Libertarianism In Action — Obion County, TN

[Serafina]

However, if you live in the rural county, you have no fire service whatsoever.

And that's the actual problem here.
If the rural county can't provide a fire service on it's own (tough i am pretty sure it could, our rural areas manage that, too) - then it has to outsource it. That's fine - but doing so on a basis of individual responsiblity is stupid - because firefighting is not just an individual, but a communal benefit.
If they have to outsource it - raise taxes in that county and use them to pay the fire departments of whoever provides that service to you. That should be a no-brainer, you do that with other services as well.

And that's why i think the thread title IS accurate - because that "individual resposiblity"-idiocy (which is strongly linked to libertarianism) is at least partially responsible for this clusterfuck.

[Simon_Jester]

[Agrees with Serafina]

This cannot be stressed highly enough. Letting these kinds of fires burn, for any reason (especially when they can be contained by people who have already shown up) is stupefyingly insane. Everyone else on the block can be paid up, but all it takes is for some flying embers carried by the winds and suddenly Unpaid Fire Victim's fire has spread. Fire doesn't respect property boundaries.

It is even more stupefyingly insane for a fire department to be obligated to provide free service outside its area of responsibility at the expense of the people in the area of responsibility who actually pay for it.

The problem is that from what FST just said, the paying customers in the area were placed at risk by their refusal to extinguish the non-paying house.

If they have to bill someone after the fact, fine. If they have to up their rates, by adding "uninsured fire-ist coverage" analogous to uninsured motorist coverage, fine. But if they sit there and watch one house burn down when that endangers the property of paying customers, at that point they're not doing what the paying customers are paying them to do.

[xammer99]

Wow, this is quite interesting to read all this from the perspective of having grown up there and seeing all these very venomous and rabid comments from outsiders who haven't seen things first hand. So, a couple of points.

1. It's "So. Fulton" in writing, not "South Fulton" =) and for those wanting to pronounce it, it's "Sow Fulton" not "South Fulton".

2. So. Fulton is a very small town, under 2000 people and falling, and outside of Union City, the county itself is quite sparsely populated. So regarding the earlier comment, yes, there isn't the tax base to support a county fire department.

3. Last I heard there was all of 1 functioning firetruck in the So. Fulton.

4. The reason county residents get charged the $75 fee is because Obion is a big damn county where few residents live on roads that are easily passable by such sizable equipment. I'm talkin roads that you pull off on to the side to let another vehicle pass and with lots of hard angles to'em because they follow field lines. In other words, getting a pump truck back there is a major endeavor that will leave the rest of Obion and South Fulton Vulnerable AND endanger the truck itself.

That's why the county residents paid the extra $75 fee, its not some Libertarian thing, its because they live in BFE and it's a serious pain in the damn ass to get too.

5. The Unemployment rate is through the roof there, and was even before the current ecnomic mess, so the funding to replace equipment isn't exactly in ready supply. So the losing a truck was a very central issue to the Fire Chief who made the call.

6. The FD force is volunteers and those Firefighters who did respond would have done so in their own personal vehicles, not in the pump truck.

7. Regarding the neighborhood being endanger. HAHAHA, there aren't neighborhoods in the county, there might be a clustering of houses, but we're talking scores of yards inbetween houses at minimum and more like a mile or more if it's outside of So. Fulton proper. So losin a neighbors house isn't that huge a concern, plus it's a very wet area (being near the confluance of 2 major rivers, so field fires aren't huge concerns)

So sorry guys, this isn't a Libertarian thing or a political thing. This is just the economic reality of a damn poor county and "city". Mr. Cranik didn't wanna pay for the service and that was his unfortunate choice. If he is who I think he is (and I'm pretty sure I know him), he was was a decent old guy, just cheap and who'd refused to pay this fee for decades.

[Simon_Jester]

To be honest, in a case like that the fire department should be permitted to accept the offer of an up-front fee for putting out the fire, and if a reasonable fee is offered they should do it. If they've already answered the call, then the risk to their truck and the difficulty of getting it out to the site are already sunk costs, after all.

I recognize that the houses are going to be very far apart, but house fires can and do spread over large areas under some conditions, and I for one would be quite alarmed to discover that the firefighters here to save my house as a paying subscriber were going to let a house-sized bonfire burn itself out on the next lot without doing anything about it, even if said next lot was a hundred yards away.

[Kanastrous]

Why "sow" Fulton? Traditional regional dialect, or is the place famous for someone once having lost a sow there...?

[xammer99]

Why "sow" Fulton? Traditional regional dialect, or is the place famous for someone once having lost a sow there...?

It's a total regional dialect thing.

