mail solicitations to donate to the fire department, along with an estimate of "our fair share."
Do we not pay ANY taxes for the Fire Department? I assumed we did.
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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
It's not "the law" that is at fault

The law is precisely what is at fault. This is a much simpler issue than it is made out to be: that a county can vote for 'no fire protection' is a failure on the state level, that should be remedied. It would be like being able to vote for no police protection, then police are only allowed to stand around and twiddle their thumbs if your property gets robbed. Fire immunity is kind of like herd immunity with vaccines; for most intents and purposes, you're only as safe as everyone around you is, and the 'let's invite tragedy to preserve a commons tragedy' approach is bull (one that, thankfully, not even most conservatives will argue for).

This is an object lesson in the Free Rider Problem, and fire is a perfect example of an externality that follows its own rules and refuses to play nice re: rights ethics.

Taxation to provide fire fighting services are pretty much explicitly economically efficient.

End of story. Its good government, government should be doing it. The only reasons that governments aren't doing it — in this county, or anywhere! — is because they're too small or too thoughtless. That they do not is not an indictment of government which can explain why they should not do it (hello, circular reasoning). It is good government for various reasons, not the least of which is explained in the particulars of this event.

Now, the fact that local governments aren't doing it everywhere is not the end of the world. Some places are so distributed and rural that it doesn't much matter(I.E. if your house burns down, it will be ashes before the fire department, govt or private, gets there).

But there really is no argument as to whether or not its a good idea to have fire departments paid for by taxes. Yes, they should, explicitly, all the time, yes it's a good idea.

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Sterling
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It sounds like the system was broken before this happened, frankly. The necessary coverage wasn't there. Either everyone should pay by expectation or there should be a local, volunteer fire service.

If, as cited, the firemen have to be present anyway in case they're needed to save lives and the police frequently have to come out to protect the firemen because the rules say those firemen have to sit there and watch the fire burn and this makes them look like callous bastards, it's hard to make an effective case that there's a huge cost savings from not putting out the fire.

There's a good reason a lot of places require car insurance, and as someone who was in two separate not-at-fault car accidents inside of a week with two different non-insured motorists, I really appreciate that fact.

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lem
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quote:
No it wouldn't. Fire departments have historically been volunteer, and funded by donation. In my town, we are sent mail solicitations to donate to the fire department, along with an estimate of "our fair share." Some people can't or don't pay, others pay more than their share. But the system doesn't collapse. If the funds are running low, they run pancake breakfasts, and raffles. We get more solicitations by mail. And people step up and fork it over.
What you are talking about is an entirely different system. I agree the system needs to change. My contention is that they need to change the system, but until they do they need to keep the current system working--and to do that they need to treat it like it is...insurance.

Insurance only works when everyone pays before they know if they need it. If everyone only had to pay when they required insurance then the insurance system would collapse. It would be worse for that to happen if a better (volunteer or tax based maybe) system was not yet in place.

You are not addressing what would happen if everyone stopped paying until they needed the fire department. Best case scenario is that the city would no longer offer services to the county at 75$ per house.

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Lisa
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I don't see the problem. And the guy chose not to pay. He received reminders and ignored them. You make bad choices, there are often bad results.
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Lyrhawn
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Yuck.

I'm inclined to agree with Lisa and others in that agreeing to let the guy pay retroactively would degrade the entire service. I think that allowing them to pay a big flat up front fee would have been best, in that it would have made the company a lot of money without ruining their business model, but that's their silly choice I suppose.

Having said that, it still irks me at a basic level. It just feels wrong. You know the old phrase, when your neighbor's house is on fire you don't haggle over the price of the garden hose. I've never seen a real life situation that fits it so perfectly.

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mr_porteiro_head
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quote:
Originally posted by HollowEarth:
So why doesn't charging people $25k (to pick a number) if they put the fire out and you haven't paid your $75 serve the same purpose without the stupidity?

quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
Another quote from the fire chief in that same article:

quote:

"If we just waited to charge when we went out there, you'd be working on a per-call basis," he said. "With no more calls than there are, the money wouldn't be there in a sufficient source to buy the equipment you need."



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mr_porteiro_head
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Let's say that they found a dollar amount at which it would make monetary sense for them to charge a non-paying customer on the spot.

You've got a situation where the fire department, which is supposed to help prevent fires, is financially dependent on fires happening with some regularity.

That's a bad situation, and not on that I want to be in.

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mr_porteiro_head
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quote:
Originally posted by Sterling:
If, as cited, the firemen have to be present anyway in case they're needed to save lives and the police frequently have to come out to protect the firemen because the rules say those firemen have to sit there and watch the fire burn and this makes them look like callous bastards, it's hard to make an effective case that there's a huge cost savings from not putting out the fire.

No, it's quite easy. If they always put out the fire regardless of whether the homeowners had paid, nobody would pay. The city would not be able to afford this, and they would stop fire coverage outside of the city at all.

Not putting out this guy's fire (and other fires like this) saves more homes from fire than putting it out would.

