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For once I agree with Beck, even though I still think he is an idiot. They homeowner did not pay the fee so he was not covered. If you forget to pay your car insurance and then get into an accident, guess what, you are not covered. Same situation.
How about this? You go to the beach and there's a lifeguard fee. If you don't pay the fee and then you get caught in a rip current, too bad. They let you die because you didn't pay the fee. Is that really the type of society you want to live in?
If he won't pay $75 he sure as hell won't pay a much higher bill they send him later.
I disagree. People skip out on insurance policies regularly, and then learn their lesson once they need it. As others have said, the right thing to do is to save the house, and then put a lien or other restrictions on the house until his debt is paid.
What happened to common sense.Humanity. The firefighters were on site,they were obligated to act. (public service) .Hopefully there will be criminal charges filed,as several animals died in the fire.Remember Michael Vick? There will certainly be lawsuits filed,I would guess that high profile lawyers already have their eye on this.To all of you who think the actions of the Firemen were correct,I hope you don't live in my community.
What you are missing in your blindness to condem Beck is the local culture that established the pay for services requirement.
Throw in a municipal legal consultant and you end up with seemingly illogical and abhorant local practices. Local practices that are accepted by the citizenery.
Sure it sounds horrible at first glance that a fire company stood by and let the house burn but local rules and the reason they produced such a head tillting incident would be worthwhile to examine, and be preferable to beating up Beck if indeed humanity was the primary concern.
Law does not always agree with logic as the downstream impact of such legislation, partnered with insurance, produces computer program like rules that ignore exceptions for the sake of the integrity and sancity of the foundation of laws upon which society is built.
This incident brings to light the impact of insurance and law suits on controlling and restricting beahviors. The rules applied by the fire company are no different than local, county, state and national governments banning activities and behaviors without actually banning them.
Be careful for what you ask.
Live by the law, die by the law.
Look around to find more bizarre rules that go unchallenged.
Small town culture is different from big town culture...appreciate the differences.
How about this? You go to the beach and there's a lifeguard fee. If you don't pay the fee and then you get caught in a rip current, too bad. They let you die because you didn't pay the fee. Is that really the type of society you want to live in?
How about this. You go to a beach. You are warned that there are rip currents and that if you get caught in one you will need the lifeguard to help you survive. You are asked to pay a nominal fee because that is the only way that a lifeguard can be kept present on the beach for general safety. You blow off the fee and jump in the rip current. You deserve a Darwin award.
How about this. You go to a beach. You are warned that there are rip currents and that if you get caught in one you will need the lifeguard to help you survive. You are asked to pay a nominal fee because that is the only way that a lifeguard can be kept present on the beach for general safety. You blow off the fee and jump in the rip current. You deserve a Darwin award.
As Christine O'Donnell says in her ad: No one is perfect.
People do make mistakes. To argue that someone should be left to drown in any circumstances is cruel and cold-hearted.
As Christine O'Donnell has said: No one is perfect.
People do make mistakes. To argue that someone should be left to drown in any circumstances is cruel and cold-hearted.
And if everyone saw that the person gets saved regardless of whether or not they pay, people would quit paying. Then there would no longer be a lifeguard available at all. Then MORE people are at risk because ONE person chose to take a risk at his own peril. You are saying you would rather let others who are willing to pay be put at risk because help can no longer be afforded due to not enough people willing to pay to make it financially possible.
I would feel much worse for the man's house burning down if he simply could not afford the $75. But he could afford it and chose not to. And chose to let an unsupervised kid burn things next to his house. And chose to not get all living things out of his house the moment he saw it was at risk of catching on fire.
This yokel is what's wrong with this country. Entitle-ist. And he's a slimey lier!
Did anyone catch in the interview where this hick says he didn't pay his sons fire fee until it was too late? Then he says...."Oh, I jist forgot ta pay pay mine...really I did...honest indjun".
Now he's living in a trailer....so in the end his life is improved, right?
This is a tough situation all the way around. Part of me really wants to stick it to the homeowner, because I fully believe the homeowner was trying to skirt the system, or trying to get by on skimping seventy-five bucks. I mean; really, seventy-five dollars is not that much for an annual subscription.
I don’t believe he forgot, I don’t believe that he over looked it. I fully believe that he just did not want to pay it. I had read in another article that this same homeowner had a fire in his home, previously. Something like three years before, and the department allowed him to pay the fee after the fact.
Simply put, he should have just sucked it up and paid the money. No one would be in this situation, then.
The other part of me looks at this from a professional perspective. I fully acknowledge and understand the city perspective, and that of the city tax payers. They fund the service thru their taxes, and they expect and deserve that service when they (tax payers) need it. It is theirs, after all.
The problem for me is that they (the city) decided to start responding outside of the city on a contract basis. The city decided to enact a policy for out of city responses, and then decided that only those who paid the fee would receive it. I have a real problem with this, from a firefighters perspective. I don’t want to have to decide who receives fire protection and who does not. I don’t want that on my conscience. I don’t want to have to sit by and watch some ones entire life go up in flames, and not do anything. I can’t imagine that.
I am also far from being a liberal, but I just have a real problem with a policy that sends rigs, equipment and staffing out into an area and, then doesn’t protect everyone in the area for which they respond. The department responds out into these areas already.
My opinion is that they need to change it to where they either don’t respond outside the city limits, or they provide service to everyone where they choose to respond.
Either way, this policy has caused a lot of negative publicity for everyone, and caused at least one firefighter to be physically assaulted.
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Its not about Beck
