Tennessee County’s Subscription-Based Firefighters Watch As Family Home Burns Down

Correct. +^

It's not about this guy's frugality or cheapness; it's about a completely flawed system of protecting the community.

Pre-paying a private firm for fire protection is insurance, not a tax. I don't see where the "taxed" option is available to this community.

1. If you bought a used schoolbus at auction would you call that taxes? No. This is a municipal entity, but in action and by contract they are acting as a private firm and are subject and liable similarly.

2. I agree that this is a community management error and is not a "free market" situation. The fellow was probably prudent in not paying for fire protection that will almost surely show up too late due to the assumed distance involved. How long does it take for a doublewide to burn down?

3. The only one I see crying here is the author of the article. The emotion and drama that I am seeing has come from the small end of a pen solely to promote the obvious and self-stated progressive agenda.

So the state forces doctors to work on people for free..... so the government is a slavedriver....

gotcha....thanks for admitting that you will use violence on people who have never used violence on others.....

Spot on! In every case.

The Fed has absolutely no jourisdiction here. It is squarely a State issue, unless the State's constitution seedes the responsibility to a local government.

Ther ya go again it was a GD Republicans fault right..fool.

It was the Democrats who have privatized government. Go talk to your hero Jimmy C.

remanns is my only hero.

I guarantee you that right now a volunteer fire department is in your neighborhood ready to risk their lives even for assholes such as yourself. Tell me how much have you paid or helped your local fire department? Did you know even in highly populated urban areas there are volunteers who fight fires with the help of paid men? Its disgusting that the fireman did what they did and they should be ashamed of themselves.

I am not sure what part of comment made you think I was an asshole. I am glad for public, private and volunteer fire departments. My tax dollars go towards paying for my cities public fire department. My dad and uncle were both volunteer fire fighters. Whether or not the firefighters were morally obliged to help the family was not anything I was arguing. The city and fire department are free to do what they want. The man was also free to pay the $75, not move there, or move from there. He knew explicitly that he had to pay $75 for the service and chose not too. It is clear cut. While I am thankful for firefighters, I recognize that it is ultimately not their responsibility to protect my stuff. A person is in the wrong when they claim that another somehow owes them the courtesy of putting out their fires. While I think kindness to others is a great thing, it is not something people should rely on or think is owed to them.

Just to calm everybody down: I think the firefighters should have helped and if I was one I would have helped regardless of any rules against. Now that that is out of the way, I will repeat myself: Whether or not the firefighters were morally obliged to help the family was not something I was arguing.

I would appreciate it if people would respond to my actual comments instead of to false presuppositions about me. Here are few helpful pointers: First, critically examine my past comments and if you find an assertion that you disagree with then come up with a logical counter argument. If you can't counter it logically then admit I am correct, or refrain from commenting until you have more information. Second, if I did not mention something explicitly do not make an assumption about me. Most likely that assumption would be incorrect, but even if it was correct it would likely have no bearing on the validity of my arguments.

That is your choice. I believe no person is obligated to do anything they don't want to do. I am a lead by example type of guy myself. Though I disagree with Kant on most of his moral philosophy, I do apply the categorical imperative to my own personal moral code. It goes something like this, "Act only in such a way that you could at the same time will that action to become a universal law." That being said, if I was one of those fire fighters i definitely would have been putting out that fire, regulations be damned. Unlike Kant, I would not say I had a duty to put out the fire, instead I would merely admit that it was in my own best interest to help out.

I don't know where you live, but thank God in Texas our Fire Departments that serve areas outside city limits are part of a County Fire Rescue Service. When there is a fire in an unincorporated area a thing called "Mutual Aid" goes into effect in the event the closest station is on a call and all fire departments within 20 miles respond. We pay Property Taxes to the county. The Fire Fighters can be blamed if they watched it burn from the onset, but I seriously doubt that happened. They were not dispatched by the City.

Agreed.

No man worthy of being called a firefighter would sit and watch someones home burn down even if they were reduced to carrying buckets of water.

The man forgot to pay the $75. He offered to pay whatever it took on the spot to get them to put out the fire. They refused.

Whether or not people have the "right" to have other people help them is not the question. Why are you thinking of it that way.

If someone's house is on fire and there are people right there who can put it out, they should do so. If you think it's ok to have the ability to help another person in need, yet you do nothing, then sorry but that does make you an asshole. An asshole who blames victims.

