Olbermann Interviews Man Whose House Burned as Fire Department Watched

[UrbScotty]

Run time: 06:39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRaskxVjkXc   Posted on YouTube: October 05, 2010 By YouTube Member: MiniRtist Views on YouTube: 195   Posted on DU: October 05, 2010 By DU Member: UrbScotty Views on DU: 2984

 

[pacalo]

1. How horrible! I agree with what Keith said at the end, that this should have

been covered by the taxes he paid.

I've never heard of this pay-as-you-go type of government service. To let a house burn down because "they weren't on the list" is hard to believe! Wow.

[farmboxer]

2. Republicans are so cruel..................

They are extremely cruel................

[sabrina 1]

3. Is this a form of privatization of the Fire Department?

I hope this changes the system there. I agree that the taxes he paid should have covered fires and police protection. Maybe there needs to be an investigation into where the 'subscription' money is going.

[SnakeEyes]

6. see post #5

It has nothing to do with privatization, it's still an entirely city service, and everything to do with paying that city for the services just as those within the city do through taxation.

[SnakeEyes]

5. The reason the taxes he paid doesn't cover it

is because he lives outside the city of South Fulton and is therefore not assessed the tax by the city of South Fulton that covers fire services... thus the fee to pay for that cities services. This guy should have been paying his fair share if he expects to have services. He was aware of the possibility this could have happen when he said in the interview that his son's house caught fire and the previous chief had to waive the fee for a day and allow him to pay it the next day. That should have been his wakeup call.

Hell only a few years ago the city didn't respond to ANY fires outside the city. And then they created the opt-in fee to cover responding to those that were responsible and paid in the event it was their house.

You and I all pay taxes to pay for fire services, whether or not our house is ever the unlucky one to catch fire. We do so to pay for the service to operate in the unlikely event it does happen to us. Those outside the city of South Fulton should do the same.

[Suji to Seoul]

8. Homelessness. . .good lesson learned.

Nice compassion. Free Republic is that way ------------------------------------> <moronland>

[Riktor]

12. Legal vs. Moral

I find this position morally indefensible, but from a legal standpoint it does hold water, somewhat (except the whole "lesson learned" nonsense, which smacks of condescension).

However, the way the system is set up is far from ideal. The city of South Fulton could just as easily charge the surrounding hamlets a flat rate for fire coverage, which would in turn be assessed to individuals living within these hamlets in the form of local taxes. That way, everyone would be paying for fire protection, without having to keep track of additional charges.

[bowens43]

15. So you're defending these assholes?!?!?!?

amazing.

[A wise Man]

16. You must be out of your jack rabbit mind..

What if his family was burned up in the fire? Would they sit there and watch? What if it was you and your snake eye got burned up. Money versus DOING THE RIGHT THING YOU MORON. DAMN IDIOT

[SnakeEyes]

20. I'd have been paying the fee...

Instead of the fire equivalent of not buying insurance and just showing up at the emergency room when I get sick/injured. The difference here is that it's only $75 year for fire.

[redirish28]

19. What you Tea party /Repubs don't realize is that the Founding Fathers

Where involved in "soicalized" fire departments! Anytime a fire happened in a village or town EVERYONE came running with buckets blankets whatever they needed to fight the fire. People didn't stand around and demand payment from the unfortunate soul! IT was Ben Franklin who created the first Fire Departments!

What happened if the house was on fire and a person was trapped inside?

[SnakeEyes]

21. what tea party/repubs?

[Riktor]

10. Pay-as-you-go or not...

... sitting back and watching another man's livelihood go up in flames is simply unconscionable.

In the days of the Founders, which these teabaggers are so fond of idealizing, a home consumed with flame would bring an entire town together in a bucket brigade. They didn't do it for the money, either. They did it because it was the right thing to do.

[Lorien]

14. +1. United we stand, divided we burn (or so it seems). nt

[SnakeEyes]

22. It's not really pay-as-you-go

Pay as you go would have the person paying the full cost at the time of each incident, which he should have at least been allowed to do here. That $75/yr fee doesn't cover the cost of them putting out a fire at your place. Fire service is a shared service. Taxpayers, and those paying the fee, are sharing the cost of having fire service in the unlikely event that their house is unfortunately burns some day. Some go all the their lives and never have their house burn. They help to pay for those that do because you never know whose house could be a fire victim. We all pay our fair share (or should).

