They should have saved the dogs

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They should have saved the dogs

 

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/ 

Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. 

"They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.

"We wasn't on their list," he said the operators told him.

Cranick, who lives outside the city limits, admits he "forgot" to pay the annual $75 fee. The county does not have a county-wide firefighting service, but South Fulton offers fire coverage to rural residents for a fee.

Cranick says he told the operator he would pay whatever is necessary to have the fire put out.

His offer wasn't accepted, he said.

The fire fee policy dates back 20 or so years.

"Anybody that's not inside the city limits of South Fulton, it's a service we offer. Either they accept it or they don't," said South Fulton Mayor David Crocker.

The fire department's decision to let the home burn was "incredibly irresponsible," said the president of an association representing firefighters.

"Professional, career firefighters shouldn’t be forced to check a list before running out the door to see which homeowners have paid up," Harold Schatisberger, International Association of Fire Fighters president, said in a statement. "They get in their trucks and go."

Firefighters did eventually show up, but only to fight the fire on the neighboring property, whose owner had paid the fee.

"They put water out on the fence line out here. They never said nothing to me. Never acknowledged. They stood out here and watched it burn," Cranick said.

South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.

Cranick, who is now living in a trailer on his property, says his insurance policy will help cover some of his lost home.

"Insurance is going to pay for what money I had on the policy, looks like. But like everything else, I didn't have enough."

After the blaze, South Fulton police arrested one of Cranick's sons, Timothy Allen Cranick, on an aggravated assault charge, according to WPSD-TV, an NBC station in Paducah, Ky.

Police told WPSD that the younger Cranick attacked Fire Chief David Wilds at the firehouse because he was upset his father's house was allowed to burn.

WPSD-TV reported that Wilds was treated and released.

© 2010 msnbc.com Reprints

 

As I'm sure many of you guess I don't have any sympathy for the idiot who lost his house. But I am rather upset about the three dogs. Personally, I think the firefighters should have saved the dogs and then started the blaze again. I would have donated the $75 to save the dogs. 

 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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 It was her  

 

It was her

 

 


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It's a hard reality that

It's a hard reality that most libertarians appear not to take seriously. Libertarianism seems to exist somewhere near the intersection of rugged individualism and the inability to actually secede from the larger community, for financial reasons primarily. It's difficult to live in the middle of nowhere where one can be "free" without already being independently wealthy. Otherwise you need some income. So, instead of saving their money for 20 years and moving into a log cabin or whatever, these people advocate the dissolution of their communities with an "every man for himself" kind of attitude, rejecting concepts like public good and opting instead for separating wheat from chaff.

It's good that the man's house burned down and his animals died in the sense that people should see the results of this ideological bent which is the literal breakdown of society, where if one can't pay for police protection they are robbed, if they cannot pay for the fire department their house burns down, and if they can't pay for an ambulance they die.

There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
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This weird shit would never happen

 

where I live. The USA may have a high number of believers but intrinsic social morality seems to be lacking. In Oz, the NSW Rural Fire Service is the largest volunteer fire service on the planet, with 70,000 members.

They've saved my country place twice. To have equipment on the scene and to do nothing - that whole thing is completely unjustifiable - unpaid $75 fee or not. Essential services should not be downgraded to scraping

around for income like they are alarm monitoring companies. Total weirdness. The firies should have put out the fire and taken the beer from the fridge in the garage. There's some shit you just do - come what bloody may.

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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Atheistextremist

Atheistextremist wrote:

 

where I live. The USA may have a high number of believers but intrinsic social morality seems to be lacking. In Oz, the NSW Rural Fire Service is the largest volunteer fire service on the planet, with 70,000 members.

They've saved my country place twice. To have equipment on the scene and to do nothing - that whole thing is completely unjustifiable - unpaid $75 fee or not. Essential services should not be downgraded to scraping

around for income like they are alarm monitoring companies. Total weirdness. The firies should have put out the fire and taken the beer from the fridge in the garage. There's some shit you just do - come what bloody may.

 

And who is going to pay for the truck? Someone has to. The guy knew that fire protection costs $75 per year and decided not to pay it, knowing that if there was a fire, the fire department wouldn't respond. Should the people who live in the city and pay taxes have to pay the expense to put out his fire while he doesn't pay a penny to put out theirs? Why should he get fire protection for free while other people have to pay for it? What is the difference between an alarm monitoring company and a fire department? 

 

Gauche is right that many libertarians don't really understand the consequences. It is YOUR responsibility to make sure your shit is taken care of. The town provided the option of fire protection at a very reasonable price. He decided he didn't want it. At the end of the day, someone has to pay for the trucks, water, equipment and at least a little to the firefighters. If you are too cheap to pay for it then you deserve the consequences. I just feel sorry for the dogs. It isn't their fault their owner is a dumb ass. It is called personal responsibility. Rather than waiting for mommy government to come make your bed you have to make it yourself and lie in whatever the result is. This guy wasn't mentally disabled, or in any way unable to take care of things. He decided not to.

 

Volunteer fire departments are good. Of course, you have to do quite a bit of fundraising to keep them operational and in a poor rural area perhaps damn near impossible to raise enough. Far more people will pay $75 a year if they are told the fire department won't show up unless they pay it. If you tell them the fire department will show up no matter what, many people will not donate. So you are stuck with either the voluntary annual payment or forcibly taking the money through property taxes. The voters chose the former. 

 

@Gauche it is actually a lot easier to live poor in these rural areas of Kentucky and Tennessee. You have very little property tax, no building codes so you can build whatever you want to live in yourself, grow your own food and have ample hunting and fishing right out your door. Not exactly comfortable in the sense that most of them live without modern conveniences and sometimes without water or electricity but some people choose to live that way.

And about the getting robbed part, even if you called the police there is no way they are getting to your house in time to stop the robber. If the police department is 20-30 miles away they are not going to get there in time. So if you live in one of these rural areas, it is highly advisable to have a gun and a dog and security cameras don't hurt if you are interested in actually catching anyone who steals from you. Also, I would not advise stealing anything from someone in these areas because either they don't have anything worth stealing or they have a gun and a dog and your career as a criminal will be short lived. Thats why you have a relatively low crime rate. And it isn't a breakdown in society. Neighbors watch out for each other and everybody knows everybody. I was working in a similar area in southern Ohio and was accosted by several people who saw me on their neighbors property. Makes my job a pain in the ass compared to the city where I can walk around anyones property and no one says a word even when I jump a security gate right in front of them. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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 I would also point out the

 I would also point out the $75 a year is substantially cheaper than fire protection provided by forcibly taking property taxes. On the house I gave to my ex property taxes for fire protection alone was around $280. On a piece of property I own without any structures I am paying around $80 per year. How much are you paying for your fire protection?

 

Also, it is the South Fulton's fire department policy to go in anyway if anyones life is in danger. So they are willing to risk their lives without pay if someones life is in danger. We are talking solely about the loss of property. So if someone has a cheap cabin they threw up themselves I could see why they wouldn't want to pay for fire protection. Who cares if a $1000 cabin burns?