So he didn't want to pay until he needed it. Kind of like a pre-existing condition.

You obviously are missing my point. I never mentioned the firefighters explicitly in my original posts and if you thought I did implicitly, you are mistaken. My focus has been on the man whose house burnt down and the policy of the private fire department. Furthermore, if you read my comments I am not sure why I have to say this for a THIRD time: Whether or not the firefighters were morally obliged to help the family was not something I was arguing. Again, I will also say, that I think the firefighters should have helped out no matter the policy! Letting a child drown for fear of getting wet is not acceptable to me either. You are positing straw-men. Lastly, just because I attack (for lack of a better word) the homeowner, does not mean I am defending the firemen.

I don't think one has to presume that you lack critical thinking skills when you make it so blatantly obvious. Sorry to be so blunt, but I have repeated myself to you and agreed with you, yet you still fail to address my points with anything but straw-men. Regardless, in the comment you are referring to I made no such presumptions.

"Whether or not people have the "right" to have other people help them is not the question. Why are you thinking of it that way."

The reason I think this way is because ours is a society were people increasingly refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions. Too many individuals think that other people and/or the government owe them something while at the same time feeling they have no obligation to those people or the government. Now if a person aides by the law, pays their taxes and preferably participates in the government, they can correctly assert that the government owes them some services in return. Same goes with others who become indebted to you. Ultimately though, even if a debt is owed to a person, they should not come to rely on its repayment and also be prepared should the debtor default.

"If you think it's ok to have the ability to help another person in need, yet you do nothing, then sorry but that does make you an asshole. An asshole who blames victims."

That is a huge over-simplification. If you see a homeless person are you obligated to give them money? What if you offer a person a job and they refuse. Then the next week you see them homeless, are you still obligated to help out? Are you obligated to shelter as many homeless people as you can in your house during the winter? If a person robs your house and nearly beats a loved one to death (or even kills said loved one) but in their escape fall off of a bridge, are you obligated to rescue them from drowning?

I think there are similar circumstances to this fire as well that may cause others to sing a different tune. Imagine a man lives in a small city next door to the only plumber in the town. One day the plumber is visiting and notices the man's pipes are in bad shape. He offers to fix them for a meager $75 stating that if the pipes burst it is likely his basement would flood ruining the wooden supports for his house. The man refuses, saying he would rather take his chances than waste $75. Two weeks later the pipes burst. While his basement is flooding the man runs to plumbers house and offers him $150 to fix the pipes before the house collapses on itself. The plumber responds, "I gave you your chance, it is too late now. I am not going to help you." Is the plumber justified in his choice not to help? Is the plumber obligated to help? Is the man at least partially responsible for the burst pipes because he refused to pay $75 to get them fixed?

If a man has hemophilia and his doctor gives him prescription for a blood-clotting medicine to take if he cuts himself. The man then refuses to pick the prescription thinking that saving the money is worth the risk that he might get cut someday. Now imagine he does get cut and has he bleeds wildly people on the street refuse to help. Even when he makes it to his doctors office the people their refuse to help and he almost bleeds to death. Without even worrying about the responsibility of the bystanders, was the man not at least partially responsible for almost bleeding to death?

"The reason I think this way is because ours is a society were people increasingly refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions. Too many individuals think that other people and/or the government owe them something while at the same time feeling they have no obligation to those people or the government."

Right. They're called the rich, the corporations, and the free-market idealists who take, take, take -- get rich off of the labor of the poor and do not wish to give back to the society they exploited to get rich in the first place.

And that is why all fire, police, etc should be firmly in the public sector, paid for by our taxes so that way nobody ever has to worry about whether or not a poor person is eligible or has enough money to be helped in an emergency.

"That is a huge over-simplification"

You are the one oversimplifying. Your redictio ad absurdum arguments are irrelevant. We are talking about a man whose house was on fire -- an EMERGENCY situation -- and a firefighting service, not just someone walking down the street, but people whose job it is to fight fires, were right there but did nothing to help him. We're not talking one person helping all of the homeless of the world.

The only relevant example you gave is the hemophiliac, however it is illegal to sit there and watch the hemophiliac bleed to death in your example, whether or not he was responsible for his own bleeding, which speaks to my point, not yours.

In an emergency situation we should help all people regardless of money. Other situations may be handled differently, but in emergency, a society that can but does not help people has failed.