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
The law is precisely what is at fault. This is a much simpler issue than it is made out to be: that a county can vote for 'no fire protection' is a failure on the state level, that should be remedied.

Worth repeating.
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mr_porteiro_head
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While I certainly wouldn't want to live in a county without fire protection, if the voters of that county don't want it, I don't see how it's a failure.
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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
While I certainly wouldn't want to live in a county without fire protection, if the voters of that county don't want it, I don't see how it's a failure.

This is definitely an issue the state can and should take care of. The federal government mandating this sort of thing while perhaps necessary at some point is not actually a victory.

State governments need to do a better job of taking care of the Americans living there. The federal government shouldn't have to do everything. I say that as a pretty big fan in centralized federal governance.

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Dan_Frank
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In reference to Glenn's original question (and Blayne's insightful ejaculation):

Not really. There are several serious divergences here that are directly caused by government interference and not the market. For example, not accepting some ludicrously high on-the-spot payment from the victim. I don't think this would make the fire department "financially dependent" on fires happening; it would still be much more affordable for consumers to have fire insurance. But, like when someone without insurance (a kind that we actually have privatized, not hypothetical fire insurance) has an problem today, one could pay much more out of pocket in the event that they lacked any sort of insurance.

Also, the firefighters allowed the fire to spread to another building before putting out that building. From a business perspective this is utterly worthless customer service. Even if the man whose house was on fire was unable or unwilling to pay, a profitable fire fighting business would obviously keep the edges of the fire contained to prevent it from causing damage to one of their customers.

I'm not necessarily saying that an extreme libertarian or anarcho-capitalist fire-fighting system wouldn't have it's own flaws. Just that I think this particular event is, as Mucus put it, much more about a dysfunctional government.

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
... if the voters of that county don't want it, I don't see how it's a failure.

It should be no great surprise that I'm of the opinion that simple democracy is no shield for failures. In other words, I can certainly think of any number of policies or structures that have been put in place by voters, but lead to or are themselves failures in good government.
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mr_porteiro_head
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Hmmm... Perhaps you're right.
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Sterling
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
No, it's quite easy. If they always put out the fire regardless of whether the homeowners had paid, nobody would pay. The city would not be able to afford this, and they would stop fire coverage outside of the city at all.

Not putting out this guy's fire (and other fires like this) saves more homes from fire than putting it out would.

By taking half the message, you're really missing the point. If there was no coverage outside the city, there would be an incentive for some sort of (volunteer or otherwise) local fire-fighting force. If they require payment across the board, the area is covered. It's only this kind of slipshod approach that has the worst of all worlds- there's the high cost of bringing out both the fire services and the police forces, which is a negligible savings versus just having the fire crew actually put out the fire- which was my point- and there's diminished fire protection for the community as a whole, and bad feelings toward the local emergency services because they're seen as callous mercenaries.

Returning to the idea you attempted to crowbar out of the original post, there's only a cost savings to this approach if letting non-payers burn serves as an effective deterrant against non-payment. Which shouldn't be taken as a given. There aren't enough fires in most places in a given year to set a clear precedent that the fire services will act like 'x' in a situation, any more than there are enough traffic accidents in most people's lives to convince those who don't buy insurance that doing so puts them at risk.

What is in place in the area described is an incredibly flawed system.

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Zamphyr
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Here's a 2008 proposal to absorb the 8 municipal FD's to form a county-wide FD. It was voted down.

Obion County 2008 Fire Department Proposal

Some things jump out:

The county created a fire department in 1987, but has decided not to fund it. It only exists on paper.

quote:
According to survey information, over 75% of all municipal fire department's structure calls are rural. All fire departments in Obion County charge a $500.00 fee per call in rural areas, but collections are, less than 50% and the fire departments have no way of legally collecting the charge. Therefore, the service was provided at the expense of the municipal tax payer.
Since this was a 2008 proposal, I'm guessing that <50% collected has gone even lower in this economy.
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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
While I certainly wouldn't want to live in a county without fire protection, if the voters of that county don't want it, I don't see how it's a failure.

Because fire coverage you can opt out of doesn't work on the whole. In any sufficiently populated region where fire can easily spread from one domicile to the next, ALL fires need to be put out, WHEREVER they originate, so you can't have the free rider problem. Privatized firefighting coverage and the 'fire marks' system was removed swiftly after the turn of the century because of how retarded it was. You would have firefighters standing in front of buildings haggling over whether to put out a fire or not put out a fire because it originated in a non-covered building but would guarantee spread to covered buildings, then the entire block would go up in smoke.

Even most libertarians, especially the consequentialists, have conceded that point: you can't have that system (this is why I don't consider this an example of 'libertarianism' in action, at least until we get a threshold of internet randtards taking this opportunity to say that all public firefighting systems are immoral). Want to have a modern city? Public firefighting. People who insist otherwise are guilty of total historical illiteracy. Why do you think something like firefighting got made public in the first place? Because when you don't, cities burn down. Routinely. This is not hypothetical.

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