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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They could also have been

They could also have been saved if they had put water on it themselves, or if they had bothered to keep an eye on it.

Or if they had the good sense to not burn stuff during a Fire Weather emergency. They didn't notice how dry their yard was?

I'm sorry for their loss but this shouldn't be turned into a "blame the bad ol' government" game.

How would the FD know about the dogs if they weren't invited (by the fee) to come to the house?

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
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@Beyond Saving You seem to

@Beyond Saving

 

You seem to acknowledge that there is something wrong with the fire department standing idly by with the resources and ability to put out a fire while the blaze consumes family pets, but you don't seem to make the connection between advocating that kind of system in the first place and having animals burned alive.

However there are many good reasons why those kinds of dangerous, irresponsible and probably unethical policies were abandoned in most civilized places in the 19th century, why people pay for emergency services with tax money, and why the action was met with condemnation from The International Association of Fire Fighters.

Even if you consider it to be merely an economic issue the county will lose money now because the man won't pay property taxes without a house, if he had homeowners insurance other policy holders will now be paying, there's also potential loss of property value in the surrounding neighborhood not to mention the environmental cost. Blaming the individual for their real or perceived irresponsibility doesn't ameliorate the situation or change the fact that ones problems aren't necessarily completely their own.

When the fire department won't put out your fire and your neighbors say they are glad your house burned because you are an idiot I would call that the breakdown of society. I can't really imagine anything below that level of social cohesion or social order that I would refer to as "community".

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Gauche wrote:@Beyond

Gauche wrote:

@Beyond Saving

 

You seem to acknowledge that there is something wrong with the fire department standing idly by with the resources and ability to put out a fire while the blaze consumes family pets, but you don't seem to make the connection between advocating that kind of system in the first place and having animals burned alive.

However there are many good reasons why those kinds of dangerous, irresponsible and probably unethical policies were abandoned in most civilized places in the 19th century, why people pay for emergency services with tax money, and why the action was met with condemnation from The International Association of Fire Fighters.

Even if you consider it to be merely an economic issue the county will lose money now because the man won't pay property taxes without a house, if he had homeowners insurance other policy holders will now be paying, there's also potential loss of property value in the surrounding neighborhood not to mention the environmental cost. Blaming the individual for their real or perceived irresponsibility doesn't ameliorate the situation or change the fact that ones problems aren't necessarily completely their own.

When the fire department won't put out your fire and your neighbors say they are glad your house burned because you are an idiot I would call that the breakdown of society. I can't really imagine anything below that level of social cohesion or social order that I would refer to as "community".

Yes, the dogs burning does bother me. Of course, they might have died anyway I don't know how far away the house was from the fire department so maybe they didn't stand a chance no matter what. And I don't advocate this type of system. I think a volunteer fire department that covers everyone is probably the preferable route but that is reliant on being able to get enough funding. I don't feel sorry for the slob who believes he doesn't have to pay for his fire protection. And it is sad that people believe it is necessary to force people to pay for those services and it is sad that people expect to get them for "free". I also think it is sad that a firefighter who is willing to die to save some sorry asses life makes less than 100k. Screw $75 a year they should charge $50 a month.

 

So the county loses property tax revenue, it also loses a resident unless he decides to rebuild. Fire is actually a benefit to the environment. If he decides not to rebuild, you now have what used to be a developed piece of land that will go back to being natural. Property values aren't really an issue in rural areas like they are in the suburbs. The property values are much lower. I would be surprised if his property was valued at much over $3000 an acre. 

 

Yes, it is sad that he lost his house and everything in it. He made a dumb ass decision and now has to live with the consequences. I've made dumb ass decisions in my life that led me to losing everything. You live on and rebuild. You learn from your mistakes. If your smart, you learn from other peoples mistakes and everyone in that county who was cheap and isn't paying th $75 ought to be paying it now. If they still aren't paying it what do you do about it? I'm willing to bet there are a few who still won't pay it. They are making their choice. If they don't want it, what business is it of yours or mine to tell them they MUST buy it? I think it is better to let them choose than to go to their house with a gun and say give me your money so I can pay for your fire protection or you can't live here. People live in rural areas precisely BECAUSE they don't want that kind of government interference. If you want it, move to the city. If you don't you should be allowed to go live in the woods away from it all. Obviously in a city you have more concerns that justify universal fire protection because the buildings are closer together. If one burns it will start the neighbors on fire. In a rural area it is much easier to cordon off a fire. So city slickers do it your way and country folk do it yours. You can decide where you want to live.

 

What happened to this guy is sad. It is also sad when someone loses everything they own because they put all their money and often their house into a failed business. It is sad when people become alcoholics and lose everything because of it. It is sad when someone sits down at a poker table and lose every penny they have to their name. Should we pass laws to prevent people from making those bad decisions too? Where does it stop? 

 

And why is it that the people who dedicate themselves to saving our lives are the ones we expect to do it for nothing? We expect doctors to treat us regardless of whether or not we pay them, we expect firefighters to risk THEIR lives to save us and pay them shit, we expect policemen to risk their lives for us and they don't get paid a ton either. You get medical care, pay for it, you get fire protection pay for it, you get police protection pay for it. How much money is your life worth? My answer is all of it and more. If you have a volunteer fire department donate to it. I used to raise money for a volunteer fire department and believe me a lot of people won't donate a dime. If you have a city paid fire department take a look at the budget. I'll bet they spent a ton of money on a nice building where a cheap pole barn would serve and pay the firemen low wages. I get sick of people who expect doctors, firemen and policemen to save their lives for nothing or expect other people to pay for it. 

 

So back to this guy, if he was inside that house a fireman would have gone in there and risked his life to save him for nothing. And the man has the AUDACITY to whine about the firemen letting the house burn. Dude, suck it up and take some responsibility. Those men would have saved your life if it needed saving and deserve gratitude. If it was me who did something that stupid I would be eating humble pie. And next year I would pay my $75.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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I wasn't suggesting that you

I wasn't suggesting that you advocate that system. I was suggesting that you're not making the connection between the county advocating it and such consequences. You seem to blame the individual for not paying, when in reality we don't know if he wouldn't pay, or couldn't pay, forgot to pay, intended to pay etc. We could envision a scenario where one did pay but through billing error loses their home when fire fighters refuse to extinguish the fire. 

It's true that in some instances ones house may be so far from their neighbor's that fires on adjacent properties pose little threat. In such cases people may wonder what interest they have in assuring that their neighbor's property doesn't burn though they should still be concerned for their neighbor's well-being. That's not true for most people though and it doesn't really appear to be here since the fire department had to respond.

I understand that you consider this to be about disallowing "free riders" to "freeload" but penalizing free riders in some ways may be too dangerous for others. Most people have property that is adjacent to the property of at least two others. To allow fires to burn poses a threat. How stupid would a fire department look if three adjacent properties burned because they were unable to contain a fire on one property that they could have put out but allowed to burn out of control for non-payment?

But to acknowledge the very real danger, put out the fire and then penalize the person financially would be an admission that it must be compulsory. Then they would just have a tax and the spell of denial would be broken.