[JCady]

2. So. Fulton is a very small town, under 2000 people and falling, and outside of Union City, the county itself is quite sparsely populated. So regarding the earlier comment, yes, there isn't the tax base to support a county fire department.

3. Last I heard there was all of 1 functioning firetruck in the So. Fulton.

When was the last you heard? A 18 March 2008 presentation to the Obion County government attributes a total of 2 engines, 1 tanker, 1 service truck, and 1 brush truck to So. Fulton, making it one of the biggest volunteer departments in the county.

[JCady]

No fire department is legally obligated to respond to any calls in your area; your fire department consists of the neighbours with buckets like it was still 1750 CE. That is how primitive, barbaric, and lolbertarian the people running Obion County, Tennessee are.

Technically speaking, the Obion County Fire Department is responsible. . . however, the OCFD exists only on paper and has a grand total of zero fire stations, zero fire trucks, and zero firefighters. Obion County passed a resolution establishing a county Fire Department back in 1987, but have never provided any budget allocation for it.

[Temujin]

Wait a minute? They lost all their possessions along with their pets? Basically the fire fighters are now accessory to animal murder.

I don't think there's such a crime as 'animal murder.'

At least, I haven't succeeded in finding it on anyone's books...

That's the problem, there should be in some fashion. Then maybe we'd see less incidents of outright animal cruelty.

Anyway, I'm starting to think that with all the problems local communities are having keeping essential services running, than maybe they should be directly subsidized by the Federal government. If the economy gets any worse it's gonna be a disaster for some communities. Of course the usual suspects will cry that this is big gubermint communism; well, fuck'em!

[Phantasee]

I don't see how your "fuck'em" attitude helps you any when you're already on the fringes of the left of a right-leaning country.

[Broomstick]

I'm of the opinion that the idea of fire fighters responding only to emergencies inside their own geographic area is insane.

That's the majority opinion in the United States, too. In the west it's routine for firefighting teams to travel across state lines (not to mention county lines) to provide support in fighting large fires.

A recent blaze in Boulder had 800 firefighters from 20 different states. Refusing to provide firefighting service unless you pay some sort of fee is clearly the exception. Not the norm.

I chime in again that this case is not the norm in my area, either - city fire departments routinely cross municipal and even state lines, and respond to non-fire emergencies as well.

Of course, in this area local governments also fund their emergency services. And government units too small to fund their own departments will contract with others that do, so "subscription fees" are paid through local taxes and everyone is covered.

There's just no national obligation to provide fire service. I think, for a long time, the need was so self-evident that there was no need to write this into law, it's the recent extremist bullshit combined with the crashing economy that's leading to this sort of thing happening outside of the more remote/wilderness areas.

Gotta remember, the US is huge and there's a lot of variation. We've got places in the 21st Century and places in the 1800's third world.

[Broomstick]

The one time I resided briefly in the south in Georgia there was the same sort of mix, in my impression, of well-to-do professional families wanting to get out of the city and then the old time residents were dirt poor and little different from subsistence farmers, so I didn't see much difference. I was generously assuming these people actually farmed on more than a limited show/boutique level like the region I grew up in did (though it was hilly enough to have an excuse). The obvious answer would be to apply a local income tax on the rich families to provide basic emergency services for the entire county, but of course it's the south so god forbid that happen.

Based on my experiences in Tennessee - which, admittedly, were on the eastern half the state and this story takes place on the western side - MOST of the rural folks were dirt poor. Their families had held the land for generations but they themselves had little wealth outside the real estate itself, and often the land had been subdivided over generations so while an extended family might own an entire mountain (Clinch Mountain, White Mountain, etc.) the individual family units did not hold much land individually. There are some rich bastards living on mountain tops, but I suspect that's a less common than out west.

On top of that - if I recall correctly Tennessee prides itself on having NO income tax of any sort (except Federal, of course). This has a lot to do with why rural areas lack infrastructure to a degree many outsiders find simply appalling.

[Broomstick]

However, if you live in the rural county, you have no fire service whatsoever.

And that's the actual problem here.
If the rural county can't provide a fire service on it's own (tough i am pretty sure it could, our rural areas manage that, too) - then it has to outsource it. That's fine - but doing so on a basis of individual responsiblity is stupid - because firefighting is not just an individual, but a communal benefit.

While I agree with the communal benefit angle (as do most Americans, which is why elsewhere in the country fire coverage is funded differently - consider that if this wasn't unusual it wouldn't be news) our rural areas tend to be more sparsely populated than rural areas in Europe. It's not such a bad situation in the East (where Tennessee is located) but there are parts of the US that make the backwoods of Finland, one of the least densely populated countries in Europe, look downright crowded.

