I'm making that point because these failures of government you're talking about are specifically caused by conservatives, not by non-libertarians in general. If it was a liberal county they would just raise property tax a tiny bit to have a county-wide fire department and then there'd be no problem.

>> ^Marzden:

lol richest country in the world? u gotta be kidding
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-riches
t.
>> ^Yogi:
I'm just surprised this happened in America..the richest country on earth. How do we let this happen?



"Top ten richest countries in the world is based on the GDP per capita of each country."

Yeah I was wrong...we're not the most rich or powerful country by far we don't control a vast majority of the worlds wealth we don't spend as much as the entire world combined on the military. How could I forget the awesome power that is Luxembourg...surely they'll crush us into dust.

You're being intentionally dense to be argumentative...that doesn't really help thanks.

lol richest country in the world? u gotta be kidding
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-riches
t.

>> ^Yogi:

I'm just surprised this happened in America..the richest country on earth. How do we let this happen?

>> ^bla
nkfist:

I hear this only happened because these German guys didn't pay their Libertarian user fees: http://videosift.com/video/Friendly-traffic-cop-says-your-ass-wi
ll-be-violated


I heard it happened because the individual cop was a xenophobic redneck like Glenn Beck / Bill O'Reilly / Fox News / Dobbs / Sanchez.

>> ^NetRunner:

I'm still waiting for someone to join Glenn Beck, and defend the righteousness of letting the house burn down.
If you're not willing to go that far, even for "deadbeats" who can't pay, then what are we really talking about?
Instead of taxing everyone, and serving everyone, we serve everyone, but make people have to opt-in to paying $75/yr, or else run the risk of getting slapped with a bill of several thousand dollars if their house catches fire?
Does that really strike people as a superior method of financing fire departments?


To me it's not righteousness. To me it's an unfortunate situation that some have decided to politicize. It's a shame this happened, but why are people like you hellbent on using this as justification for more taxes and more government services? Why stop at fire departments? Why not move to have government take over every service imaginable and wipe out business altogether?

Or is it just those that purport to save lives? Then maybe government should be in the business of creating pharmaceutical products? Creating and building hospitals? All ambulatory services should be made public because the private ones are doing such a terrible job as is, right? Good nutrition and exercise are important for our health, so maybe the good government can set strict nutritional requirements, compulsory exercise programs, and maybe even take over the entire farming industry?

Maybe we should pretend Socialism didn't work with the Soviet model and give it another go! Why? Because we're saving lives/for the children/to stop terrorism, etc.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I find it interesting that blankfist is avoiding the traditional libertarian mantra of personal responsibility 'you didn't pay for fire protection, so stop crying'. ridesallyride, werweb and imstellar have no problems toeing the party line, so what's with your resistance to this fundamental libertarian trope? Do you have some reservations in this context? Are you developing social consciousness? Or are you just stuck in blame the government for everything mode?


Point number one: I think these people should've put out the fire. Look, even if this was a privatized fire department, and it was one I owned, I personally would've told them to put it out and tried to seek payment from the man after the fact.

Point number two: I do believe in personal responsibility, and to some degree I think this man has brought this onto himself, however...

point number three: we live in a society where we pay compulsory taxes and told it's a safety net. We believe the government will tuck us in at night, and this is another failure of that system that is deeply ingrained within us. This man probably assumed the government, aka the fire department, would've taken care of this, and I don't fault him for feeling this way, because (as he's mentioned) he has paid taxes which one should assume covers you. If you got rid of the compulsory tax system and instilled a voluntary tax (like user fees) then this would be a different story.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I find it interesting that blankfist is avoiding the traditional libertarian mantra of personal responsibility 'you didn't pay for fire protection, so stop crying'. ridesallyride, werweb and imstellar have no problems toeing the party line, so what's with your resistance to this fundamental libertarian trope? Do you have some reservations in this context? Are you developing social consciousness? Or are you just stuck in blame the government for everything mode?


I find it even more interesting having gone back and found a previous thread where blankfist and I went over exactly this, only in theory. He stated:

This shows me that fire departments can run effectively and have run effectively with realistically little funding, and I think it goes without saying that we all agree they are necessary.

The question is "how do we fund them"? I say there are voluntary ways to do that such as my previous example of a user fee, which is they'd bill you for their services.

And later made clear what is meant by user fees:
These are nothing like income tax or sales tax. User fees are fees paid directly for a service.

