Hey, remember a not-to-long time ago when a families home burned down as the firefighters stood there and did nothing because they didn't pay the tax for the fire service on their home? Well, this may seem like a repeat but I can assure you that this is a brand new incident..
Home burns while firefighters watch, again
OBION COUNTY, Tenn. — A local family watches their home burn to the ground and just a few feet behind them, firefighters watch, too.It's happened multiple times before in one local community: firefighters refuse to respond because the homeowner didn't pay a fire subscription fee.
The last time this happened, the city of South Fulton, Tennessee, received a lot of heat nationwide for this policy. That was more than a year ago but nothing has changed.
The mayor said it comes down to simple business. If they don't collect fire fees, the fire department can't survive and if they make exceptions to the rule, no one will ever pay the fee.
Besides that, he likes the "pay for spray" policy and said it's fair.
But that's hard to stomach when you've just lost your home and everything you've worked for.
"In an emergency, the first thing you think of, 'Call 9-1-1," homeowner Vicky Bell said.
Firefighters came out.Bell said, "9-1-1 said they were in fact dispatched and they showed that they were on the scene."
But once on the scene, they only watched.
"You could look out my mom's trailer and see the trucks sitting at a distance," Bell said.
For Bell, that sight was almost as disturbing as the fire itself.
"We just wished we could've gotten more out," Bell said.
It's a controversial policy that we've dealt with before. If you live in the city, you get fire protection but if not, you have to pay the $75 fire protection fee each year. With this policy, the city makes no exceptions.
"There's no way to go to every fire and keep up the manpower, the equipment, and just the funding for the fire department," Mayor David Crocker said.
And Crocker said by now, everyone should know about the city's fire policy.
"After the last situation, I would hope that everybody would be well aware of the rural fire fees, this time," Crocker said.
Bell and her boyfriend admitted they were aware but thought this would never happen to them.
For tonight, this hotel is home and they're happy be alive
No, but you see, if they put the fire out anyway no one would ever pay and then where would they get their funding from? Tax Dollars?! PFFT. Or.. you know, we could take it back to olden days when firefighters fought each other over who would put out the fire and take the reward.
One of my choice favorites in the quotes of the article is the following:
"There's no way to go to every fire and keep up the manpower, the equipment, and just the funding for the fire department," Mayor David Crocker said.*watches a house burn down*
America is pretty amazing that way... in the way that it's pretty horrible to the point that everyone here has stockholm syndrome and thinks it's the best place on earth. There's no other way to explaining how that best bit from all this happens to be that they're using the previous incident as justification for their actions in this one.
America owns in the sense that it has occupied and taken possession of your perceptions, like those fungi that make ants climb up to the highest point they can find and then explode so the spores spread further. We're just a few inches from exploding and spreading more spores. Oh, that's actually a real thing:
Anyhow, back to the fall of Rome. Future researchers will be able to learn exactly how horrible of people we are/were and it will be documented more rigorously than anything else. Think Rome if they didn't lose most of the documents to fires. We have all our crimes against humanity well placed in our harddrives and smart phones.
I hope to all that one day it'll be one of those rich people's homes. You know, because it makes you wonder what they would do if it was someone "important"? They're notorious for never paying taxes. Why would they ever want to pay a firetax?
Then again, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, at least that's what my crazy grandmother used to say in broken English.
I guess it's just a matter of if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. No. Seriously, get the fuck out because it's not like the fire department's going to help you or anything. Not unless you paid them their money.
Nice place there, sure would be a shame if somethin' happened to your-- oh, cool. Thanks for the payment.
I know I shouldn't, but just looking at the comment section is a battle between the personal responsibility team and the team that says "It would seem that the fire department and the county are acting like the Mafia, making people pay for the fire protection. Sounds a lot like extortion tactics to me."
Which is why there's a general rule that you should never read the comments section of anything.
I guess the real solution in all this is to make your house out of high clay content adobe. Then if a fire comes through, the worse you can expect is that the fire will just make your house even stronger. In this instance, I guess since the home is already burned down to the ground whether we like it or not, the real focus is on the inevitable legislative response to all of this. You know that shit is going to be great.
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