The Right Scoop
But even so, or if all other forms of gambling are state-run, such as pari-mutuel betting on horse racing... nobody is forced to gamble by threat of violence, are they? Nobody is forced to buy the lottery tickets or bet on anything.
This is nothing like driving without insurance and can not be compared to it in that manner.
And fire protection is not a 'market service'.
Who is the douche making fun of the way the victim talks? Real classy, pal. Beck and his friend both need the hell beat out of them. Not to mention the fire chief, the mayor, every member of the city council that voted for this deplorable policy and everyone else responsible for this major lack of ethics and morals. This is NO DIFFERENT than paying the mafia for "protection". I am infuriated over this and I'm quite sure I'm not alone in that feeling !
They are also missing a key piece of information here, the fire dept serves a town, the town offered to extend protection outside of town limits to rural residents for a small annual fee, not only does this home owner not live within the town limits he lives outside the county the town is a part of.
But he does live in the county, right? He pays taxes to the county. Does the county to whom he pays taxes have no responsibility whatsoever to provide the basic services of fire and police to its taxpayers? Is that the argument you're making?
But he does live in the county, right? He pays taxes to the county. Does the county to whom he pays taxes have no responsibility whatsoever to provide the basic services of fire and police to its taxpayers? Is that the argument you're making?
They are also missing a key piece of information here, the fire dept serves a town, the town offered to extend protection outside of town limits to rural residents for a small annual fee, not only does this home owner not live within the town limits he lives outside the county the town is a part of.
Letting the house burn was simply stupid. Why not set things up so that the fire department could put a lien on the home in case of non-payment at the time of a fire (for those that didn't pay their fee in advance)? Given that the means to put the fire out were readily available, this whole deal strikes me as spiteful. You know, we're going to teach them a lesson.
I cannot imagine the grief that the homeowners are dealing with at this point. Years ago we had our barn burn down. The fire department showed up and saved the other buildings, but the barn was a complete loss as were the animals that we couldn't get out. It was absolutely devastating. I would not put another person through that unless the resources did not exist to do otherwise.
Because an uncontrolled fire is everyone's enemy. The fire department serves the people. All of them. Doesn't the city fire department get a subsidy from the county or the state to buy their equipment, build the firestations, pay the workers comp insurance of its employees? Or do you think just city taxes are always enough to cover all that?
Suppose this man had been only renting, and it was his landlord who had chosen not to pay the $75?
As I posted above, this is a flawed system that deprives people of emergency services. There are other solutions. He had insurance. Surely, it behooves the insurance company to make sure that the $75 is paid on the homes of all their policyholders in such areas? And to do so the same way a mortgagee makes sure the insurance is up to date, by paying the fee themselves and building it into the premiums/service charges?
And you think my argument is obtuse?
This is astonishing. The government has the means to punish people who are delinquent on their taxes. Letting people's property burn and killing their pets is not an appropriate punishment. What the hell is wrong with people?
The guy wasn't delinquent on his taxes folks. It isn't like he forgot to pay his taxes and the guys came out.
No, no, he openly chose to opt out of the system of protection and therefore chose, OF HIS OWN FREE WILL, to put his house at risk. Why, oh why are we so afraid to let people make their own personal decisions and then live with them? DO we want to be a free people or not?
I seriously am not understanding the rationale. This is like someone going to Vegas and getting to crazy one night and blowing his entire life's savings in one night. Shall we bail him out too? Both just ruined their life. Both openly made the choice to take that risk. In a free society, there will always be those who fail and make bad decisions. If we as a people are to afraid of that notion, then I don't understand all this anger towards Obama. He's your guy.
The guy wasn't delinquent on his taxes folks. It isn't like he forgot to pay his taxes and the guys came out.
No, no, he openly chose to opt out of the system of protection and therefore chose, OF HIS OWN FREE WILL, to put his house at risk. Why, oh why are we so afraid to let people make their own personal decisions and then live with them? DO we want to be a free people or not?
I seriously am not understanding the rationale. This is like someone going to Vegas and getting to crazy one night and blowing his entire life's savings in one night. Shall we bail him out too? Both just ruined their life. Both openly made the choice to take that risk. In a free society, there will always be those who fail and make bad decisions. If we as a people are to afraid of that notion, then I don't understand all this anger towards Obama. He's your guy.
If they cannot enforce payment of the fee then how can they enforce payment for the fire fighting effort? They'd be meddling outsiders. Perhaps the home owner wanted the house burned down and the people whining were not really the home owner.
Grow up and take responsibility for your own bad choices. That's all I can offer that sorry fool home owner who thought he could freeload.
