To Hose or Not to Hose...

ok guys/gals a few days ago there was a major news story that circulated on both liberal and conservative radio/tv shows. To sum up the story a fire department refused to hose a man's house that was burning because he hadn't paid the mandatory 75 dollar fire service fee in his county/city.
The man's house burned to the ground and he lost everything. A lot of tea party and conservative talk show pundits said it was the man's fault and he should have payed his fee and the fire department was right and refusing to save his house.
First things first- i want to point out that the man is an older gentleman who had worked all his life- so he's not some freeloader that is living off the government. The man stated that the miss fee was an over sight and that he told the fire department that he would pay the fee on the spot and his neighbor also told the fire department that he would pay the fee too. there were firemen willing to put out the fire but after calling the police chief- who was on a golf course by the way- the police chief said No- do not put water on the house.
What irks me about these right wing nut jobs is that they supposed to be so "religious" and have great values that see justification in knowing a man lost his home and precious items over a freaking 75 dollar bill that the man was willing to pay on the spot. Wow that is such a Christian thing to do conservatives. I am no expert of the Bible but I am almost positive that Jesus was helping/healing the sick and sinners anyway. i don't recall any verses in the Bible where Jesus said- you are not Holy so I am not healing you....
These kind of actions really make me weary of the Conservative movement- it's all a bunch of B.S- Hey I am not saying Dem's are perfect, but at least many of them were in support of this poor fellow. I understand the man's county has a 75 dollar fee, but there are times when you have to throw laws out the book and look at an individual as a human being FIRST!
In my years as a Pharmacist I have been in numerous situations where a patient has come to my Pharmacy without any refills remaining for a crucial medication that teats their asthma, Diabetes, Blood pressure or seizures and yes legally I could tell them- hey tough luck you don't have any refills remaining you are going to have to wait to Monday for the doctor to approve or you or going to have to go to the ER. legally i could have done and said those remarks and no harm on me or my Pharmacy license would have been placed, but as a human being I have always loaned them enough pills to last them until monday because I have compassion for my fellow human being and I don't want to see anyone needlessly suffer. If any of you think that it was ok for a man to lose his home over a 75 bill Shame on you!

A very bizarre story. Glen Beck said it was the homeowner's fault. Just doesn't represent the best of America and our values.

If you have a car accident and you did not pay for insurance would you be covered and expect your car to be fixed. To be willing to pay for fire coverage after your house is on fire is pretty conveinant. So in principle I can understand the position. What if everyone decided to wait until their house was on fire to pay. He how says it was an oversight, but there is evidence that he does not pay out of principle that he should have to it should be provided. The $75.00 dollars was important enough for him not to pay it, sometimes we make decisions that we later regret. The being said, I would have handled the situation different, I would have put out the fire and then charged him the fee, a penalty and the cost in man hours. Why this has become a political issue is stupid to me, because I know people on both sides of the isle who have feelings that are both for and against. Lets not turn this into a political shooting match. By the way who decides when to throw a law out, and which law's can be thrown out, is that left up to each individual? Where do we stop, has someone determined that its okay to throw out laws up to a certain level. Besides, it wasn't a law. It was a service, if you dont pay for a service you dont get the service. When you say that you give out medication even if there is not refills available. What criteria do you use to determine which medicine to give out, what if the doctor took them off that med but the customer thinks it makes them better and still wants to take it. Do you give out pain meds. And when you give these meds out without proper authorization do you charge the customer or there insurance company, or is it everyone else that should work for free. I am sorry for the mans loss, but he made the decision not to have fire coverage and his insurance should cover the home, if he did not have insurance thats the second dumb decision he made. Dont pass your moral judgements on others with your "shame on you comment".

I wonder how you came to the conclusion that conservatism is the fault. This was a fault of government which is certainly not the bailiwick of conservatives. I have a comparison between Obamacare and this sad situation. Obamacare wants us all to pay for health care even if we don't feel like we need it just like this town (the government) wants everyone OUTSIDE of town to pay a fee for for coverage whether think they need it or not. Now you can decide that you don't need the coverage as this homeowner did and you take your chances. When the time came that he needed help the town refused to do %^&*(**)( too sick to concentrate on this crap.

