I think Flixy appropriately related this to mandating healthcare coverage.Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
I think Flixy appropriately related this to mandating healthcare coverage.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
To be fair, that's how the first fire departments worked.
In ancient Rome.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
And Rome burned for 5 and a half days...To be fair, that's how the first fire departments worked.
In ancient Rome.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
I would find it much more productive to explain how his Jewishness stems from his inconsistency.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
If anything they should sue the fire department, they paid to have them protect their house from fire, and the fire department allowed the fire to spread to his house.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
He got what he deserved? What the hell?Would you say the same about a guy who calls the police, but he didn't pay any income or property taxes that fund the police department.....so the police can just ignore his call? How about the guy who calls 911 for an ambulance but didn't "contribute" to the EMS during their fund-raising drive?
These yahoos could have (and should have) responded and used their skills and equipment to fight the fire. Then worry about "payment" afterward, even sending a bill, or asking for a portion of the insurance money, if needed.
LOLbertards FTW!
They brought it upon themselves, as callous as that sounds. Why would anyone pay that fee if the FD has to come anyways? It's like somebody dying without any life insurance and asking an insurance company to pay out anyways.
I agree with you. I would like to live in a civilization where the firefighters would have fought the fire then dealt with the dip-shit afterwards.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Choose your words carefully lest Dread label you a socialist.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
No. It's more like somebody showing up at an ER in the middle of a heart attack, and having the doctors check his health insurance status before they provide treatment.
Why would Chacha be offended about being called a socialist?Choose your words carefully lest Dread label you a socialist.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Nobody ever answers this question.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
I know.Nobody ever answers this question.
I think they always hope it will be forgotten, or overlooked.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Dang, but I love nerdy D&D allusions.
Nobody ever answers this question.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Because you're not? Because there are hardly any real socialists in America any more? Because the rightist extremists won the semantics battle, effectively making "socialist" or "liberal" equivalent to "nazi," even when they are perfectly valid and plausible balancing principles to libertarianism and laissez faire economics.Nobody ever answers this question.
Edit: only certain people should be allowed to smoke a pipe, and this guy is one of them. My freshman year roommate, on the other hand, was not.
Because of Dread's use of the term as a slur rather than a legitimate observation.
Wrong!Nobody ever answers this question.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
No it's not, it's like what I said. If the FD gave the option of paying per use I'd agree. The FD doesn't say you can either subscribe for $500 per year or pay $40,000 per use, you can only subscribe. They chose not to subscribe.
It IS their own doing. But it also illustrates the cooperative nature of society. It's why we pay taxes, so our society works. What this homeowner was really saying was, "I'm not going to pay into your risk pool."
I'm betting that this fire department has had severe cutbacks because lots of people don't pay in. Guess what? It's not your yearly $75 fee. It's every year's $75 dollar fee, from everybody. The equipment is run-down, maybe firefighters underpaid or some laid off. The overhead is high, and it's a helluva lot higher than $75.
People often complain that an ER visit is horrifically expensive, and that waits are long. But the fact is that they need to maintain ample space, wildly expensive equipment and hugely specialized people on staff all the time, just in case you have a heart attack. And not only that, but they need to be able to cover it if an unusual statistical spike of heart attacks and car accidents occurs. On Saturday night.
That's why an ER is expensive, and that's why it is insufficient to say "oh, I was willing to tell you all to fuck off with our collective risk taking, but I'll recant when the shit hits the fan.
It's a butt ugly situation. It should never happen in the world's wealthiest country. But happen it did because of a combination of stupid policies and one pigheaded home owner. I feel for him. Maybe somebody lost a job, or they are financially strapped. But you want laissez faire? You got laissez faire.
It's supposed to be a public emergency service. The concept behind emergency services is to treat and/or serve the public. From what I heard on the news, this $75 "subscription" is in addition to their property taxes. It's almost guaranteed that the FD used state or county funds for their equipment, building, training, employees. They are connected to the 911 emergency response system, which is also public. Anyone can use 911, not just "subscribers".
This wasn't a private fire mitigation company that only responds to subscribers, or anything like a private security company that doesn't have to respond to 911 calls.
You have a trend in this thread where you are confusing material goods with actual humans. Using your line of thought, everything should be provided free of charge, with payment determined later.He got what he deserved? What the hell?
These yahoos could have (and should have) responded and used their skills and equipment to fight the fire. Then worry about "payment" afterward, even sending a bill, or asking for a portion of the insurance money, if needed.
These people knew of the fee, they actively decided to ignore it, thinking they could game the system. Much like what our current health system suffers from.
These firefighters were serving the public, they were on scene to make sure that the fire, which they had no jurisdiction to risk both their own lives and equipment to fight, did not injury or consume property beyond what this idiot owned. When the fire tried to spread, the firefighters stepped in.
Totally agreed OG. It's a butt ugly situation, but your characterization of it is spot on. I feel for this guy, but I can't see how this could have played out otherwise given the profoundly idiotic table setting. Certainly the FD was just following orders.
FD are first responders. They're also first line defense for keeping fires from spreading. That's why they fight forest fires with no people in the woods, and fight abandoned building fires, so they do NOT spread to where people are living. The FD is often also the EMS and controls ambulance services. There's more to fire fighting than just "material goods" that catch on fire.
The FD's job isn't to carry around a Santy Clause list of who's been naughty or nice, who's paid the "subscription" or not, or who's delinquent or current on their taxes. They're also not supposed to check a 911 caller who's car is on fire, to see if they live in the county (and contributed to the FD in taxes) before they respond. Those budget concerns should never be on a first responder's mind, but left to administrators afterward.
edit: and I've never said that "everything should be provided for free", just that in emergency situations the last thing providers should be focusing on is who has paid what.
These firefighters had to drive more than 30 miles to a suspected fire, there was more than enough time to research what was going on.
So what? It's not their job to "research" who's paid what; they're not accountants or bill collectors. For all they knew, they were renters and the landlord didn't pay the "subscription". Or they paid but it didn't show up on their "roster".
They're connected to the public 911 emergency response system. They used public funds for their equipment and training. They're first-responders. People are injured or killed all the time, trying to put out their own fires, breathing toxic fumes, trying to do what professional fire fighters are trained to do.
I wonder how all those people in here arguing like OG would have reacted if someone had died in the fire due to the inactivity of the fire department.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
This is one of the more strange threads lately. Their argument would say that even an apartment renter wouldn't get protection from a FD, if the complex owner was in arrears on his property taxes. That it's justifiable to show up at a fire and just stand there, until it hops to "paying peoples' property" before intervening. No-pay No-spray?
This is why I brought up material goods being different than humans. While we don't have the case here, I'm unaware of when the fire department would be restricted from interviening when a life is one the line.
There are a lot of protections renters lose if their landlord doesn't keep on the bills. Much like the sorrow I feel for the current renters being turned homeless because the landlord didn't pay rent, I would feel for the renters if they were unaware of the landload not paying for this service. They both result in homelessness (and sometimes even the loss of personal possessions), but I suspect that in your example the renters would have legal recourse if nonpayment was not conveyed by the landlord.This is one of the more strange threads lately. Their argument would say that even an apartment renter wouldn't get protection from a FD, if the complex owner was in arrears on his property taxes. That it's justifiable to show up at a fire and just stand there, until it hops to "paying peoples' property" before intervening. No-pay No-spray?
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