In conclusion, in a situation where a man's house is burning down and firefighters go there and watch it burn down because of money (our invented green paper), the observer who blames the victim instead of the flawed system is morally bankrupt.

To start, let me make some distinctions that may clear up some misunderstandings you have of my view. I do this not to be irreverent or pedantic but only to be as clear as possible.

First, the distinction between moral obligations and legal or societal obligations. Moral obligations are duties one dictates to them self as appropriate responses to different ethical situations. Legal and societal obligations are duties demanded by an outside source because of or in trade for services to make each individual's life easier. These could be anything from paying taxes so that a city can afford nice roads or schools, to cleaning up a local park that you like to bring your children to, to following laws and city ordinances in exchange for being allowed to take up residence there. I have been arguing from a legal and societal stand point, not a moral one.

Morals out the picture, the firemen were not obligated not put out the fire. The homeowner was obligated to pay $75 if he wanted to have fire service. Which for a person that burns his own trash, would have been a wise move. No matter whether the homeowner felt that the firefighters had a moral obligation to help him or not, it is not something he should have counted on. In the same way, it would be unwise to go on a hiking trip in the desert without packing water, which costs an absurd $4 a bottle, under the assumption that the other hikers are obligated to keep you from dehydrating. Answer this: If a preventable travesty befalls a person who is more at fault: the man for refusing to take the precautions or the bystanders that did not help lessen the travesty?

The second distinction I will make is between moral obligations and morally correct actions. As I stated above moral obligations are duties one feels they must abide based on personal ethics. A morally correct action is simply the act of doing something moral in itself. As I have emphasized in other posts, I believe the morally correct action would have been for the firefighters to put out the fire. I cannot say that the firefighters were morally obligated to help the home owner. This is because moral obligations are purely personal duties created by each individual. I can explain to a person why I believe they are acting immorally, i can tell them the benefits or consequences of their actions, but I can't demand that they are morally obligated to do anything. To do so would be an affront on their personal sovereignty. Furthermore, the concept of universal moral obligations is amoral, if not immoral, in that it strips any meaning from personal actions. To understand this think about what it takes to make an act moral.

Here is a little example that might help you think about this better. Imagine a little girl who notices that the not-so-well off neighbor boy never has any toys to play with. This concerns the little girl especially when he watches sadly as she plays with her brand new stuffed animals. Wanting to see the boy happy, the girl gives him her favorite stuffed bear. I don't think many people would argue that this wasn't a morally correct action on the girls behalf. Now imagine, that instead of giving the bear to the boy out of compassion, the girls mother made her reluctantly give the boy the bear. Each time the girl performed the same action but was each instance morally equivalent? No. This is because in the first example the girl made a choice, a moral decision, to give the boy her toy. The fact that she had the option not to engage in a morally correct behavior but made the choice to give away her bear is what gave the action meaning. In the same way, if a person maintains that people are bound by moral obligations they are actually saying that morals are meaningless. Here is my argument for this.

Major premise : It is only because people have a choice to do otherwise that moral actions have meaning.
Minor premise: If a person is obligated to do something, then they do not have a choice.
Conclusion: Moral actions done out of obligation are meaningless.

"You are contradicting yourself. I directly quoted your defense of those who do not feel moral obligation....you basically claim it does not exist. I have understood this the entire time and if you can't tell by now, I AM DISAGREEING WITH YOU."

Hopefully the above distinctions helped you see me argument better. Also note, that this is the first post where I talked about MORAL obligations. Perhaps I could have been clearer, but I was very careful not to bring moral obligations into the argument, because I knew it would result in the novel above.

"Also, not explicitly mentioning the firemen does not excuse you from the statements insinuation...this really ought to be obvious to you."
I did not intentionally insinuate them, that is why I said, "if you thought I did implicitly, you are mistaken."

"You are the one misunderstanding my friend, you can't even tell when people are disagreeing with you. I direnctly quoted you, and the best you can come up with is that the firemen were not mentioned explicitly?"

Here is where I think we agree. A drowning child should be saved. The firefighters should have put out the fire. Our disagreement, which may only be semantically, is that people are bound by obligation to help out other people.

" And I am the one who lacks critical thinking skills? You can't even interpret ordinary speech properly if you are having difficulties understanding WHY I think you are an asshole."

