No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn

[Asher]

How do you walk by homeless people on the street? They don't even have possessions that can be protected, and you buy gay porn and play Xbox instead of giving them some.

I walk by homeless people because I don't know which ones are scammers, which ones are druggies/alcoholics, and which ones are genuinely hard-done-by good people. As a result, I give to the United Way and Mustard Seed (local homeless shelter). It's reasonable.

[Solomwi]

No, charity is benevolently giving help and not expecting anything in return. If you are offering to pay for a service, it is not charity. By definition.

No, if you are paying for a service, it's not charity. Paying for it creates a duty that it be rendered. A dubious offer to pay "whatever it takes" doesn't change anything.

[Asher]

There's the lawyer talk again.

The guy made a verbal offer on a recorded 911 call. Isn't that a verbal contract? What's the big deal here?

[KrazyHorse]

We don't know that. But even so, there are alternatives. People who get treated at the hospital without insurance are put on payment plans if they can't pay the full bill up front, after all.

And end up paying between 8 and 10% of the billed amount, IIRC

3 dogs and a cat dead.

Dogs and cats aren't people, and I truly don't give a **** about his dead ****ing pets.

If I have the ability to immediately prevent that from happening but do nothing because I haven't been paid a fee, it's immoral. Again, firefighting is not a mere service, any more than police protection or medical treatment.

First off, most places have universal firefighting and police protection because there are positive externalities to having law and order and no fires. Those externalities accrue to neighbors. CITY RESIDENTS AREN'T THIS GUY'S NEIGHBORS. COUNTY RESIDENTS ARE, AND IT'S THOSE ****ERS YOU SHOULD BE COMPLAINING ABOUT. Medical treatment is generally universal for the reason I've already detailed (namely, it covers personal injury and suffering rather than monetary damage)

I suppose you don't think I have a "moral obligation" to let you know the man behind you is picking your pocket, but I think I do.

If providing that warning was going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars, and you weren't sure if I could pay you back, I don't think you would have a moral obligation to do so.

[Solomwi]

You and Solomwi keep focusing on the moral obligation on behalf of non-personal entities. I've not made that point at all. I've explicitly and repeatedly talked about PERSONAL MORALITY.

That those firemen could sit there on a fully equipped firetruck and let the home burn down and pets die is utterly immoral. There's nothing moral about doing nothing when you are equipped to do something.

Nothing in the scenario creates a moral obligation for the individual firemen, either. I'm glad they had the moral fortitude not to use the city's resources to give this guy a charitable handout. Charity from A to B with C's money is the worst kind, and utterly immoral.

[Asher]

Nothing in the scenario creates a moral obligation for the individual firemen, either. I'm glad they had the moral fortitude not to use the city's resources to give this guy a charitable handout. Charity from A to B with C's money is the worst kind, and utterly immoral.

Yes, all of that valuable water.

Praise be to God that those firemen had the moral fortitude not to use that water to save the home and pets' lives.

[DinoDoc]

As you may or may not be aware Asher, we're discussing South Fulton's -a city within the wider Obion County- expansion of fire fighting services to rural county residents and not a County government program.

You're unreal. Yes, if they put out this fire they would have had to shut down all firehalls in the county.

There are no firehalls in the county to begin with. That's the real source of this problem anyway. The county government could have signed an interlocal agreement with all the cities in the county to provide universal rural fire coverage that would have replaced the $75 fee with a county-wide addition to the ad valorem tax that would cover the cost of the rural service.

[Solomwi]

There's the lawyer talk again.

The guy made a verbal offer on a recorded 911 call. Isn't that a verbal contract? What's the big deal here?

Only if there was a meeting of the minds as to the essential terms of said contract. Doesn't look like the case here.

If the dispatcher had accepted his offer and set the right price, wouldn't that have been unconscionable price gouging?

[KrazyHorse]

Doesn't matter what it covers. They cut him a cheque at the end, a cheque he can use to pay the fire department what he promised.

If they'd saved his house before it burned down he wouldn't be getting a cheque. Most fire insurance policies have relatively large deductibles (5k plus).

Perhaps they could have let his house burn partway down so they could insure that he'd be able to pay them what he owed them...

[Asher]

It's really this simple. This is how I've been raised, and this is what I think is the moral thing to do:

If I'm available and equipped to help someone, I will.

I think people who are available and equipped to help someone and instead does nothing are rather pathetic.

[KrazyHorse]

Nothing in the scenario creates a moral obligation for the individual firemen, either. I'm glad they had the moral fortitude not to use the city's resources to give this guy a charitable handout. Charity from A to B with C's money is the worst kind, and utterly immoral.

[Solomwi]

Yes, all of that valuable water.

Praise be to God that those firemen had the moral fortitude not to use that water to save the home and pets' lives.

Water, equipment, fuel, personnel...

[Asher]

If they'd saved his house before it burned down he wouldn't be getting a cheque. Most fire insurance policies have relatively large deductibles (5k plus).

He'd be getting a cheque either way due to the water damage. Or if it was put out before it was even a large fire, I'm sure the cost would be tiny anyway.

[Asher]

Water, equipment, fuel, personnel...

equipment and personnel are fixed costs, paid regardless of this guy and his problems.

Water & gas. Gas they already had to burn to get there to put out the brush fire (which they had to fight legally).

So we're left with...water.

[Asher]

If anything, the truck probably burned more gas blaring Lady Gaga while the firefighters had a gay disco while the guy's house burned down.