So, there it is in black and white. Blankfist's dream world was realized here in this small instance, with fire services moved from mandatory property taxes, to optional user fees.

I guess his objections are that in practice it looks a lot worse than it did in theory. Presumably in the theory world volunteers save the day for those that opt to not pay for fire services, in practice, not so much.

I'm still waiting for someone to join Glenn Beck, and defend the righteousness of letting the house burn down.

If you're not willing to go that far, even for "deadbeats" who can't pay, then what are we really talking about?

Instead of taxing everyone, and serving everyone, we serve everyone, but make people have to opt-in to paying $75/yr, or else run the risk of getting slapped with a bill of several thousand dollars if their house catches fire?

Does that really strike people as a superior method of financing fire departments?

>> ^werbwerb:

Why are we speculating about how a privatized department would work? This wasn't a private department and FDs aren't going to be privatized anytime soon.

...

twisting it to rail against the "Tea Party" is just silly.

If privatization is a total red herring, please describe how it would work differently.

Further, I would ask you to characterize the Tea Party's policy preferences when it comes to government services. Would they prefer this subscription-based service idea, or would they prefer a universal fire service paid for with property taxes?

I'd also like you to tell me what you think should happen to people when they don't pay. Should the fire department let the house burn down?

I'm unsure why people are comparing fire department service fees to car insurance. The fire department does not pay you to rebuild your house when it burns down; that is part of homeowners insurance. The fee is for maintenance and operations of the fire department. Why shouldn't he be able to give them the $75 when they arrive at the property to put out the fire? Because he hasn't paid in the past? What difference does that make? Would they not have put out the fire if he hadn't paid in twelve years, but paid only this year's fee? This service fee is not homeowners insurance and is not comparable to car insurance.

>> ^blankfist:

I forgot to pay my life insurance premium and died. But, seriously, I feel like if you pay taxes you deserve the services. It's lazy for policy makers to use all the money in the general fund and double dip with added service fees.

It's a rural area. They didn't have fire service at all until the city offered it as for pay. They had a big proposal for covering it with a tax, but it was predictably shot down, so they went with the service fee instead.>> ^Trancecoach:

any investigation as to the cause of the fire?
small town accidents have a way of being not so accidental.

Again, minor karma. He caused it himself. He was burning leaves, which in most places (and there too probably) is illegal just for this reason.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^werbwerb:
This is ridiculous and has nothing to do with privatization.
How would privatized fire departments work differently? What would they do if people didn't or couldn't pay?
If they put out all fires regardless of whether people have paid, why not just bake it into people's property taxes? Why make payment some sort of optional thing?
If it's a matter of wanting to charge more for rural residents, just make them pay a higher property tax rate for living outside city limits.


Why are we speculating about how a privatized department would work? This wasn't a private department and FDs aren't going to be privatized anytime soon.

That's an option, however I suspect people living out in the counties would fight tooth and nail not to have their taxes raised even if it meant fire protection from the nearest city. These people are adults and can make their own decisions. If they want to live in a place with no volunteer department and choose not to pay a nominal fee to a nearby city they know the risk. It sucks that this guy's house burned down, but him trying to get national sympathy on TV and Keith Olbermann twisting it to rail against the "Tea Party" is just silly.

>> ^werbwerb:

This is ridiculous and has nothing to do with privatization.

How would privatized fire departments work differently? What would they do if people didn't or couldn't pay?

If they put out all fires regardless of whether people have paid, why not just bake it into people's property taxes? Why make payment some sort of optional thing?

If it's a matter of wanting to charge more for rural residents, just make them pay a higher property tax rate for living outside city limits.

>> ^Yogi:

I'm just surprised this happened in America..the richest country on earth. How do we let this happen?


We have too many people grumbling about taxes, rather than grumbling about how they want better government services.

>> ^blankfist:

Let's peel back the emotional responses and look at this reasonably.

Good advice, I'd recommend you take it, rather than simply deny this has anything to do with your beliefs, and try to pass this off as "government failure".

It's a baby step towards what a private system would look like. The only meaningfully different thing you'd have in a fully private system is that the firemen would've taken the $10,000 ransom payment they were offered to put out the fire.

So, instead of a man sitting out in front of the ruins of his house, he'd be sitting in front of his heavily-damaged home, talking about how the fire department is guilty of extortion for making him pay $10,000 or they'd let his house burn down.