%^&*(**)( too sick to concentrate on this crap. Originally Posted by john_galt

No truer words have ever been spoken............

I can not fathom how any person could ever be more concerned with political/government/state/city/etc BULLSHIT, than to have the common decency to help a person in dire need! What in the flying fuck has this world become? Amazing how hardened and callused some people's heart can be. Something I will never understand. Truly disheartening!

Whether he paid for the mandatory $75 fire service fee or not is NOT the issue (as my eyes see it), the Fire is the Issue. Put the fucking thing out, then fine the hell out of the idiot who didn't pay the initial fees to begin with. So instead of what was originally a $75 now becomes $1,000 in fines, or what have you. Lesson learned. Next time you pay the $75 when you were supposed to.

Thank You KCFD!!! You Guys Rock!!!
P.S. I still giggle about how they all got in trouble for letting the strippers from Buns take their pics on one of their trucks a few years back LOL. Silliness

I can not fathom how any person could ever be more concerned with political/government/state/city/etc BULLSHIT, than to have the common decency to help a person in dire need! What in the flying fuck has this world become? Amazing how hardened and callused some people's heart can be. Something I will never understand. Truly disheartening!

Whether he paid for the mandatory $75 fire service fee or not is NOT the issue (as my eyes see it), the Fire is the Issue. Put the fucking thing out, then fine the hell out of the idiot who didn't pay the initial fees to begin with. So instead of what was originally a $75 now becomes $1,000 in fines, or what have you. Lesson learned. Next time you pay the $75 when you were supposed to.

Thank You KCFD!!! You Guys Rock!!!
P.S. I still giggle about how they all got in trouble for letting the strippers from Buns take their pics on one of their trucks a few years back LOL. Silliness Originally Posted by BottomlessFilth

The KCFD is paid for by the city. The fire department in this case is a county volunteer fire department. The are not paid by the city, they are paid by the invididuals who want service. Its not a callused heart to be paid for your services. The man made a decision not to pay, it was his choice not to pay, he knew the consequences involved with not paying, the problem here is that people believe they can make wrong decisions and then when it blows up in their face someone will bail them out. People need to learn that they have to live with their decisions, if they make bad ones they will pay a price for that. If you build a house in a well knows flood prone area and you are aware that the area floods, but you dont by flood insurance, thats a bad decision and you will pay when it rains.

PS the decision to put the fire out had nothing to do with politics, thats WD, trying to turn it into a polictical issue.

I'm not saying you aren't right. Yes you are 100% correct, people should pay for the stuff they want/need. I so agree with you.

I'm just saying take ALL of the circumstances surrounding that fire, and you still have a fire. Put the fucking thing out, then straighten everything else out later.

That's like some obese person going into the ER for a stroke, heart attack, whatever. The doctor says, "Well he should have been eating better and working out. Not been so overweight. That's all his fault. So let's just let him die."

Even though that person made bad health decisions, the good of humanity should still be somewhere inside people where they desire to help others in need no matter what. That's all I am talking about here...the good of humanity. Just saying it seems like that is missing these days. That's all I am saying.

Even if you put the fire out and fined him thousands of dollars, this guy strikes me as the type that would stiff the county on the $1000 fine as well. You can't get blood out of a stone.

Of course he would, LOL, but that is still beside the point of just doing a good deed for the sake of helping another LOL.

You are so right though. I'm sure he'd throw a tiff about having to pay $1,000 instead of only $75 like everyone else. He would bitch and moan about how he's been done unjustly for years to come LOL. You are hilarious!

I see it as some Mafia protection tactics. You pay or else. I agree he should have paid because it wasn't built into city taxes like most places, but still on principle just squirt the 5 dollars worth of water on it. Its almost like they were using him as an example of what happens when you don't pay them.

So what would have happened if the guy was trapped inside the burning house? Would they have let it burn then?

Refusal to put out this fire is no more a "conservative" value than refusing to pay taxes (such as Charles Rangel & John Kerry) is a "liberal" value. Please don't take extreme actions like this and attempt to paint all conservatives with the same brush. Many conservatives, even many who support what the fire department did in principle, would have put out the fire if they had been in charge. This is one isolated incident.