{^_^}
So, If I'm being robbed at gun point, then because I don't pay a certain "TAX", then according to this rational, the cops would not only allow the thief to rob me at gun point, but to also murder me on the spot? Because of a fee?
A life and death scenario this was not, so you're comparing apples to oranges.
Anyway, I don't understand why the concept of getting what you pay for is such a foreign idea. He didn't pay for the service, therefore he does not receive it.
It was NOT a tax, because he wasn't forced to pay it. He was given a choice. I mean, are the services and goods you pay for also taxes? No. Taxes are forced upon you, this wasn't.
Your argument is specious.
Not all taxes are forced upon you. You don't have to pay property tax if you choose not to own property. You don't have to pay income tax if you choose not to have taxable income, or if you don't have more income than the exemptions you're entitled to claim.
Also, you can be forced to pay things other than taxes. Such as debts. Such as fines (which are not the same as taxes, since they are for acts which violate laws, while taxes are for acts which comply with them.) Such as punitive and/or remedial damages. Such as child support and alimony.
Shelter is not really required. You don't die without shelter, as the many homeless in this country can attest. But even if you disagree with that, owning that shelter, certainly is not required. And if you don't own it, you don't pay the taxes on it. Certainly, you pay the rent and the owner probably pays the taxes (or may have some kind of exemption or deferment), but the point is, the tenant isn't paying them. Having been a landlord, I know that there are times when the market is depressed and the rent doesn't even cover the mortgage, taxes and insurance.
I'm also not saying that all services should be provided fee of charge. I'm saying that in a case like this, there are ample ways to assure that the additional fee gets paid, many of which have already been discussed in this thread. A few examples, the county can arrange to cover all fire services, including in the municipalities. Those in the cities get one rate, those in the unincorporated areas pay the extra $75. Another way is for the homeowners insurance to automatically pay the $75 and add it to the premium, which mitigates their liability.
As for the guy saying that he chose not to pay... I've heard the guy on TV, and he said he forgot to send in the extra $75, that neighbors of his were willing to pay $5000 to spray water on the fire, and that was refused. This means the fire dept incurred the expense of sending their people out there for not an extra dime, when they could have been compensated for it.
The arguement that you don't have to live in a house in order to avoid property taxes is silly at best. You also don't have to eat or drink if you choose not to waste money their either. There are absolute necessities in life.
They are eating, breathing, and shelter. Without these things, you die. In this day and age you can throw a wage in there too, but I guess you can just grow your own food and live off of that. To argue that govt. taxation on a basic need in order to live is somehow by "choice" is faulty. The only way that is the case if you are going to argue that we have a choice between living and dying from day one, and if we choose to live then everything after that is somehow a service that can and should be taxed because we did make the "choice" to keep on living. That's basically what you're saying when you argue that a property tax is a choice. You chose to live, so now you get to pay the tax because of your choice.
However, a fire department is NOT necessary in order to live. As a matter of fact, the majority of people will never need it...you know, unlike some sort of property somewhere in order to build shelter for yourself. It's a service, much like public transportation is a service. If I don't ride the bus, should I pay taxes for it?
Now, I don't understand your second paragraph because I never once said that taxes were the only types of payments forced upon you.
And let me get this straight, tipdog, are you trying to argue that all civil services should be provided free of charge? I mean, if your complaint is that it's wrong to deny him coverage because he didn't pay the tax, and then back that up by saying this is a civil service, are you not implying civil services should be free of charge? Just a question.
And, for anyone who cares, the guy said today that the reason he CHOSE NOT TO PAY IT was because someone else who didn't pay it still received coverage. Basically, he was purposely trying to game the system in order to get a free lunch...and you guys have a problem with him losing his bet? I truly don't understand it.
If there was a person trapped in this fire does the policy change.Why don't they just have the fee in their property taxes to begin with like any normal town!!!!
Glenn runs adds and talks about being prepared to take care of your neighbor during times of trouble. Hello, this guy was/is in trouble.
It's a stupid policy; this is a basic service required by an entire community, and it's the sort of thing that should be covered by basic taxes, not optional charges. Alternately, it would be reasonable to impose a post-fire charge for the department's services, if only to distribute the costs somewhat more reasonably. Having said that, regarding this particular case, as Abraham Lincoln said, the best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it strictly.
When my husband fell ill in L.A. I got a hefty bill from the paramedics who came to his aid. Thank God they didn't fail to respond because he hadn't paid a "fee". Why not use the same idea with fighting fire?
