Man chooses not to pay fire protection fee, house allowed to burn down

Sure.

People with burned down houses have plenty of money to pay the fire bill of four grand, or whatever it is.. For pete's sake.

Its very simple. If you want the service, pay the bill. If you are too stupid, or negligent to pay, then its on you.

Its like we have a nation of children who never learned the consequences of failing to meet their basic responsibilities. Its just so much easier to blame others.

 

It can simultaneously be his responsibility and wrong of the fire department to let it burn. It doesn't have to be an "either/or."

 

You're fucking up a fun debate with your relentless sense of logic again.

 

...and people driver beaters around that have their transmission go out can't exactly afford the $2k that it costs to replace them, either.

The guy called the fire department like you or I would order a pizza. When it’s delivered, I expect to pay for the pizza. I don't see where this guy thinks the pizza would have been delivered for free.

 

Maybe the fire department requires payment up front because it's been burned too many times.





















(Sorry)

 

It doesn't change anything in my eyes because I'm not ragging on this guy for choosing not to pay his bill. I'm ragging on the guy for not paying his bill and expecting something other than what happened. And please don't base an entire argument on the fact the guy, after the fact, said "Oops, I forgot." It makes it tragic, yes, but it doesn't absolve him of any responsibility."

 

All I was saying is that the guy said he didn't just *not* pay it. He forgot. I wasn't basing my opinion on that fact. Just stating it.

 

Standing and watching as a neighbor's house burns and his pets die because that person failed to pay $75 makes you an asshole. Every time.

You all can continue on with this nonsense about personal responsibility and yada, yada, yada, but the right thing -- the decent, human, American thing -- was to put the damn fire out. Because you have NO IDEA why this man didn't pay. Maybe he was in the hospital when it came time to pay the bill. Maybe he was so broke at the time that he simply, and quite honestly, couldn't afford to pay it.

Turns out, he just forgot, after paying it the previous two years. And since it's never mentioned that he called for or used their service in those two previous years, I'm going to assume that he didn't. In which case, shouldn't he have a bit of goodwill, a bit of equity built up -- at least enough that you give the sumbitch the benefit of the doubt and put the damn fire out, or at the very least save his pets?

The level of assholeness over taxes and money in this country is starting to piss me off. Every day, I hear from some greedy asshole worried to death that somebody might be scamming him out of a few dollars and rambling on and on about how the lack of personal responsibility is killing America. But you know what, in reality, what's killing America are the shitty, greedy attitudes that bring about stories like this.

 

Co-sign.

 

dog428, ftw.

 

Indeed.

 

I disagree. I don't mind being called an asshole, I've been called one as long as this site's been around.

I have read a thousand stories like this on SportsJournalists.com. The consensus, every time, is that it is someone else's fault. If you don't fulfill your responsibilities, if you can't remember to pay your fire bill, its the other person who is the asshole.

No worries, like all these other stories that have ever been posted here, and the (literally) millions of posts made, not one person is going to change anybody elses mind.