"First things first- i want to point out that the man is an older gentleman who had worked all his life- so he's not some freeloader that is living off the government. The man stated that the miss fee was an over sight and that he told the fire department that he would pay the fee on the spot and his neighbor also told the fire department that he would pay the fee too. there were firemen willing to put out the fire but after calling the police chief- who was on a golf course by the way- the police chief said No- do not put water on the house."

They should have put the fire out. That is really sad. And if the firemen were willing to put it out then they should have just done it and not even bothered to call anyone.

I'm back and feeling a little bit better. I think others have made the case I would have made about this not being about conservative vs liberal. It does remind me of a story that come out about 20 years ago about the future (circa 2040). An athletic young man is being chased by organ jackers and he gets his protection company on the vid phone. They replay that he has forgotten to pay his monthly protection fee and they cannot respond. He says he will credit the amount immediately and can they hurry to his location. As he is being taken apart we see the protection company say that they will be at his location as soon as his payment clears (this is before the age of internet accounting). So we see some foresight. Just interesting to me.

If you have a car accident and you did not pay for insurance would you be covered and expect your car to be fixed. To be willing to pay for fire coverage after your house is on fire is pretty conveinant. So in principle I can understand the position. What if everyone decided to wait until their house was on fire to pay. He how says it was an oversight, but there is evidence that he does not pay out of principle that he should have to it should be provided. The $75.00 dollars was important enough for him not to pay it, sometimes we make decisions that we later regret. The being said, I would have handled the situation different, I would have put out the fire and then charged him the fee, a penalty and the cost in man hours. Why this has become a political issue is stupid to me, because I know people on both sides of the isle who have feelings that are both for and against. Lets not turn this into a political shooting match. By the way who decides when to throw a law out, and which law's can be thrown out, is that left up to each individual? Where do we stop, has someone determined that its okay to throw out laws up to a certain level. Besides, it wasn't a law. It was a service, if you dont pay for a service you dont get the service. When you say that you give out medication even if there is not refills available. What criteria do you use to determine which medicine to give out, what if the doctor took them off that med but the customer thinks it makes them better and still wants to take it. Do you give out pain meds. And when you give these meds out without proper authorization do you charge the customer or there insurance company, or is it everyone else that should work for free. I am sorry for the mans loss, but he made the decision not to have fire coverage and his insurance should cover the home, if he did not have insurance thats the second dumb decision he made. Dont pass your moral judgements on others with your "shame on you comment". Originally Posted by dirty dog

Dirty Dog the analogy of the car insurance is different because it was "service" and he he has home insurance which was different from the "fire service" fee to put out his fire.
In my situation it's if the person is on a maintenance medication that if the person stops taking his/her med its more than likely that the person could be in danger. For example, if John Doe comes up and says I need a refill on my Viagra and he hasn't anymore refills- it would be hard for me to justify to the Board of Pharmacy on why I loaned him a Viagra. However, if someone needs an albuterol pump for their asthma I think I would be quite the ass if I told him/her no you need to wait until Monday because there's chances that the person would have to go to ER or God forbid die- yes it truly wouldn't be "my fault" since the person should have turned in their refill request earlier, but sheesh I do have a little compassion. how anyone can tell me he should have had coverage is IMHO heartless- we all make mistakes- and let's remember once again the man and his neighbor were going to pay on the spot- so in my opinion it was perhaps an oversight. So now you are telling me that even though the man and his neighbor were willing to pay on his spot that it's still tough luck? This is the reason why I don't trust the Republicans there motto has always been sink or swim.
Dirty Dog if we take that motto then the ER should refuse anyone who is admitted. i guess if someone is dying on the streets the paramedic better say- Do you have insurance? If the person says No- the paramedic should just let him/her die because by your rationale DD why should we save that person who has no insurance? I have to pay when I go to the ER- so let's just let the non insured die right on the spot it's only fair right? You know what as time goes on I am really beginning to like Obamacare!!!!
p.S: DD if has nothing to do with it then tell Beck and those other right wing nutjobs about rubbing it in making statements like he :got what he deserved" and this is the way the system supposed to work and we are not a socialist society etc. to this day there has only been 1 conservative who has spoken out and defended the guy- all the other ones from Rush to Hannity and Beck have made it their business to say this is how "government" should work- so don't blame me for making it a political issue!