The man lives in a rural county. He has paid property taxes on his land and any improvements to it. I am assuming that his house was an improvement to his land which resulted in more taxes being paid to the county which I guarantee, amount to more than the 75.00 fee. Now his house is gone and his property taxes will drop drastically because of it. In short, the house was an asset to more than just the man. If you don't protect your assets you are putting yourself at risk of losing them. The county where this house was located lost all future property tax revenue from it. There is a heck of a lot more losers in this than just the home owner. The fire department is being run like it was a business that is protecting it's assets. I suggest that the county start doing the same.
This is a completely idiotic argument. For 75 dollars the city lost hundreds, probably thousands in property tax, because the property value is now zero.Now the neighbors are going to have to pay higher property taxes to fill this gap.
And by the way the firemen were available. They sat on their asses!!! GLENN you are wrong this time around.
In a word, no. I don't understand why so many of you are commenting w/o reading the story at all. The city lost 0 property taxes because, get this, THE MAN LIVED OUTSIDE OF THE CITY LIMITS AND THE JURISDICTION OF THE FIRE DEPT. Good lord.
I agree with GB and I posted the same thing yesterday. The fee is like insurance. Can you pay GEICO AFTER you wreck your car? Can you only get health insurance AFTER you get sick? The real problem here is we Americans have become so spoiled. There are no consequences for inaction or action anymore. This is a consequence of ignorance.
You know the fire dept is not going to save your house in a fire if you don't pay the fee, yet you decide that it's worth the risk because NO way would a fire dept let your house burn....Well they did. Guess what, EVERY one will pay that fee now. It's a tough luck story but it's not the FD or the city's fault. The fault is with the homeowner.
This.
Some of you have totally confused and mis-heard Becks overall message. Charity does NOT come from the government. Compassion does NOT come from the government. Yet, here we are arguing that compassion and charity should have come from these on-duty firemen, aka govt.
Not compassion and charity. Competence and concern for the citizens who pay the taxes. And even if he didn't pay taxes to the city, he paid to the county.
Beck, et. al. are wrong. Just because a person makes a stupid decision to play fire roulette with their home doesn't justify that a fire should be ignored. If it were a situation where they could only save either a fee-paid burning house or a non-fee paid house, then a case could be made to save the fee-paid house over the other. This was not the case in this instance. As to the red herring about no one paying, I take issue with that since most civic-minded people will pay the fee.
The callousness exhibited by the fire department and those conservatives that support their decision is what makes people hesitate when deciding to vote for conservatives. Some too often see only the black and white on these types of issues and fail to truly understand that the stupid homeowner still deserves to have their house and live-long memories saved, despite themselves.
Wait, someone deserves to have their house saved even when they freely decide that they don't care if it's protected in the first place? The man made a choice. Why is it so hard for so many of you to live with the choice he made? You guys are asking the fire department to betray the contract they have with the people of their city. Please, do tell, what is moral about that? It simply was NOT the firemen's place to decide to save this man's house. They don't make those rules. Ultimately, the tax-payers of their city made those rules, and you're asking them to go against the rules they made.
These ideas that government should act with a moral compass are going to be fantastic to see when the liberals start pushing for single-payer. I can't wait to see where so many of you stand then. They can just come to this site and get the basis for their arguement.
Beck says we should be there to help our neighbors out...isn't that what he preaches? Not everyone does what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it...now you can say to them you get what's coming to you, or you can go in with COMPASSION and help out(which is what the firefighters should have done and then BILLED or FINED them)...or do we only have compassion when people do what they are supposed to do?
Like the local paper in this town stated the neighbors agree it is a dangerous policy that the city has set forth...and we know looking all across this nation that there are plenty of foolish, incompetent people that run cities and towns, this seems to be one of them.
No, I wasn't implying you were going after Christians. I said that because the guy above mentioned believing in Jesus.
The sad thing is I am also a Christian and am very distraught at seeing fellow Christians outraged that their moral belief system isn't shared by the rest of the world.
I, as a free-thinking Christian (or anything else for that matter) can make a choice to help my fellow man when his house burns to the ground. I actually think I should make that choice in most circumstances. That is NOT the same as me wanting SOMEONE ELSE to make that same choice, and then being upset and angered when they do not.