I honestly think your lack of critical thinking skills are why you think I am an asshole. If you examined my first comment critically you probably would have tried to answer my opening question. Your answer could have been "People make that assumption because…" or to be fair you could have even said, "I think your assumption is incorrect because…" Then maybe you would have asked yourself these questions, "are people lucky to have public fire departments? Do people take them for granted? Does a person have a right to make demands of strangers? Does that even apply to this situation? etc…" While answering these questions you also might look for factual errors or logical fallacies in my post. Then you would respond with something like this, "your statement "x" is incorrect because… Could you clarify what you mean by ….what is your premise for "y"… "z" doesn't follow your other assertions in this way…etc…" Instead I got this, " Your entire comment made you seem like an asshole." That is why I question your critical thinking skills.

First thing, that long ass post i replied to Supergayjesus with was also aimed at you.

I am assuming that your first couple paragraphs were meant as jeers, and not for me to respond to. Though if you would like I could.

"Your redictio ad absurdum arguments are irrelevant. We are talking about a man whose house was on fire -- an EMERGENCY situation -- and a firefighting service, not just someone walking down the street, but people whose job it is to fight fires, were right there but did nothing to help him. We're not talking one person helping all of the homeless of the world."

You are saying my arguments are irrelevant but a homeless guy is saying at least Gene had a house to be burnt down. It was just possessions not any person's life. Things! I mean it's an emergency but not an "EMERGENCY." Homelessness is a bigger emergency. Do you know how many homeless people die each day of malnutrition or easily curable diseases? A lot more than the number of people who died in that empty house fire. Don't tell me homelessness is not an emergency. That it can wait. Because it can't. PEOPLE ARE DYING! I didn't peg you as one of those conservative types. It would have been a lot more generous and have had greater impact if a firefighter adopted a homeless person than saved this guys material objects. Are you really saying that it is more tragic for a well-off property owner to lose some of his possessions, which can be re-bought, probably with insurance money, than for a person not to have a home or possessions at all and be struggling on he street to find food and clean water, with his skin infested with bacteria, his clothes moldy and with an infected, oozing cut on his forehead from when some property owners teenage son throw a bottle at him just because he was homeless? That is cold. Republican cold.

"The only relevant example you gave is the hemophiliac, however it is illegal to sit there and watch the hemophiliac bleed to death in your example, whether or not he was responsible for his own bleeding, which speaks to my point, not yours."

Honestly, I thought the plumber one was pretty right on. In one case a man's house and possessions were going to get ruined by water and in another fire. In the hemophiliac analogy, I did not ask if people were legally required to help him. I asked if he was responsible. Regardless, I disagree with good Samaritan laws so it doesn't do any good to bring that up.

"In an emergency situation we should help all people regardless of money. Other situations may be handled differently, but in emergency, a society that can but does not help people has failed."

I absolutely agree. 100%. I could not have said it better myself.

'In conclusion, in a situation where a man's house is burning down and firefighters go there and watch it burn down because of money (our invented green paper), the observer who blames the victim instead of the flawed system is morally bankrupt."

I am not sure if all of that follows. Regardless, it seems pretty loaded and I don't want to risk getting shot if I respond wrong. So I will leave it at this.

Anyway, I think we probably agree on more than you think. Read that long post I left for more insight into my thinking.

Man, I am disappointed that I wasted my time writing all that. I wish you had read it. It sounds like we could have had an interesting discussion. You probably could have taught me a thing or too.

The only reason I repeated myself is because you kept translating my ideas incorrectly. Also when someone disagrees with me, I prefer to know why. Often times other people have changed my mind my pointing out something I missed. All I wanted was for you to tell me why you disagreed.

I wish you would have tested my morals theories with some of your own. I am sorry if you thought I was ego stroking, but I wasn't. And if you were worried that I would have thought you were ego stroking had you busted out some of your graduate level ethics, I wouldn't of.

"The natural, healthy reaction should be overwhelming sympathy for a family, not quibbling over linguistic distinctions so you may benefit from your own ego stroking. This is why you are an asshole."

I have already moved past the initial reaction phase, and was trying to talk policy. In fact the way this specific take on the story is framed is politically charged. The author basically hijacked the story to use as anti-conservative propaganda.

