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Forum: Internet Links Topic: Fees? started by: Leisher Posted by Leisher on Dec. 06 2011,13:54
Home owner: "Hello 9/11?"Dispatcher : "Yes, how can I help you?" Home owner: "My house is on fire. Please send help!" Dispatcher: "Of course, I'll dispatch the fire depart...oh wait. You haven't paid. < Go fuck yourself. >" Did I miss a memo where we no longer pay taxes and instead pay "fees" for the services we want? Posted by GORDON on Dec. 06 2011,14:04
We had a thread on this last time it happened.I was on the side of, "you don't pay for the service, you don't get the service." Posted by thibodeaux on Dec. 06 2011,14:05
That's how it goes in Libertopia. Did he have fire insurance?
Posted by GORDON on Dec. 06 2011,14:11
Again, last time this happened the fees were, IIRC, because peeps in that county voted to do it that way instead of having a blanket tax to cover the fire department.The article stated that if the fire department made an exception for one house that hadn't paid their fee, no one would ever again pay the fee. The fire department showed up for the fire anyway in case it started to spread to places that HAD paid their fee. If I didn't have house insurance and a tornado flattened it, I wouldn't expect the insurance company to pay me anyway since all my neighbors had house insurance. I don't see the difference here. My opinion is probably biased because I am the asshole who keeps up to date on all his insurances and never uses them, which makes me feel like a chump because I am going to die tens of thousands of dollars less rich because I always had all this insurance and never needed it. SO fuck everyone who doesn't keep up on insurance and wants paid anyway. Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 06 2011,15:37
For this sort of situation, where it's a quasi-governmental thing, the best position for the firefighters to take would be to fight the fire and then send the homeowners a bill for the expenses (which will inevitably be higher in total than paying the subscription fees would have been). If they don't pay the bill, send them to collections and don't fight any more fires on their land until they pay up.They can of course opt out by refusing to let you fight their fire if they don't want to have to be invoiced. That's their prerogative. But then you end up with the homeowner being the one to make the call to let it burn, which is a much better situation from a PR standpoint. In a libertarian world that sort of method of dealing with it wouldn't be necessary, but we don't live in that kind of world yet. Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 06 2011,16:50
Yeah, I like TPR's idea. If they want the fire fought, either pay beforehand, or afterwards.
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