http://www.local12.com/mostpopular/story/Tennessee-Firefighters-Let-Fire-Destroy-Home/N18MDSY9nkypmjveGWznDg.cspx

This is... there are no words. Its f'ing inexcusable. They came. They saw. They let it f'ing burn to the ground with pets and possessions inside. Because the family wouldn't pay "protection money". Are you f'ing kidding me? I am so fuming with rage, I just... I want to strangle these people that did this. I want to strangle the municipality that under-funded them to the point they felt they needed to extort families to provide a basic emergency service. I want this capitalistic system, that allowed this situation to occur while CEOs earn undeserved billions, to die in a fire. I want these people and their families to die, alone, in cardboard boxes in the rain, starving after finishing their last cup of thrown-out month-old ramen in pools of their own excrement.

Edit by Merth for vulgarity

Not defending much. But I will say that this is a silly time to bring this kind of thing up. Thanks media.

Basically what it is, and this isn't anything new, the "protection" money as you called it, is in place of the usual tax people pay for the firefighters. So literally they were not going to get paid to put out this fire. And if they weren't going to get paid, the the city wasn't going to get paid, then the expected equipment damage and usage that would have occurred would have gone un-covered for. It's really to blame on the local government. Just saying. If I was a firefighter and I was in this situation, it'd be a tough call between my job and helping to put out a fire in a building where the people were already safe.

And in reality the job of the firefighters in a community has been people first, then the property. And if the property is what stands between my job and keeping my family fed. And not... I may have to pick my job. And assume that the people whose house caught fire were smart enough to at least have homeowners insurance.

tl;dr bureaucracy sucks.

Bureaucracy sucks. I don't know where to stand on this.

It's extortion, and it's inexcusable. If you feel you aren't getting paid enough F*CKING QUIT. You CANNOT f*cking extort people, and I hope they pay the ultimate price for this.

It's not extortion. Extortion is obtaining money through coercion and nobody was being coerced here. If this were such, then all payments for all services would be considered extortion.

Does that mean this is justifiable? Does that mean what they did was right? Can't say. It's purely subjective. A matter of ethics and morals more so than logic and reason.

As CDI said, firefighters do not solely fight fires to save lives. They're doing their jobs. They're getting paid. They have bills to pay and families to feed just like most of the rest of us. Firefighters are not the selfless heroes we imagine them to be. Some may be, but not all of them as a whole.

Of course, you could argue that having one person's payment less is probably insignificant in the long run and the firefighters would still get paid etc. so on and so forth, but you would fail to recognize the two fundamental problems that would crop up without this selectiveness in play. For one, as stated in the article, people would pay on-the-spot rather than on time which would significantly reduce the available income for the firehouse. For two, some people would simply fail to pay, also reducing the available income.

In case you've been ignorant of this fact, people are obnoxiously cheap. If they can get away without paying, they will. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to say that if the firefighters didn't do what they did, plenty more people would fail to pay or attempt to pay on the spot. While one person failing to pay wouldn't impact money flow, dozens perhaps hundreds of people failing to pay most definitely would. Whether or not this is a logically acceptable slippery slope is irrelevant. The slope is potential. It may not be definite, but it is potential and worth considering. Money makes the world go round, after all.

Again, is what they did right? I can't say. There are too many variables to consider and it's mostly subjective opinion anyway. I'm personally not for this idea, but just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's wrong. Likewise, just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's wrong either.

It sounds to me based on the (very insufficiently-sourced) article that a lot of homeowners are failing to pay the fee, which could mean that the fire department is short-staffed, has equipment in disrepair, etc. Not sure though. Still not making a decision on this topic.

I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be paid, but they're supposed to be paid by government regulated taxes, not a flat fee they decide everyone needs to pay in order for their house not to burn down. They *are* using fear to get this money, by your own logic, they're using the fear people have that their houses will now burn down while the firefighters watch if they don't pay this extra fee, and that's wrong. If they need money, get it from taxes. If they aren't getting enough from taxes, there are numerous avenues they can pursue, like petitioning city leadership, public protests, or Ads. Scaring people into paying the rest of their bills is not the way to do this.

I can't even implicitly discern that from the article.



Also, nowhere in the article does it say that the Firehouse decided to start making people pay. As far as you know, there could have been a law passed mandating that it's now a "tax" for the people to pay. Who knows? Laws are dastardly things. It could have been sneaked into another bill that was put on the stand. Point is, you can't say HOW this ruling came into effect.

Furthermore, they aren't using people's fear to make them pay. People don't fear disaster. Most people are oblivious to their risk and often times assume "it won't happen to them". It's a fairly ubiquitous feeling. If people were truly being ruled by fear of their houses burning down and thus 'coerced' into paying this fee, would anybody actually forget to pay the fee for such a long time? (assuming it has been more than say a few days since the fee was due)

The whole reason they refused to put out the fire our accept any payment on the spot is so others would see what could happen if they didn't pay this fee, thus using that fear to get money.

Not really the same as coercion. They'd have to be implying that this WILL happen to everyone who doesn't pay. Sure, it's a scary thought to know that if you don't pay, they won't help you. However, they certainly aren't forcing you to pay under threat of arson or natural disaster. As far as everyone else is considered, this lady was just some unlucky sap. Again, people always assume "it won't happen to me" unless there's evidence it will happen 100% of the time.

Seems fine to me. They choose not to pay the tax. People always complain about taxes, and now I suppose someone found out the hard way that they really should pay them.

Living in a region that has almost entirely volunteer fire departments, I find this paragraph to be bizarre.

Interesting. I'm honestly not to sure of the distribution of volunteer to paid firefighters, nationally, so I may very well end up eating my words. Ah, the risks of blind argument

Even in our very rural counties, we still have a core group of professional (paid) firefighters. They are the first responders and are supported by the volunteers when that group arrives.

According to the state Department of Public Safety, in Vermont at least half of all fire departments for communities with a population over 25,000 are "career" (not volunteer) fire departments. Since, according to the 2008 census, only one community in Vermont has a population over 25,000, this isn't saying much.

[edit]
Also, the organization for Professional FireFighters of Vermont represents only 12 fire departments, out of the whole state.

If the fire department doesn't get enough money and is forced to quit, how does that help? The end result would be the same - the fire burned the house to the ground.

The firefighters weren't extorting her. She didn't pay for the service, so she didn't get it. They made sure the occupants were safe and protected neighboring houses, sounds reasonable to me.

Nothing in life is free, this lady found that out the hard way. $10 says she doesn't have insurance either.

This wasn't a tax, taxes are handled by the government elected by the people. This was a fee imposed by the fire department to get around the tax system because they were butthurt over not getting paid enough to sit around 99% of the time. There are channels you go through when you feel your industry is being treated unfairly: protests, television ads, propositions, unions, even petitioning a higher government office. Charging a "protection fee" is extortion, pure and simple.
That being said, this family wasn't unwilling to pay the fee, they missed it ONCE because they FORGOT. You ever forget? I forget all the time. But I shouldn't lose my home, my innocent pets, and everything I've ever owned while the people who are tasked with protecting it stand idly by because I *forgot*. It's an evil system, and I hope every single person responsible for causing this family's suffering gets sued to the point of starvation and suicide. It would be better than what these monsters deserve.

It was a tax. You're a moron.

Nice retort. Care to back that up? Last time I checked they didn't let your house burn down because missed a payment on your taxes...

No, because you clearly don't understand. I don't want to waste my time explaining something that will fly over your head. It saves you time responding in a nonsensical way, and saves me time reading that reply.