Should there be laws against gambling your life savings away? I don't think so. At the same time I'm not sure that should extend to public safety issues. I would prefer not to live in a community that's like a big casino where people are playing libertarian-fire-safety-roulette with my and their lives and property .
   

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Gauche wrote:I wasn't

Gauche wrote:

I wasn't suggesting that you advocate that system. I was suggesting that you're not making the connection between the county advocating it and such consequences. You seem to blame the individual for not paying, when in reality we don't know if he wouldn't pay, or couldn't pay, forgot to pay, intended to pay etc. We could envision a scenario where one did pay but through billing error loses their home when fire fighters refuse to extinguish the fire. 

It's true that in some instances ones house may be so far from their neighbor's that fires on adjacent properties pose little threat. In such cases people may wonder what interest they have in assuring that their neighbors property doesn't burn though they should still be concerned for their neighbors well-being. That's not true for most people though and it doesn't really appear to be here since the fire department had to respond.

I understand that you consider this to be about disallowing "free riders" to "freeload" but penalizing free riders in some ways may be too dangerous for others. Most people have property that is adjacent to the property of at least two others. To allow fires to burn poses a threat. How stupid would a fire department look if three adjacent properties burned because they were unable to contain a fire on one property that they could have put out but allowed to burn out of control for non-payment?

But to acknowledge the very real danger, put out the fire and then penalize the person financially would be an admission that it must be compulsory. Then they would just have a tax and the spell of denial would be broken.
   

I heard somewhere he had lived there for twenty years. So if he had paid for 19 years and forgot or lost the bill etc. I would feel a lot more sympathy for him and my hunch is the firefighters would have put out the fire anyway then said "hey $75". I don't know so if there is evidence that he has consistently paid I guess I would have to eat crow for calling him an idiot. If your there for 20 years and never pay then obviously you don't intend to. And if you did pay but the FD messed up then I guess the FD would be liable in civil court just like any other company that makes a similar mistake.

 

The FD did show up to make sure the fire didn't spread. The subscription fee is only for the rural areas so all those houses are pretty far from their neighbors. Instead of using the big truck they used the smaller trucks that they would use for a controlled burn. 

 

Now I have heard some people say "why not put out the fire and then bill him for the full cost" instead of th $75. But the problem with that is the guys house just got a lot of fire damage, what are the odds he is going to pay his bill? And a small town like South Fulton doesn't have the excess money to hire lawyers and attempt to get it through litigation. 

 

Although now that I look at pictures of the house, unless the trucks got there really fast it was probably a complete loss anyway. It looks like it was only 24X40 or so. Even if they did put out the fire, the smoke damage alone would have destroyed it as small as it was. Especially since it looks older and probably wasn't built with the most fireproof materials. The $75 might have been a waste of money for him.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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It goes back to him not

It goes back to him not having the sense enough to keep from burning stuff when it's bone dry outside.

That level of stupid could be considered arson.

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Gauche wrote:It's a hard

Gauche wrote:

It's a hard reality that most libertarians appear not to take seriously. Libertarianism seems to exist somewhere near the intersection of rugged individualism and the inability to actually secede from the larger community, for financial reasons primarily. It's difficult to live in the middle of nowhere where one can be "free" without already being independently wealthy. Otherwise you need some income. So, instead of saving their money for 20 years and moving into a log cabin or whatever, these people advocate the dissolution of their communities with an "every man for himself" kind of attitude, rejecting concepts like public good and opting instead for separating wheat from chaff.

It's good that the man's house burned down and his animals died in the sense that people should see the results of this ideological bent which is the literal breakdown of society, where if one can't pay for police protection they are robbed, if they cannot pay for the fire department their house burns down, and if they can't pay for an ambulance they die.

The problem with your argument is that you want a society where we are all responsible for one another, where all watch each others back. Fine, but the only responsible behavior you want to enforce is paying higher taxes to support other people's lifestyle. While they have no requirement to be responsible.

Why do these people own a house if they can't pay the bills? Why do they pay to take care of three dogs if they can't pay their bills? Why aren't they in a job training program to so they can afford what they want? Did they decide to live in country because they didn't want the stress of a job in the city? Why should people that don't own property subsidize those that do?

If you believe the role of government is to force us to take care of one another, why is the only responsible behavior you want to enforce paying higher taxes that benefit others?

This is not a good argument against privatization. Just like with auto insurance, if you pose a public risk, you should be required to carry insurance. Otherwise you can't drive a car. There is no reason for the government to run insurance companies or fire departments, just to set the rules for them.

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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Is this about allocation of

Is this about allocation of resources or is it about retribution? I want you to subsidize other people's lifestyles of not being on fire and address a substantial risk to yourself. You apparently want to cleanse the "deadbeats" from your community with fire or use some heretofore unexplained and possibly non-existent mechanism to force people to not have fires to begin with. Be realistic.  

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Rural bushfire service

Beyond Saving wrote:

Atheistextremist wrote:

 

where I live. The USA may have a high number of believers but intrinsic social morality seems to be lacking. In Oz, the NSW Rural Fire Service is the largest volunteer fire service on the planet, with 70,000 members.

They've saved my country place twice. To have equipment on the scene and to do nothing - that whole thing is completely unjustifiable - unpaid $75 fee or not. Essential services should not be downgraded to scraping

around for income like they are alarm monitoring companies. Total weirdness. The firies should have put out the fire and taken the beer from the fridge in the garage. There's some shit you just do - come what bloody may.

 

And who is going to pay for the truck? Someone has to. The guy knew that fire protection costs $75 per year and decided not to pay it, knowing that if there was a fire, the fire department wouldn't respond. Should the people who live in the city and pay taxes have to pay the expense to put out his fire while he doesn't pay a penny to put out theirs? Why should he get fire protection for free while other people have to pay for it? What is the difference between an alarm monitoring company and a fire department? 

 

Gauche is right that many libertarians don't really understand the consequences. It is YOUR responsibility to make sure your shit is taken care of. The town provided the option of fire protection at a very reasonable price. He decided he didn't want it. At the end of the day, someone has to pay for the trucks, water, equipment and at least a little to the firefighters. If you are too cheap to pay for it then you deserve the consequences. I just feel sorry for the dogs. It isn't their fault their owner is a dumb ass. It is called personal responsibility. Rather than waiting for mommy government to come make your bed you have to make it yourself and lie in whatever the result is. This guy wasn't mentally disabled, or in any way unable to take care of things. He decided not to.

 

Volunteer fire departments are good. Of course, you have to do quite a bit of fundraising to keep them operational and in a poor rural area perhaps damn near impossible to raise enough. Far more people will pay $75 a year if they are told the fire department won't show up unless they pay it. If you tell them the fire department will show up no matter what, many people will not donate. So you are stuck with either the voluntary annual payment or forcibly taking the money through property taxes. The voters chose the former. 

 

The way it works in Australia is that each town, village or thickening of houses has a rural fire brigade complete with a shed and equipment. There are 2100 separate rural fire brigades in NSW alone and each brigade draws firefighters from local residents. They are highly trained - not to the level of the big metro units - but they are not amateurs. All the other states have the same arrangement.