[Riktor]

42. We should pay our fair share...

... but there is something draconian about letting a man's livelihood go up in flames for the sake of teaching him a lesson. I can assure you the moment he saw his house on fire and thereby realized he hadn't paid for fire services, the lesson was learned.

The FD could have put out this guy's fire and billed him later. Emergency Rooms across the country do the same damn thing every day.

[Lorien]

13. That was the way it worked in the 19th Century. Individuals or businesses would

pay and get a brass medallion or plaque to put on the front of their home. No medallion and your building would burn to the groud. Eventually, when enough buildings near the unserviced ones burnt down America decided that it was time to become a bit more sensible, civilized and treat the people like they were part of a Society. They did away with the pay-as-you-go model. Now some towns think we're back in the 19th Century again.

[SnakeEyes]

23. The problem is that fire service costs money

People need to be paying their fair share for fire services. This guy didn't live in the city, wasn't paying taxes, refused to pay the fee and the expected to get fire service. If he got fire service, then everyone outside South Fulton could just not pay too. Those in the city would have to pay additional taxes to pay for the fire services of those outside the city that aren't paying.

[rocktivity]

28. Their pets got burned up--suppose the occupants had been, too?

Suppose they'd be unable to control the fire from spread to the next house?

Counties should not be allowing their cities to go without basic services. The solution to this problem is for them to raise the rural area's taxes by $75!

:banghead:
rocktivity

[Aristophrenia]

4. Ironically

This is how all of america used to be run - houses used to have to put up plaques for which brigades they paid into - this was removed as it was causing so many fires.
Wow - this is actually totally illegal.

[SnakeEyes]

7. How is it illegal?

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. unbelievable and pure evil!!

[tomm2thumbs]

11. strange situation - that it exists and no courts have intervened to correct it before now

I'm guessing that if loss of human life were involved, they would have interceded, but that they consider the home merely 'a lost asset'. Terrible. But I have seen cases in public places where private security officers won't get involved in shootings & robberies (outside of reporting it) if it isn't on their property, so I'm guessing this is a variation on that theme. (much worse in my opinion)

My only comment on him not paying the fee...

I'd like to see if he had EVER paid it in years passed, and if this was simply a case of a missed year as he noted, then they are really being cruel... but if he NEVER, ever paid the fee over many, many years, despite a fire previously on his property, then I can see how at some point you can make the argument that NO one would volunteer to pay fees yearly if they knew you merely had to pay 75 bucks the day a fire starts.

I guess another case of 'no one figures it'll happen to them' - very sad and terrible for their losses.

[SnakeEyes]

25. I'm guessing..

if he had just missed a year of payment then he'd have made a point of it and those covering this would have mentioned it too. This guy just wasn't paying his share for services.

[redirish28]

17. What's next Police won't help a couple who's house is robbed because

they didn't pay the 25 dollar extra tax?

[ThomCat]

18. Actually, they won't help you anyway unless you are rich.

We were robbed. They actively lobbied us not to file a report saying they wouldn't do anything about it, it was waste of their time, why bother them with useless paperwork, if we investigated for them and found out who did it then maybe we should call back, and then they left Without Ever Giving Us A Chance To File That Report.

If we had investigated the robbery on our own, and found the evidence to prove who stole from us, then maybe they would have done something. But at that point any good defense attorney could have gotten the person off because they could have argued that by doing the investigation ourselves we probably influence people or tampered with the evidence while we searched for it and collected it, because we aren't the police!

So the police deliberately set us up so that the person who robbed us can never go to jail because they are too lazy to do their own damn job. All because we aren't in a rich enough area for them to give a damn.

So what does it matter whether your taxes pay for the police or not? How much are you worth?

[SnakeEyes]

24. Not a valid comparison

every part of the country is under some kind of police jurisdiction and taxes are paid for police service from that jurisdiction.

[UrbScotty]

27. I thought every part of the country would be covered by fire protection too

But since that seems not to be the case, it's justifiable to be concerned that police protection will be next to be fee-based.

[SnakeEyes]

31. No.

Fire services are mostly paid, maintained, controlled by cities. There are county firefighters in some places. Some blame falls on the county commissioners for not levying a tax for fire services.

