I'm disappointed but not surprised that there would be posters who would apparantly take the side of the Barney Fifes who let a man's house burn down because he hadn't paid the fee. Of course he should have paid. But that doesn't justify alleged fire fighters standing around watching a guy's house burn down. Especially since he offered to pay the fee while they were there, as did some neighbors. For cripes sake they had responded to the fire and then just stood around! How can that ever be the right thing to do?
This doesn't seem to be a matter of "not wanting the government around until you need them," unless those who've posted that notion have some inside information about the guy deliberately refusing to pay. He'd evidently forgotten once or twice in the past, but there's no evidence his failure to pay was some sort of libertarian statement: "I'm not gonna pay, but you've gotta put out a fire on my property anyway." And even if that was on his mind, it would be a simple matter to pass a local ordinance requiring people to pay huge service fees and fines if they use the FD but refuse to pay the modest fee.
What SHOULD happen here is the chief of that department and the mayor should be out of work. And the victim of this crass betrayal (or his insurance company) should find the best lawyer available and bleed this pustule of a community dry. And the state of Tennessee should pass a simple law: fire fighters are required to do their best of put out fires, period. This is a shameful example of bureaucratic hubris.