Each Fire Brigade is a charity and gets the full value of donations. Local brigades and the service overall gets sponsorship from local business. There's also funding from government for equipment. People donate land for station houses and most work and maintenance is carried out by local businesses free of charge. There's a centralised HQ with salaried staff that manages and coordinates. The firefighters are strictly volunteers but their employers continue to pay them when they are fighting fires - it does not come off their annual leave entitlements. Many are farmers and rural workers but in smaller towns and villages everyone pitches in.

These brigades are an important part of the social and community life of Australian towns and villages. Everyone living in a given area has a responsibility for their local area. If something big happens, as in the recent Victorian bushfires when 173 people died and thousands of houses were destroyed then all the brigades will mobilise together across state lines in huge convoys. In Feb 09 the united rural fire services were fighting 400 fires simultaneously. Ten towns were completely destroyed.

Ignoring a neighbour's fire on a rural property would never happen here.

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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Gauche wrote:Is this about

Gauche wrote:

Is this about allocation of resources or is it about retribution? I want you to subsidize other people's lifestyles of not being on fire and address a substantial risk to yourself. You apparently want to cleanse the "deadbeats" from your community with fire or use some heretofore unexplained and possibly non-existent mechanism to force people to not have fires to begin with. Be realistic.  

I don't want to cleanse anyone, I just want them to pay for the services they use. It a simple concept, pay for what you use. If your broke, stop spending on houses and dogs you can't take care of and get into a job training program. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

It's a simple question, if you want a society where we are responsible for each other, why do you limit this to paying higher taxes(only for those that can pay). Why not force people to pay for their fire risk, taking care of their pets and children or else not letting them have these things? Why must forced responsible behavior be limited to paying higher and higher taxes for other people's lifestyles?

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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EXC wrote:Gauche wrote:Is

EXC wrote:

Gauche wrote:

Is this about allocation of resources or is it about retribution? I want you to subsidize other people's lifestyles of not being on fire and address a substantial risk to yourself. You apparently want to cleanse the "deadbeats" from your community with fire or use some heretofore unexplained and possibly non-existent mechanism to force people to not have fires to begin with. Be realistic.  

I don't want to cleanse anyone, I just want them to pay for the services they use. It a simple concept, pay for what you use. If your broke, stop spending on houses and dogs you can't take care of and get into a job training program. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

The job program you also have to pay for with money you don't have?

 

Quote:
It's a simple question, if you want a society where we are responsible for each other, why do you limit this to paying higher taxes(only for those that can pay). Why not force people to pay for their fire risk, taking care of their pets and children or else not letting them have these things? Why must forced responsible behavior be limited to paying higher and higher taxes for other people's lifestyles?

Why do you want 10% of the population to screw over the 80% of the population who are paying to keep the country going because they don't like the actions of the 10% at the other end that can't pay?

How did "I won't pay" become better than "I can't pay"?

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
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jcgadfly wrote:The job

jcgadfly wrote:

The job program you also have to pay for with money you don't have?

 

Why wouldn't the greedy rich bankers give someone an education loan, if it is a program that should give the guy a high opportunity of finding a high paying job?

Instead what we have now is you can study whatever you want wherever you want, not important if it leads to job. The government is paying for it all. Just whine later about not having a job then tax the people that start businesses to pay for the welfare state. Have as many children, dogs and fire trap properties as you wish, someone else will pay for it all. Everything is a fucking right, nothing except paying higher taxes is a responsibility.

Everybody's got to have their life choices subsidized by others, until the country collapses.

jcgadfly wrote:

Why do you want 10% of the population to screw over the 80% of the population who are paying to keep the country going because they don't like the actions of the 10% at the other end that can't pay?

How did "I won't pay" become better than "I can't pay"?

Explain to me specifically how this "10%" is expecting me and you to pay for their lifestyle. I'm against certain rights for the rich such as bank bailouts, oil drilling rights, etc... What subsidies for the rich do you want to end?

 

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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EXC wrote:I don't want to

EXC wrote:

I don't want to cleanse anyone, I just want them to pay for the services they use. It a simple concept, pay for what you use. If your broke, stop spending on houses and dogs you can't take care of and get into a job training program. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

It's a simple question, if you want a society where we are responsible for each other, why do you limit this to paying higher taxes(only for those that can pay). Why not force people to pay for their fire risk, taking care of their pets and children or else not letting them have these things? Why must forced responsible behavior be limited to paying higher and higher taxes for other people's lifestyles?

If you think that emergency services should be privatized that is one thing. Personally I think it is short-sighted, unnecessarily dangerous and barbaric but it is at least debatable.

In what way is having your life micro-managed to the point where someone else decides where you can live, what job you can have and what sort of dog food you can buy preferable to just paying taxes? Are you really criticizing me because I don't hold that extreme authoritarian view?

I want it to be limited to paying taxes and not extend to every possible aspect of your life because I'm not insane enough to think that paying taxes is worse than your ill considered plan.

It would be foolish to place oneself in an adversarial role with those who mismanage their lives and suggest that if the ability to manage their life means that you have to pay money then people shouldn't be allowed to manage their lives at all. That would be a needlessly self destructive overreaction to the problem.

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EXC wrote:jcgadfly wrote:The

EXC wrote:

jcgadfly wrote:

The job program you also have to pay for with money you don't have?

 

Why wouldn't the greedy rich bankers give someone an education loan, if it is a program that should give the guy a high opportunity of finding a high paying job?

Instead what we have now is you can study whatever you want wherever you want, not important if it leads to job. The government is paying for it all. Just whine later about not having a job then tax the people that start businesses to pay for the welfare state. Have as many children, dogs and fire trap properties as you wish, someone else will pay for it all. Everything is a fucking right, nothing except paying higher taxes is a responsibility.

Everybody's got to have their life choices subsidized by others, until the country collapses.

jcgadfly wrote:

Why do you want 10% of the population to screw over the 80% of the population who are paying to keep the country going because they don't like the actions of the 10% at the other end that can't pay?

How did "I won't pay" become better than "I can't pay"?

Explain to me specifically how this "10%" is expecting me and you to pay for their lifestyle. I'm against certain rights for the rich such as bank bailouts, oil drilling rights, etc... What subsidies for the rich do you want to end?

 

1. Because, as you said, they're broke. Banks don't give loans out of the goodness of their hearts.

2. You're against corporate welfare. Good. Why are you for rich people not paying their taxes? Do you really think they can't live on the 60% of their income they'd have left after Bush cuts go away?

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
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Gauche wrote:If you think

Gauche wrote:

If you think that emergency services should be privatized that is one thing. Personally I think it is short-sighted, unnecessarily dangerous and barbaric but it is at least debatable.

My position is that government services are already are run by a privitized monopolies, they are called unions. I'm for allowing competition.

Gauche wrote:

In what way is having your life micro-managed to the point where someone else decides where you can live, what job you can have and what sort of dog food you can buy preferable to just paying taxes? Are you really criticizing me because I don't hold that extreme authoritarian view?