If they have to outsource it - raise taxes in that county and use them to pay the fire departments of whoever provides that service to you. That should be a no-brainer, you do that with other services as well.

It wouldn't be surprising if Obion county had no local taxes - as I mentioned, Tennessee prides itself on the scarcity of taxes without making the connection that the lack is part of the reason it's not unheard of for rural homesteads in that state to still have latrines instead of flush toilets. This tendency is worst in the mountainous areas of the state, but it happens everywhere in rural Tennessee.

How is local government funded? Fees, mostly - and often it's barely funded at all.

And that's why i think the thread title IS accurate - because that "individual resposiblity"-idiocy (which is strongly linked to libertarianism) is at least partially responsible for this clusterfuck.

Agreed.

There has always been a streak of this sort of individualism-taken-to-stupid-extremes in the rural south, it's just been getting worse lately.

[The Dark]

Technically speaking, the Obion County Fire Department is responsible. . . however, the OCFD exists only on paper and has a grand total of zero fire stations, zero fire trucks, and zero firefighters. Obion County passed a resolution establishing a county Fire Department back in 1987, but have never provided any budget allocation for it.

There no longer is an OCFD. The county commission rescinded that resolution in January of 2009.

Interestingly enough, Union City, South Fulton, and Kenton charge a subscription for rural service. Hornbeak, Obion, Rives, Samburg, and Troy do not. Three fire departments from outside Obion County (Ridgley, Trimble, and Sedonia) also provide coverage to rural areas not near the eight municipal fire departments in Obion County.

Also, from a report by the fire departments in 2008: "All fire departments in Obion County charge a $500.00 fee per call in rural areas."

South Fulton's also not ridiculously overloaded. They have 30 calls per year within city limits, and 23 per year in rural areas. That's barely over one call per week. They also have the newest station in the county, built in 2003, and have more vehicles than any other department except Union City, which has five times their population, twenty-three times as many calls, and only twice as many vehicles.

Did the owner fuck up by not paying the subscription fee? Yes. Is the administration of the city of South Fulton a bunch of fucking douchebags for refusing to put out the fire despite the fact that they charge a fee per call in rural areas? Yes.

It wouldn't be surprising if Obion county had no local taxes

I looked it up, out of curiosity. Obion County has a $1.95 millage rate, or $1.95 in taxes per $1,000 in property value. The various cities add on another $0.65 to $2.10 in millage rates, and Kenton has a $0.40 millage fire tax. Those are incredibly low. My millage rate in Florida is a combined $8.5672 for county, fire, and sheriff (and I don't live in a city). The highest millage in Obion County is $3.7761.

[JCady]

I chime in again that this case is not the norm in my area, either - city fire departments routinely cross municipal and even state lines, and respond to non-fire emergencies as well.

That sort of out-of-jurisdiction service is based on mutual aid contracts signed between the various fire departments (usually as region-wide or even state-wide package deals), which Obion County is not eligible to participate because it has no fire service at all and is therefore totally incapable of contributing towards *mutual* aid.

[Thanas]

This makes me think of Ancient Rome. They also had private companies offering "fire insurance." And at least one very wealthy Roman made his money by bringing his fire company to the scene, and then offering to buy the building off the owner. If the builder would sell, for a fairly low price of course, the wealthy Roman would put the fire out of his newly acquired property. If the owner wouldn't sell, this wealthy Roman would just sit and watch it burn, his fire crew at his side, thus leaving the owner with nothing. Naturally the owners generally sold, at least recouping part of their loss, and this one Roman became a very wealthy man.

Of course, that situation lead to the state forming public fire brigades, the cohortes vigiles.



*************


Back on topic:
I really, really find it hard to be sympathetic for the fire department when it turns out the guy had paid for several years and just forgot this year. That is completely unforgivable behavior right here.

[Serafina]

I really, really find it hard to be sympathetic for the fire department when it turns out the guy had paid for several years and just forgot this year. That is completely unforgivable behavior right here.

He did? I totally overlooked that. It doesn't change what's actually wrong with this situation (the government being utterly incompetent), but you are right - that DOES make the fire department look really assholish.
Oh, and it also reinforces my point about this retarded worship of "personal responsibility".

[Kanastrous]

Oh, and it also reinforces my point about this retarded worship of "personal responsibility".

Framing as much as possible of what I do in terms of handling things as personal responsibilities has worked out very well indeed for me, and seeing as I'm not unusually smart, attractive, well-bred, etc and have not inherited anything I suspect that it could be made to work well for others, too...I guess one consolation re: retarded-ness is that it can certainly line your pockets. Makes the retardation seem almost worthwhile.