Glenn is dead wrong on this. Fire is not just a danger to the home of the guy that didn't pay -- it doesn't much care what fees you're paid up on. It will spread as fast and far as conditions allow. The story says that it wasn’t until it had *already spread* to a neighbor's property (paid up and all) that they rolled out to the site. Criminy — under the right kind of wind conditions with all that dry grass and fuel seen on the video, WHOOMMM!! and you’ve got yourself a major brush fire consuming thousands of acres, scores of homes and endangering lives. Then ya have to get the State in there, water bombers, fire crews working fire breaks, the whole nine yards…all because some dumb-nuts city manager is demanding a $75 fee and the local FD decided to sit around and wait until the paying customer called in. Yep. That makes sense. For want of a $75 fee millions of dollars of damage and resources could be expended. Brilliant.
Who is the "Government" which should do certain things, such as field a fire department?
A) Some Despot (A militant person who came in and took over the land area? )
B ) The People. (through elected officials!)
C) The city (that does not have any power outside the prescribed city limits?)
D) Some other entity (One that cannot be named or described, it just is. ?)
Those of you who answered B must be conservatives and as conservatives should understand that the people of the county are the ones responsible for determining which public services they desire to pay for through taxes or fees. They have several avenues of approach to get these services:
1) Petition the standing government and hope they agree.
2) Vote for people to replace the current government that will enact the changes.
3) Run for government office and make the changes yourself.
4) Pool together and and create a non government coop Fire department.
5) Field a volunteer FD and fund raise like mad.
6) Create a non profit or for profit company that duplicates the FD and charge a per service fee (would that lead to lots of arson?).
7) If all else fails, its a free country, move somewhere where there are the services you want at prices you want to pay.
This is the reason we have a limited federal government, so we all can get the government we want by either choosing leaders who will do our bidding, or moving to a place that fits our ideal.
2009 Census = 78,850,000 Family Households, 38,331,000 Non-family Households = 117,181,000 households.
2009 USFA number of residential fires. 377,000, which means in any given year, your house has a 1 in 311 chance of burning down.
In order for the fire department to keep it's current funding level/ household outside its prescribed district based on the $75 fee it would need to charge $23311.87 to put a fire out on an as needed basis.
$500? I mean seriously? what kind of cheapskate are you? It is like all of you people are taught liberal mathematics.
Hope that guy with the charred house has a few warm embers to sleep next to tonight. Either that or at least the $75 he saved by being irresponsible can go to a Motel 6.
I find the "charity" poster behind Glenn a little ironic in this case...not to say that I don't agree with him or anything. Actually, I don't know how I feel about this.
I suppose we shall see if the citizens decide to maybe push it up to county to automatically tax the guy the fee or if they want to give up more of their hard-earned dough to provide protection for the country freeloaders.
Sometimes a great wrong has to occur before a rightful change can be made.
Since so many believe it's OK to pay for the fire protection after the fact, perhaps these people should just look into some retroactive fire insurance. Under the same rational thinking, they can just pay a couple months back premiums and receive a check from the insurance company for full replacement cost.
Since so many believe it's OK to pay for the fire protection after the fact, perhaps these people should just look into some retroactive fire insurance. Under the same rational thinking, they can just pay a couple months back premiums and receive a check from the insurance company for full replacement cost.
75$ has NOTHING to do with the cost of "putting out" a fire.
This is absolutely unconscionable.
So if a child had been in the house, would they have said, "Sorry, bub, but you can watch your baby burn for $75″? It's despicable, inhumane, and immoral.
you save the freakin house/home and then you settle up with the stupid owner!
to watch this place burn is exactly what they expect us to do when the haul my butt to the gas chamber for believing in Jesus!
"So if a child had been in the house, would they have said, "Sorry, bub, but you can watch your baby burn for $75″? It's despicable, inhumane, and immoral."
If you would actually read up on the story, they specifically said they would have went in and helped had someone been in danger. Instead, you decide to type in ignorance.
It's laughable that so many of you Christians are still wishing to impose your moral standards on everyone else. The firefighters have a job. The job is to protect those who live in their district from fire. Another part is to protect those who live outside of their district AND pay the 75$ fee. They did their job.
You're about a hop and skip away from socialized medicine. Afterall, is it not inhumane that some of the best treatments cost so much money? Should we not simply nationalize all of it so everyone can have it? I mean, there are people who can't/don't pay and will suffer because of it. Half of you are making a progressive's arguement for them.
That ends in there being no ridiculous story about a fire department which "wasn't compassionate" enough. If it's not automatically placed in there, then this is the kind of crap you'll find. They even said it on that newscast that this isn't the only incident. Crap like this is going on all over the place and none of it would be happening if firefighting was considered the same as every other emergency service and just plain mandatory to pay. As I said...the government's responsibility is to protect life, but of course those who protect it need to be paid for their work. You can talk about volunteer firefighting all day, but some communities are too small to do that even if they wanted to.
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