I haven't finished reading the rest of your back and forth with SuperGayJesus, but I just wanted to say that I agree with you. Ignoring the moral question, it is Gene Cranick's fault. He chose to live in an area where firefighting services are paid for through subscriptions rather than taxes, and he chose to not pay that subscription. He decided that having firefighters on call in case his house caught on fire was not worth the $75, and that was a very bad decision. So, from a legal or purely logical standpoint, the firefighters had no obligation to help him. He made his choice, and he had to deal with the consequences.

No, about the moral question on whether it's right for firefighters to simply stand and watch the guy's house burn down, that I'm still on the fence about. Since the US doesn't have an equivalent to the Good Samaritan Act that we have in Canada (basically, when off the clock, all people with certified medical and first aid training are legally required to help random people if they need medical attention, but they are also then protected from lawsuits if they were to injure the random person further through their help), there is no legal obligation saying they must help. If one of them got hurt and their insurance wouldn't cover them because they weren't supposed to give him the services, then I think it's pretty clear that they were right to not help him. They have no obligation to help him if it could lead to them being injured and uninsured. But if they would still be insured, then I'm not sure. I haven't come to a conclusion about it yet.

But anyways, my main point was just to say that I agree with you. He chose not to pay for their services, he doesn't get their services.

All he said it that it is not a right. He is correct.

Who on this thread is a firefighter or volunteer? I would say most of you 100% not. Arguing libertarian talking points as to how he chose to live in a subscription area (like most of us have that much choice or the luxury of considering a fact like that when acquiring shelter) is so much hot air. In America the majority of responses to fire, health and accident emergencies is done by volunteers. They get little support or respect from their communities until they are needed. Despite this they continue to risk their lives. That what makes them the people they are. I will repeat myself: No fireman worthy of the name would watch a mans house burn down in front of them without offering aid and the community leaders that produced this situation have a serious moral issue.

There were animals in the house; two cats and a dog I think. They died of course..

It is too bad the animals died, but that was the homeowners fault as well. They had plenty of time to evacuate the pets. It took TWO HOURS for the fire to spread to the house. I am more pissed off at them for not saving their animals than the firefighters for not putting out the fire.

3 votes down? So I guess you guys think it was acceptable for the owners not to evacuate their pets in the 2 hour period it took for the fire to spread to the house?

Your statements are fair. I too wish people were kinder and more willing to help out. At the same time I don't think that people should be obligated to help out or to do anything they don't want to do. Is that so harsh? Am I really an asshole for saying that people should be able to choose what they do?

You are correct..I found out later that some animals were killed in the fire..How sad.

Public services should absolutely be obligated to help people in an emergency whether or not they have the ability to pay. I completely disagree with you.

I guess I could have worded that better. People have no a priori obligations to other people. If a person chooses to be a public servant they are also choosing to take up an obligation. They are then obligated to fulfill their public service. In the case of these firemen, they were not public.

Sorry ... But you don't cough up the money "after" your house is in flames. That would be like waiting until you have a wreck to purchase automobile coverage. Most insurance companies would balk at that deal.

Exactly, that is why he should have coughed up the $75 before his house burnt down.

Too busy blaming victims to do a little research and learn that the man forgot to pay? He offered to pay any amount to have them put the fire out and they refused. People like you do not have the moral ground to look down your noses.

I suppose the small community could raise taxes enough for universal fire coverage but, would that raise any squalls of protest from those who think they will never be affected?

And if I agree to pay the $100 premium for automobile accident coverage after the $2,000 wreck?

Yep, this is what they want, the Republican Tea Party wants it even more.

LIke George Carlin said, bloodshed!

The liberals are the establishment. Well, at least until November.

No, I remember things like this happening over 50 years ago. Should anyone be forced to work for nothing when the subscription rates are so low?

He said he simply forgot to pay it. It happens. They should have put out the damn fire. No government local or otherwise should have put this man or the firemen in this situation in the first place. The purpose of civilization is people working together for the benefit of everyone. If those people just sit there and watch others' houses burn to the ground, then that is a failure to meet the goals of civilization.

don't be.
be proud and vote your mind - toss the people out that would support this craziness.

So you think the "for hire" fire fighters should work for nothing?

Ya know, firefighters DO get paid.

Ya knew that?

Bet ya didn't!

yes

EASILY

"i'm sorry, could you repeat that? yes, you're being beaten, ok. i don't see your name on the list of subscribers to the Protect My Ass Co. sorry."