Libertarian Utopia Watch: We don't need no water let the ******* burn

criticizing libertarians for this reeks of desperation (and thoughtless regurgitation of dailykos and salon talking points). the implication in the thread title is bunk - was this a privately-run fire department that allowed the house to burn or a government/tax-payer funded fire department? how can you point to this as an example of the evils of privatizing government services when this was not a privatized fire department?

if it were a "libertarian"/privatized/for profit fire department they would have saved the house and made the owner pay for it. the profit potential is in saving the house, not standing down while it burns. this house was allowed to burn b/c a bunch of heartless bureaucrats wanted to punish someone for not paying a $75 fee. it had nothing to do w/ libertarians.

one of the responders to the story made some good points...

for the record, i dont think fire departments should be privatized. and i also think its immoral, dangerous, wasteful and cost-ineffective to allow the house to burn like this governmental (non-privatized) fire department did.

 

Nobody would even care about "libertarianism" except for students of cults and unusual philosophies if it was not for its pernicious interaction with its kissing cousins in the conservative wing of the GOP and Fox News.

It is true, tens of millions of Americans who would see what standard of living they have go up in smoke, and those who care about them are desperate to unmask this quasi-religious immoral philosophy/political movement.

I know, you libertarians are so misunderstood and only members of the cult can comment on it and know the secret code words and (props to Sam, the secret handshake and other the real history of the gold standard and economic history etc.)

 

Probably should have paid the $75. I wonder how they have time to check to see if you paid your $75 or not while responding to an emergency.

I wonder how many people would properly pay their taxes if the government services were withheld?

What they do is unethical, but at the same time we are talking about the City Fire Department responding to non-city residents. It is up their county to decide how they want to handle this, and they've decided to make residents pay a fee to the city to be allowed to use their services.

Maybe they should at least consider a VFD. I really like the idea of charging a higher fee after the fact to stop the fire of people that didn't pay beforehand. Kind of like paying insurance.

 

what are you doing? this is your 3rd post in this thread and none of them have anything to do w/ the thread topic.

 

I don't think it would make a difference. It's like insurance - many people only realize they need it after the fact. If people had money, I'm pretty sure most would pay the fee. But when you have to make choices of where to spend, fire protection is one of the things that will go before food, mortgage, etc because it's something there's a good chance you won't need. Same choice young people make with health insurance.

 

I'm saddened they let the house burn down. I also understand that government resources are being cut yearly since the credit meltdown demolished tax revenues, and despite that, certain people and their constituents want funding and services cut down even further.

The Department-less town has rejected tax increases to properly fund their own fire department. It was a neighboring town who stepped in to provide a service outside their mandate. Yeah, so good luck getting the neighboring town's mayor and Fire chief fired for doing an extra good deed, loafers.

Conservatives like to punish free-riders who "don't pull their weight" and all of the short term "own up to your mistakes" bs. The outrage and schadenfreude felt in this topic would normally be politically reversed, if not for the emotionally charged circumstances outside the story.

 

It goes before entertainment spending too. I'm not saying the firefighters are right, and I'm not a Libertarian, but there is a lot of frivolous spending, even amongst the poor.

 

I wouldn't imagine it is very hard. A call comes in and the address given is checked against a database. Should take far less time than it takes to drive over to the place.