I don't hold this view. Live where you want, how you want. But if your property becomes a fire trap and your dogs need to be resqued and I have to pay for, you need to have it taken from you.
 

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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EXC wrote:My position is

EXC wrote:

My position is that government services are already are run by a privitized monopolies, they are called unions. I'm for allowing competition.


There is competition in the marketplace of ideas. The problem is that your idea is not good.


Quote:

I don't hold this view. Live where you want, how you want. But if your property becomes a fire trap and your dogs need to be resqued and I have to pay for, you need to have it taken from you.
 

You do realize that what you're suggesting would also require you to pay right? Why is it so much more appealing to you to waste resources on insuring that people cannot live certain ways than wasting them on insuring that they can?

What you're proposing even if technically feasible may not be desirable and it certainly wouldn't be preferable to just paying taxes. You seem to be making the completely baseless assumption that it would result in a reduced tax burden for you. There is no reason to believe that at all. Who is going to investigate cases to decide? Who will hold hearings? Who will confiscate things? Who will make sure people do what they are supposed to? Will everyone just do these things for free so that you don't have to pay taxes anymore?

But maybe it is about retribution. Perhaps you wouldn't mind an even greater tax burden as long as the money was being used to make lives more miserable instead of rescue them from fires.

There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft


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Gauche wrote:EXC wrote:My

Gauche wrote:

EXC wrote:

My position is that government services are already are run by a privitized monopolies, they are called unions. I'm for allowing competition.


There is competition in the marketplace of ideas. The problem is that your idea is not good.


Quote:

I don't hold this view. Live where you want, how you want. But if your property becomes a fire trap and your dogs need to be resqued and I have to pay for, you need to have it taken from you.
 

You do realize that what you're suggesting would also require you to pay right? Why is it so much more appealing to you to waste resources on insuring that people cannot live certain ways than wasting them on insuring that they can?

What you're proposing even if technically feasible may not be desirable and it certainly wouldn't be preferable to just paying taxes. You seem to be making the completely baseless assumption that it would result in a reduced tax burden for you. There is no reason to believe that at all. Who is going to investigate cases to decide? Who will hold hearings? Who will confiscate things? Who will make sure people do what they are supposed to? Will everyone just do these things for free so that you don't have to pay taxes anymore?

But maybe it is about retribution. Perhaps you wouldn't mind an even greater tax burden as long as the money was being used to make lives more miserable instead of rescue them from fires.

 

Excellent.  There are always costs.  The cost may be uncontrolled fires that are unstoppable and spread to whatever town Beyond is currently residing in.  He isn't old enough - heck I'm not old enough - to remember the last prairie fire in the American Midwest.  I am, however, exceedingly familiar with uncontrollable wild fires in the Western US.  There was one fire near the town I worked in one year - you could see the flames along the ridge line less than five miles (about 8 km) west of the town.  I lived 50 miles (about 80km) to the east and the smoke was so bad even where I lived.  One wet spring, followed by a very dry summer, one person who does not have fire protection, and Beyond could see that in Ohio.

It is NOT far fetched.  Helicopters that drop water and chemicals on the fire may have very little impact on the fire.  The fire I mentioned above had the helicopters grounded, the updrafts from the fire were so strong.  Firefighters raced their trucks to get away from the fire - in a couple of cases nearly wrecking the trucks - the fire changed direction often and was moving very fast.  Mailboxes next to the road were flagged to either attempt to save or to just skip a home in case the fire went down that particular valley - depending on the road to the house, the geologic formations and the condition of the house and grounds.  A stack of firewood or brush or trees right against the house usually meant the firefighters wouldn't try to save the house.  Wild fires are NOT trivial.  Easy to ignore if you are hundreds of miles away.  I'm sure AE agrees with me.  I have every sympathy and concern when wild fires in Australia are on the news.

If people pay fees instead of taxes, consumption tax instead of income tax, a lot of the bureaucracy will not go away.  Some one has to count the money, balance the books, audit the process and the processors.  Someone has to set the fees or the tax, determine what the cost of a particular service is and so on.  Do we stick with traditional only count the actual costs or do we attempt to determine hidden costs as well?  For example, grazing and mining fees out west are horribly under priced.  No attempt was ever made to determine the costs of mitigating the outcomes of mining or grazing and the fees are often still the same as they were 100 years ago.  These should all be reviewed - and so should any new system of fees or taxes - which means someone has to be paid to do all this review and examination.  And one person will not be adequate to the task.  You will have to hire an army of accountants and consultants.  Non trivial.  All solutions are non trivial.  Get over it.

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Gauche wrote:There is

Gauche wrote:

There is competition in the marketplace of ideas. The problem is that your idea is not good.

 

I would say my ideas are not popular. Getting something for nothing is popular. But they are based in reality.

In case you haven't noticed, the world is a highly competitive place. States have to compete against other states, countries against other countries to attract and maintain businesses.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/ncrs-tax-deal-moves-all-jobs-165971.html

Now if one state says just raise taxes to subsidize our state's hillbilly firetraps, that's less money to attract jobs. All these subsidies via taxes add up. There is also the problem of the moral hazard, if you subsidize a behavior you'll get more of this in future, if you tax another behavior, you'll get less of that in the future.

So your 'just raise taxes' solution is extremely short sighted.

Gauche wrote:

You do realize that what you're suggesting would also require you to pay right? Why is it so much more appealing to you to waste resources on insuring that people cannot live certain ways than wasting them on insuring that they can?

Yes. Everyone should pay for what they use. Charity and subsidizes just creates moral hazards.
 

Gauche wrote:


What you're proposing even if technically feasible may not be desirable and it certainly wouldn't be preferable to just paying taxes. You seem to be making the completely baseless assumption that it would result in a reduced tax burden for you. There is no reason to believe that at all.

 

If I was wasteful with resources, I would pay more. If I was not, I would pay less. "Just paying taxes" would be preferable until business moves away.

Gauche wrote:

Who is going to investigate cases to decide? Who will hold hearings? Who will confiscate things? Who will make sure people do what they are supposed to? Will everyone just do these things for free so that you don't have to pay taxes anymore?

The government does all these things now when it comes to paying taxes. It actually would be easier. As it is now, people can hide their income. So a meth dealer can set up a firetrap lab, not pay taxes on his income. The people that pay sales and income tax subsidize his lifestyle.

I maintain that the concept of taxation highly irrational. I think a society built on rational cooperation would make everything a user fee.

Gauche wrote:

But maybe it is about retribution. Perhaps you wouldn't mind an even greater tax burden as long as the money was being used to make lives more miserable instead of rescue them from fires.

I'm not interested in retribution. I'm interested in rational solutions. This means without moral hazards. How high to do taxes have to go subsidizing other people before you would say enough? Are you not concerned about the effect your policies have on behaviors that harm future generations? Is it just reward failure and punish success and screw future generations with debt?