There are always city, county, state, and federal officers. So if you live outside a city, there is still county/state police which are paid for, in part, by taxes assessed by the county and state on those not in a city.

[UrbScotty]

39. I, for one, am still concerned.

I'm worred that they will try to privatize our law enforcement in the not-too-distant future.

[frontrange]

26. Three dogs and a cat burned to death

Those who stood by and allowed this to happen need to remember: what goes around comes around.

[seabeyond]

34. he has two hours before fire reached house to get three dogs and cat out of house

why didnt he? why did he let them burn?

[rocktivity]

29. So this is how an a-la-carte, pay-as-you go smaller goverment is supposed to work?

There is a silver lining to this cloud: This man could turn out to be our Joe The Plumber, except that we WIN the election!

:think:
rocktivity

[SnakeEyes]

32. This is not pay as you go.

Pay as you go is when you pay as things happen. If he were allowed to pay for the incident then it would be pay as you go. This was pay the required fee for city services since you aren't paying taxes for those services like those in the city are.

[rocktivity]

35. Whatever it's called, it stinks--and it's unecessary

One city shouldn't be forcing another city to pay its "required" fees. The county should be doing that in the form of an additional tax--the solution is that simple.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[SnakeEyes]

36. You've got it wrong

One city is not forcing another city to pay it's fees. It's requiring citizens outside the city to pay a fee for those that don't live in the city to use the city's fire service. Should you or I have to pay for free fire service for people not in our community while we also pay for our own fire service?

What's the difference if they pay a $75 "fee" or have a $75 tax increase? It's the same thing, just semantics here.

But you are right in that the county commissioners should assess a tax for it's own service or pay the city for theirs.

[bulloney]

44. I wonder if this fire department has a commercial rate for protecting factories or other businesses?

If a factory should catch fire, and the company didn't pay its fee, does the fire department just let it burn? What if there are volatile chemicals in that factory that can ignite if the fire is allowed to spread to where they're stored, releasing a plume of deadly chemicals onto the community? Not to mention the imminent unemployment that would result to everyone working there just because the company didn't pay its annual fee.

Don't these villages or whatever the jurisdictions in Tennessee have some type of mutual agreements with neighboring fire departments, where if a fire requires more firefighters and equipment than available in that jurisdiction, then neighboring villages and townships are called to assist. How does that work?

[Althaia]

30. this is what's wrong with the push for privatization.

I saw this story on boing boing, and they had a link to the local news story-
http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Firefighters-watch-as-home-burns-to-the-ground-104052668.html

[SnakeEyes]

33. This is NOT privitization.

It's a city public service. A service he was not paying for since he lived outside the city and thus not paying the taxes for the service, like those in the city are.

[Mokito]

37. Then send him the (full) bill afterwards!

But letting a house just burn to the ground because of $75, that's just irresponsible.
What if there was a person still in that fire? Would they still deny service and possibly be guilty of death by neglect.
From his 'testimony' it seems they have no problems with that when it comes down to animals.

[SnakeEyes]

38. Certainly an option that could have been taken.

As for privatization, I suspect that is what a private fire service would have done (plus a profit).

[AmandaMae]

40. so sad. I don't care what he paid or didn't pay, they had the means to put the fire out

and they should have. To claim otherwise is just totally lacking in compassion. He could have paid afterward, but that's not really the point.

[Devil_Fish]

41. as long as he was charged the full cost of the incident, that would and should be th case.

If I crash my car, I can't just call up geico, start a policy and then collect on my clame. I have to buy insurance before I crash my car. If I don't then I have to expect to pay full price for a new car.

[bulloney]

43. It's like standing and watching someone getting murdered or whatever and doing nothing to stop it.

The fire department was there. And watched the fire. But did nothing.

People with these freeper-like minds think this is just a dandy form of society...until disaster hits them. Then, they can't demand public help fast enough. I've seen this scenario happen many times.

[Sanity Claws]

45. A fire is a PUBLIC danger

and should be protected against by public funds.

Fire spreads and affects the public, regardless of where it started. The next door neighbor's property was affected by this fire. This is why fire coverage cannot be optional.
If it is not paid, then a lien can be placed on the property. That is what happens if one doesn't pay taxes. The same rule should apply for fire or other necessary public charges.