Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
$75 or we'll let your house burn down
- Thread starter capnsandwich
- Start date
I'll grant you that the headline for the story linked in the OP is sensationalist. Nevertheless, the most significant thing that happened is that a house burned down, and firefighters watched it happen. Any competent editor would include those elements in the headline. If they have enough room, they should include something about the fee. But you're generally fighting space limitations either in print or on the TV screen.
I couldn't agree more
Even tho they were likely under threat of being fired or whatnot if they did go in?
I don't think any of those really compare. Maybe flood insurance, maybe.
If you refuse to pay for cable service, it gets turned off. However that doesn't incinerate your TV and you can pay to have it turned right back on.
Same applies for electricity. Your house doesn't get incinerated, and you can turn it right back on.
Flood insurance is a calculated risk, however in this case it's more like the National Guard refusing to sand bag your town because they haven't ponied up on taxes. They still have all the resources to potentially save your town and are perfectly capable of doing so, yet they let you all drown over some overdue taxes.
I really don't think you can equate any of the above to what happened. This man isn't getting his property or pets back, and over what? $75. Rediculous.
$75 is a small amount of money to pay to make sure your house will get put out if it goes up in smoke. Bottom line is he gambled that they'd put the fire out like they did before and lost.
I'm just trying to say that in a tightly packed environments, all fires must be fought so the whole neighborhood/city doesn't burn down.
Yea, where my folks live, in the country, they have 5 acres of property, and the house is situated squarely in the middle of it, that's how it is for most folks, unlike here in the city, where we're about 5 feet from our neighbors house at the closest point.
Clearly. The whole concept of paying a fee for fire protection would eventually result in somebody's house burning down due to non-payment. The system itself is what's broken here.
Yes, the man "gambled" when he didn't pay the fee, and apparently this was the result. However, when the fire department was perfectly capable of defeating this fire, saving the man's home, property and pets, it's entirely unethical and reprehensible that they wouldn't act. $75 be damned. They had the power to stop that fire and outright refused over a pity $75. Sure, the libertarian in me can argue that he got what was coming to him, but the human in me simply says they should have saved his damn house.
It seems to me in reading some of these comments that the man whose house burned down is being portrayed as some kind of wild-eyed fanatic who has been openly defying the fire department. In fact, he seems to be a humble person who simply FORGOT to pay the $75 fee this year, and this year only. The man's house burned down and his animals died in that fire. He did not commit a crime; he forgot to pay a fee. If he had been defiant, I suspect he would not have been paying the fee in the years leading up to this one. Here is an interview. If after viewing this you still dislike the guy, I suppose you can ridicule his southern accent the way Glenn Beck's sidekick has done.
Right.
You give up your job pal, I gotta feed my family.
Well, to be perfectly honest, I decided to do the right thing and I did lose my job. Fortunately, I don't have a family to feed, though. So, I can't say how things would have been different if I had had a family. I'm not judging anyone.
Here's something I'm going to say that's been bugging me for a while now. This fire started out as a trash fire in the back yard. There was enough time for the man to get himself and all his family out of the house, but he can't get 2 dogs and a cat out? Something about this seems fishy to me.
I think a lot of people are missing the point.
With the current drive to reduce taxes and convert every possible service to user fees, many services like this will be reduced to individual user fees. You will either pay the fee or get no service. With modern computer technology, it's not that hard to tell whether Bob paid for his neighborhood park and Fred didn't. Therefore Fred can't use the park next door to his house.
Don't pay the fire bill? No coverage.
Don't pay the power bill? No power.
Homeowner's association doesn't pay the police bill? No police coverage in that neighborhood.
Homeowner's association doesn't pay road fees? Then repairing the potholes and re-surfacing those streets is up to you, not the city. (I happen to live in a development that's entirely private roads, so I know how this works...my dues go partly to a road maintenance fund.)
Don't pay a fee? Can't walk in the park.
Some of these seem ridiculous - but the point is that many services which can be reduced to user fees don't work well that way. Those services are more practical to provide based on taxes, not individual user fees.
In the case of the original post, if you don't pay for fire coverage, the firefighters will keep your fire from scorching your neighbors' houses, but they won't save yours. But if that's the way your town sets it up, you better pay. The guy didn't pay - he lost. The user fee advocates will have no problem with this approach.
IMO there are things worth paying for as groups...and many people who don't want to pay their share. I think this is something that each of us should reflect upon, because we're going to run into this issue more than once in the near future.
With the current drive to reduce taxes and convert every possible service to user fees, many services like this will be reduced to individual user fees. You will either pay the fee or get no service. With modern computer technology, it's not that hard to tell whether Bob paid for his neighborhood park and Fred didn't. Therefore Fred can't use the park next door to his house.
Don't pay the fire bill? No coverage.
Don't pay the power bill? No power.
Homeowner's association doesn't pay the police bill? No police coverage in that neighborhood.
Homeowner's association doesn't pay road fees? Then repairing the potholes and re-surfacing those streets is up to you, not the city. (I happen to live in a development that's entirely private roads, so I know how this works...my dues go partly to a road maintenance fund.)
Don't pay a fee? Can't walk in the park.
Some of these seem ridiculous - but the point is that many services which can be reduced to user fees don't work well that way. Those services are more practical to provide based on taxes, not individual user fees.
In the case of the original post, if you don't pay for fire coverage, the firefighters will keep your fire from scorching your neighbors' houses, but they won't save yours. But if that's the way your town sets it up, you better pay. The guy didn't pay - he lost. The user fee advocates will have no problem with this approach.
IMO there are things worth paying for as groups...and many people who don't want to pay their share. I think this is something that each of us should reflect upon, because we're going to run into this issue more than once in the near future.
There seems to be a number of different versions of this story around and I wonder how much of the variance of opinion in this thread is due to the different versions people have read/heard.
As I understand it he had repeatedly refused to pay over a number of years, had the fire department out once already for a fire he was responsible for, still refused to pay, and expected them to come put out a second fire.
If, instead, he'd "done the right thing" every single year up to this point then, yes, they should have cut him slack one time for something this important.