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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cj wrote:Excellent.  There

cj wrote:

Excellent.  There are always costs.  The cost may be uncontrolled fires that are unstoppable and spread to whatever town 

 

I agree. The costs should be calculated and assigned to those that create risks. This is what insurance companies do all the time.

As it is now, one has little incentive not to build in a high fire zone area or keep your property fire safe. California has gone broke in part paying for all the people that live in wildfire area. But the taxes to pay for this are collected from sales and income tax. These taxes have driven business away.

cj wrote:

You will have to hire an army of accountants and consultants.  Non trivial.  All solutions are non trivial.  Get over it.

And we don't have to "hire an army of accountants and consultants" to pay our taxes now?

There is a simple solution but it's too unpopular for people to accept that you can't get something for nothing. Just pass a law that to use land property, one must maintain adequate insurance. Otherwise your property is quickly confiscated. But property 'rights' and sacred, so nothing changes.

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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EXC wrote:I would say my

EXC wrote:

I would say my ideas are not popular. Getting something for nothing is popular. But they are based in reality.

In case you haven't noticed, the world is a highly competitive place. States have to compete against other states, countries against other countries to attract and maintain businesses.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/ncrs-tax-deal-moves-all-jobs-165971.html

Now if one state says just raise taxes to subsidize our state's hillbilly firetraps, that's less money to attract jobs. All these subsidies via taxes add up. There is also the problem of the moral hazard, if you subsidize a behavior you'll get more of this in future, if you tax another behavior, you'll get less of that in the future.

So your 'just raise taxes' solution is extremely short sighted.

I live in a place with a high tax rate. It seems like people want to live here and the response of the fire department is trusted and met with praise. The people in this story live in a place that attempted to implement the sort of policies you recommend and it is an international embarrassment, so there might be a connection between your ideas being unpopular and the fact that they don't seem to work very well.

As I said, there are other kinds of competition beyond economic competition and a half burned and dangerous state isn't more appealing than one with high tax rates. In fact, places with very low tax rates more often than not tend to be shit holes. "Short-sightedness" may suggest that one one hasn't given careful consideration to future consequences but you seem to ignore present facts.

EXC wrote:

Yes. Everyone should pay for what they use. Charity and subsidizes just creates moral hazards.
 

And your system creates fire hazards which isn't a worn out theoretical argument but an actual life threatening event.

EXC wrote:

If I was wasteful with resources, I would pay more. If I was not, I would pay less. "Just paying taxes" would be preferable until business moves away.

You believe you'll pay less because it fits into this narrative of yours. In your grim view of humanity the majority of people have "nothing" and game the system for the purpose of "getting something" and this is why your ideas are not popular, so you've devised this plan to penalize these people by compelling them to participate in work programs and seizing their property. These things have to be done at someones expense and it won't be theirs because they have nothing. You are in a system of collective responsibility whether you like to admit it or not.

EXC wrote:

The government does all these things now when it comes to paying taxes. It actually would be easier. As it is now, people can hide their income. So a meth dealer can set up a firetrap lab, not pay taxes on his income. The people that pay sales and income tax subsidize his lifestyle.

I maintain that the concept of taxation highly irrational. I think a society built on rational cooperation would make everything a user fee.

Governments do those things when collecting taxes but their not burdened with actually imposing the level of fiscal responsibility that you are talking about on the lives of each individual. What you're saying is that since they can ensure that you pay then they can do that and tell you where to work, and live, and what to buy. They can at an additional cost but it isn't worth it from an economic standpoint or in any other way that I can think of.

EXC wrote:

I'm not interested in retribution. I'm interested in rational solutions. This means without moral hazards. How high to do taxes have to go subsidizing other people before you would say enough? Are you not concerned about the effect your policies have on behaviors that harm future generations? Is it just reward failure and punish success and screw future generations with debt?

I don't really mind paying high taxes to live in a nice place. It doesn't happen for free. I don't believe the "moral hazard" argument. I think it's stupid actually. It may be true in some instance but its effects are overrated.

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Gauche wrote:I live in a

Gauche wrote:

I live in a place with a high tax rate. It seems like people want to live here and the response of the fire department is trusted and met with praise.

  

Kind of sounds like California before people living in high fire danger zones and firefighters unions helped bankrupt the state. The problem with let taxpayers subsidize everything build up over time.

Gauche wrote:

The people in this story live in a place that attempted to implement the sort of policies you recommend and it is an international embarrassment, so there might be a connection between your ideas being unpopular and the fact that they don't seem to work very well.

  

Your policies are what caused this. In the past, hillbillies were subsidized by others. Then over time the states go broke paying for fire protection while loosing business. So they have to send out a bill to homeowners that can't pay.

What I would would say is prepay the fire protection bill. If you don't pay you loose your property.


 

Gauche wrote:


As I said, there are other kinds of competition beyond economic competition and a half burned and dangerous state isn't more appealing than one with high tax rates.

  

Why would you have "a half burned out state" if everyone was force to pay for fire services insurance? This would happen when the hillbillies and their 10 kids and 18 dogs take over, thanks to your subsidizes of their lifestyle.

Gauche wrote:

These things have to be done at someones expense and it won't be theirs because they have nothing.

  

No. I've already explained they would have to prepay insurance to have land. Land ownership should be viewed as a privilege, not a right.

Gauche wrote:

I don't really mind paying high taxes to live in a nice place.

  

But the businessmen and their shareholders do. So if you want to have a good economy in this nice area, the taxes must be more like user fees rather than subsidies for people that will never pay it back.

Gauche wrote:

It doesn't happen for free.

  

So then why do you want to give people a free pass?

Gauche wrote:

 I don't believe the "moral hazard" argument. I think it's stupid actually. It may be true in some instance but its effects are overrated.

I take it you don't run a profitable insurance company, or have worked to keep jobs and business from leaving your state.

 

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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Sorry to bang on with

 

 

about fire fighting volunteers but as north america continues to dry and your bushfires get worse, this is the only model that will adequately serve. It should work fine. There are what - 325 million Americans? That's heaps of potential volunteers. And a few beers down at the fire shed on a saturday arvo beats the hell out of meeting for jam and pikelets after church.

 

 

It works like this...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_Rural_Fire_Service

 

 

 

 

 

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EXC wrote:No. I've already

EXC wrote:

No. I've already explained they would have to prepay insurance to have land. Land ownership should be viewed as a privilege, not a right.

  

An imposed financial charge is a tax.

EXC wrote:

But the businessmen and their shareholders do. So if you want to have a good economy in this nice area, the taxes must be more like user fees rather than subsidies for people that will never pay it back.

  

I think that's somewhat of an oversimplification. If that's the case then why are so many businesses located in the US where corporate tax rates are high, why don't they relocate to Uzbekistan? They don't have to like it anyway if they don't want to do business where I live because the tax rate is too high then someone else will.

EXC wrote:

So then why do you want to give people a free pass?

Others can't impose an obligation on you merely by acting cooperatively to provide some good that you benefit from.

EXC wrote:

I take it you don't run a profitable insurance company, or have worked to keep jobs and business from leaving your state.

 

If there was free coffee in your office you might drink more coffee, in that way maybe there are moral hazards. If I did run a successful insurance company and I raised co-payment levels to avoid so called moral hazard it might make me more successful but it wouldn't cause my customers to use health care more efficiently. When people have to pay more they just use less whether that use is frivolous or useful. The consumption of health care and emergency services isn't comparable to the consumption of coffee though so the idea is really quite absurd in this context.

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Gauche wrote: I live in a

Gauche wrote:

 

I live in a place with a high tax rate. It seems like people want to live here and the response of the fire department is trusted and met with praise. The people in this story live in a place that attempted to implement the sort of policies you recommend and it is an international embarrassment, so there might be a connection between your ideas being unpopular and the fact that they don't seem to work very well.

As I said, there are other kinds of competition beyond economic competition and a half burned and dangerous state isn't more appealing than one with high tax rates. In fact, places with very low tax rates more often than not tend to be shit holes. "Short-sightedness" may suggest that one one hasn't given careful consideration to future consequences but you seem to ignore present facts.

So, these people decide to live in an area with low tax rates and thus fewer government services. Who cares? I they want to live there, what is it to you? You can live in your high tax state and look down your nose at those of us who choose to live in low tax areas. I don't consider the region to be a shithole. It is one of the most beautiful areas in the country. Sure, you don't get too many of the pretentious, ridiculously big houses or the manicured lawns. You get self made cabins or shacks and a natural setting. Yeah, it is a very different lifestyle, but isn't that what is great about America? You can simply move to a different state to experience a radically different lifestyle. 

And it doesn't create a fire hazard. Houses burn, no matter what your fire protection policy is. The FD did show up to make sure the fire was contained. There was no danger of the fire spreading. The only ones affected was the family that decided not to pay for the fire protection. But I'd bet dollars to donuts that the family probably would have lost their house years ago if they lived in your high tax neighborhood because they probably couldn't have afforded the taxes every year. So in your system, they would have lost their house a lot faster with even less choice. I've seen people paying 2000 to 3000 a year on a house they paid 20k for thirty years ago. You tax them more than they paid for their house. 2-3k is a lot of money if you have a limited retirement. And people who have worked their whole lives are forced to give up their homes every year (which is usually their most valuable asset) because assholes raise their taxes to pay for the "children" to go to school. And the grandma who did her part to raise her kids is told she has to pay or move out. So grandma sells her house and buys something cheaper in the country and what happens? They start raising her property taxes again.

And you have the audacity to say it is an embarrassment that one house is allowed to burn because a guy who knew the rules decided not to pay. While your system forces countless people to give up their homes they lived in for years because they couldn't afford their taxes. I think it is an embarrassment that our governments STEAL houses that have been owned for decades and raise taxes to the point that the taxes costs more than the person ever paid on their mortgage. They literally send armed police officers to force you out of the house. A house that you "own". That is the fucking embarrassment. You whine about the guy who was cheap on his $75 but regularly tax retired grandmas on social security into poverty. The guy had a choice, the grandma who's taxes go up every year didn't. The whole property tax system is shameful and disgusting. And it would serve you right if in 20-30 years your taxes got so high you have to move out of your house that you worked your ass off for.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Atheistextremist wrote:  

Atheistextremist wrote:

 

 

about fire fighting volunteers but as north america continues to dry and your bushfires get worse, this is the only model that will adequately serve. It should work fine. There are what - 325 million Americans? That's heaps of potential volunteers. And a few beers down at the fire shed on a saturday arvo beats the hell out of meeting for jam and pikelets after church.

 

 

It works like this...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_Rural_Fire_Service

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many areas do have volunteer FDs. The area I grew up in was rural and had one. And there is a national organization of firefighters that go out west to fight the big fires every year. I believe it is made up of volunteers although the majority of them are also professionally paid firefighters. I'm not really sure how much or even if they get reimbursed. I think they get a little something because it often takes months but maybe someone who lives out west knows.

 

The problem with the area where this fire occurred is that the entire county only has a population of 2000 and is a very poor county. Fundraising on a local level would probably be extremely difficult. Now if you had some sort of national volunteer fire protection it might be easier to raise funds but the problem is the vast majority of the country has government paid FD's. People who already pay tax for fire protection probably are not going to donate to a volunteer FD. Now if we ditched government FD's across the nation I can see how it would be very possible.  But politically that would never happen.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Well, at least now I know

Well, at least now I know what your conception of audacity is I guess. It's not embarrassing to you. You seem to be pretty unapologetic in your defense of the approach, but there aren't articles in the associated press about how you let a house burn down. So to them it is an embarrassment.

Not to be condescending here but fire shows no deference to property rights no matter how low your tax rate is. You want to defend this idea that a fire is a personal issue but how would you know if there was no danger of the fire spreading when the fire department according to the AP didn't respond to even assess the situation for over two hours?

This whole idea about a property tax holocaust where people lose their homes seems overblown. Haven't they heard of concepts like revaluation and tax exemption yet where you live? To paint it as some situation where organized thieves steal property through taxation, when the money is being used to provide vital services to me seems like hyperbole.

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Gauche wrote:An imposed

Gauche wrote:

An imposed financial charge is a tax.

  

If the authority takes wealth without returning something of near equal value to the payer, this is a destructive tax. In the long run, it is destructive. If they charge a toll on the people that use a road to pay for it's maintenance, it is a user fee and it is not destructive because it does not create moral hazards.

Gauche wrote:

I think that's somewhat of an oversimplification. If that's the case then why are so many businesses located in the US where corporate tax rates are high, why don't they relocate to Uzbekistan?

  

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/Uzbekistan/Uzbek.html

"But perhaps the most pressing problem of Uzbekistan is tribalism and the mafia. The latter has created a network that controls almost every facet of life. Even registration at a school or college has become a task, needing dollars to accomplish. Travelers in transit are stopped and fined by officials who refuse to issue a ticket for the fine they receive."

So I disagree that Uzbekistan has a lower tax rate. The bottom line is your going to be shaken down by the mafia just like the IRS in the USA. Men with guns are going to demand you pay for stuff you don't want or need here and there.

They are moving overseas, to the country with the least shakedowns. Business has moved out of high tax states like CA.

Also the USA tax code has a lot of tax breaks for corporations so the real rate is comparable to other countries.

Gauche wrote:

If there was free coffee in your office you might drink more coffee, in that way maybe there are moral hazards.

  

But that is an economic calculation. Companies believe they will get more productivity out of you by providing coffee.  Companies don't provide cots for you to sleep on when you're tired.

Gauche wrote:

 If I did run a successful insurance company and I raised co-payment levels to avoid so called moral hazard it might make me more successful but it wouldn't cause my customers to use health care more efficiently. When people have to pay more they just use less whether that use is frivolous or useful. The consumption of health care and emergency services isn't comparable to the consumption of coffee though so the idea is really quite absurd in this context.

It is absurd to require everyone that may require the use of emergency services to have insurance to pay for it? Is it better then to have the government go broke then have to shut down fire/ambulance stations?

The reason they had to start imposing fees was because in first place is because the government is broke. If they raise taxes, they would drive business and jobs away. So what other solution is there except to stop subsidizing these people and their dogs and make them prepay based on the risk? They got money to feed dogs so why can't they be force to pay?

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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EXC wrote:If the authority

EXC wrote:

If the authority takes wealth without returning something of near equal value to the payer, this is a destructive tax. In the long run, it is destructive. If they charge a toll on the people that use a road to pay for it's maintenance, it is a user fee and it is not destructive because it does not create moral hazards.

  

So it's not about how much you pay it's about what you receive in return. I lived in France where the tax rate is very high but the amount of social benefits you receive is also very high. Your problem is that not enough people might use that road or the bridge or the park or the fire department and those things fall into disrepair because you charged à la carte fees acting as if they are not interlocking parts of one community.

EXC wrote:

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/Uzbekistan/Uzbek.html

"But perhaps the most pressing problem of Uzbekistan is tribalism and the mafia. The latter has created a network that controls almost every facet of life. Even registration at a school or college has become a task, needing dollars to accomplish. Travelers in transit are stopped and fined by officials who refuse to issue a ticket for the fine they receive."

So I disagree that Uzbekistan has a lower tax rate. The bottom line is your going to be shaken down by the mafia just like the IRS in the USA. Men with guns are going to demand you pay for stuff you don't want or need here and there.

They are moving overseas, to the country with the least shakedowns. Business has moved out of high tax states like CA.

Also the USA tax code has a lot of tax breaks for corporations so the real rate is comparable to other countries.

  

You're just assuming that mafia shakedowns are costly enough to offset the much lower corporate tax rate and you're ignoring that if they taxed people for public services that might not happen in the first place. When in truth the Uzbekistanian mafia would likely accept much less than the IRS. Also you insist businesses are moving to avoid the tax rate which you then say is comparable to other countries.

EXC wrote:

But that is an economic calculation. Companies believe they will get more productivity out of you by providing coffee.  Companies don't provide cots for you to sleep on when you're tired.

But you're completely missing the point of the coffee analogy. If you have free coffee (or cots) then according to this moral hazard theory you will use them more because you have unlimited coffee (or cot) insurance, but people don't consume health care and emergency services like they are coffee. People use those things reluctantly when they need them. Why do you think rich people check into the hospital every weekend instead of going on vacation or playing golf? Because they don't. Because the idea is ridiculous.

Only in the US would people obsess over a crazy idea like that. I mean if the fire department doesn't stand by and callously watch someones property burn then I suppose people will start to mow their lawns with fire and wash their dishes with fire.

There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft


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Gauche wrote:So it's not

Gauche wrote:

So it's not about how much you pay it's about what you receive in return. I lived in France where the tax rate is very high but the amount of social benefits you receive is also very high.

  

So what you're saying is it was more like user fees than taxes, which I'm fine with. The problem is people can game the system. They can have large religious families, get welfare benefits or a low wage job that pays no taxes. Then use free services such as fire, police and parks. That is why Islam is going to take over France, financed by this irrational system of subsidies.

Gauche wrote:
 Your problem is that not enough people might use that road or the bridge or the park or the fire department and those things fall into disrepair because you charged à la carte fees acting as if they are not interlocking parts of one community.  

Then why don't supermarkets "fall into disrepair because you charged à la carte fees "?

In California, these things fell into disrepair because the government is broke and can't raise taxes without driving business and jobs away. So they have no choice but user fees for parks and other government services.

Gauche wrote:

You're just assuming that mafia shakedowns are costly enough to offset the much lower corporate tax rate and you're ignoring that if they taxed people for public services that might not happen in the first place. When in truth the Uzbekistanian mafia would likely accept much less than the IRS. Also you insist businesses are moving to avoid the tax rate which you then say is comparable to other countries.

It just a cold hard calculation companies make. Are we going to be more profitable here than there. In some cases yes in some cases no. With technology making the world a small place, for a lot of companies it just comes down to wages, taxes and available infrastructure. Certainly a lot of business has left because their is no correlation between taxes paid and benefits received. Certainly it will be worse if people believe in this alternate reality of yours rather than the cold hard facts of a competitive world.

Gauche wrote:

But you're completely missing the point of the coffee analogy. If you have free coffee (or cots) then according to this moral hazard theory you will use them more because you have unlimited coffee (or cot) insurance, but people don't consume health care and emergency services like they are coffee. People use those things reluctantly when they need them. Why do you think rich people check into the hospital every weekend instead of going on vacation or playing golf? Because they don't. Because the idea is ridiculous.

The analogy is if the company tells you when you tired you can just sleep on the cot and get paid the same as working, the company will be out of business in a competitive economy. The problem is if you tell people they don't have to pay for their emegency services, they won't. And the few that do will move away.

Gauche wrote:

Only in the US would people obsess over a crazy idea like that. I mean if the fire department doesn't stand by and callously watch someones property burn then I suppose people will start to mow their lawns with fire and wash their dishes with fire.

Again, I'm not in favor of the current situation. They should be forced to pre-pay or else not own property.

But your solution is worse because long term the fire stations have to close because the state goes bankrupt from high taxes and subsidies. There must be a high correlation between fees paid and benefits received or it is unsustainable.

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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Both of you can have the

Both of you can have the last word on this free rider exclusion from public good issue. I can agree to disagree on this subject.

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Gauche wrote:This whole idea

Gauche wrote:


This whole idea about a property tax holocaust where people lose their homes seems overblown. Haven't they heard of concepts like revaluation and tax exemption yet where you live? To paint it as some situation where organized thieves steal property through taxation, when the money is being used to provide vital services to me seems like hyperbole.

 

I work as a property tax assessor and I see it happen. The problem is that taxes are not based on the value of your land when you bought it but is based on the current sale value of the property. Sure, in some counties the elderly get a whopping 15% discount. So what. When your homes value is 300% higher a 15% discount doesn't make a big difference. My only point is that it happens a lot more than most people think because it is never reported in the national news and usually they sell their house before being legally forced out. But I have personally seen cases where police forcibly removed people from their homes.

 

And I am quite limited to how far I can lowball a home value for someone who is struggling. Especially since all the information is readily available on the Internet. If I lowball one person their neighbors will call in to complain. I'm not saying the government is intentionally trying to steal property. But the end result in any neighborhood where property values and taxes rise quickly people are forced out of their homes. You have so much sympathy for someone who consciously made a decision and knowingly took a risk. But what about those who just happened to buy a house in the wrong area 30 years ago? The end result is the same for both, the only difference is one made a decision the other didn't.

 

The whole idea that half the houses are going to burn down seems overblown. This counties policy isn't new and it is hardly the only county in these rural areas that have it. Again, as I said before, there might be perfectly legitimate reasons not to pay the $75. A lot of these houses are not worth much to start with and reaction for the FD in the best case scenario probably makes it impossible to save the house in many cases anyway. If you have a 2 bedroom house that burns and you lose a whole bedroom before the FD can put it out you probably need to tear down and replace the house anyway. A small house just can't survive even a small fire if the FD is 1/2 hour + away. 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X