So, what would happen if I had made payments on, say, my homeowner's insurance policy for some years, then missed a payment. Should the insurer have an obligation to maintain my coverage, since I paid premiums for years and just happened to (terminate the contract by) missing the last one?

[Serafina]

If you screw up on your homeowners insurance, your life is generally not in danger and only your own property is.
In this case, lifes could have been in danger, including others, as well as the propery of others.
Thus, it becomes public responsiblity. That doesn't remove personal responsiblity, but forgetting about public responsiblity (which is what i am critizising) is not a good thing.

[Kanastrous]

The firefighters *did* come to ensure that properties in the area around the burning one were safe.

What about the owner's responsibility to do his assigned part in supporting the resources required to handle that 'public responsibility?' We can endlessly circle how the county or state *should* have arranged their system, how they *ought* to pay for it, or what the national policy *ideally* would be, but let's take this just strictly in terms of the realities on the ground for this specific event: the property owner had a painfully-clearly-delineated responsibility to pay the requisite fees, for whatever reason did not, and therefore did not receive the service for which he did not pay. His neighbors' properties were protected because they undertook to fulfill their responsibilities under the existing arrangement there.

The public responsibility exists when the public in the area under discussion assumes that responsibility. The public - that is to say, the people in this particular area did not, apparently for pretty compelling financial reasons. So the responsibility for coverage devolved upon individuals, and this individual alas did not hold up his end of the deal.

[Mr Bean]

The firefighters *did* come to ensure that properties in the area around the burning one were safe..

Except you know, the proper way to do that would have been to put out the fire, Not to wait until the nearby lands which were insured were also on fire. This situation was one good gust of wind on a dry day from catching everything on fire.

That's the whole point of universal fire protection. Fire on your land won't stay on your land.... It's fire, it will spread until it has no other fuel source. The Firefighters apparently skipped day 1 of Firefighter training when they told you "hey idiots, fire spreads, put out every fire you can or your going to have... more fire!"

Note the neighbors land WAS damaged because they did not put out the fire on the first guy's property. The damage was not much but there was still damage because the Firefighters let it happen.

Think about that Kanastrous, how easy of a time would this fire department have if they let a building downtown burn into a giant blaze then tried to fight the blaze as it scattered embers over a quarter mile area? That's the issue Kanastrous. Morally it's bad, by firefighter ethics it's bad. And from a normal every day scientific how do we fight fires prospective it's also bad.

[Kanastrous]

Yes, I recognize the tension between this is your responsibility and fires spread. In this particular case I still find that I'm coming down more on the side of the FD, though.

While still thinking that the players on both sides were kind of foolish.

[Mr Bean]

Yes, I recognize the tension between this is your responsibility and fires spread. In this particular case I still find that I'm coming down more on the side of the FD, though.

Tell me Kanastrous. I don't know where you live so lets play hypothetical.
Your a home owner out in the country. The neighbor land next to you is not ensured, he's got a big of field of nice dry lets say corn next to your property. A similar situation erupts where the no 75$ field catches on fire, the Fire department shows up and does not fight the fire. As your standing there on your porch watching the firefighters NOT fight the fire as it creeps closer and closer to your house what's going to be going through your head? Sure you have insurance so they will fight the fire on your property... But as you sit there starting at the blaze won't you likely wonder how much exactly of your property are you going to lose as the only fight the fire on your property?

That was the cause of the property damage on the insured man's land FYI. The house fire kept tossing embers into his field because that fire was still burning so they had to keep putting out fresh fires....

[Kanastrous]

In this hypothetical I think that as a matter of policy I would keep tabs on whether my neighbor is paying his fee or not, and if not, I'd pay it for him. It's still cheap insurance, for my own property.

Without seeing a map I have no idea whether the fire or its embers were coming near the neighbor's actual structures, or not. A burned patch in a field does not impress me as a big deal in and of itself.

I guess that I have to reiterate that I don't find the FD blameless either, but I would lay blame starting at the point where they didn't adequately protect surrounding property, not at the point where they witheld service from a property owner who - unlike his neighbors - had not followed the local standard and paid his fees into the pot, for it.

It will be educational to see where - if anywhere - this goes in court, if someone decides to take it there.

[Thanas]

There also is the public duty. Fire brigades should not be run like a private business, as it should be the responsibility of the state in the first place. Thus, one could argue that by refusing to act, they deliberately chose to damage a member of the public by destroying his life vs the relatively small harm of not getting their dues.

The problem here is that the city apparently let them do both the collections and mete out punishment, instead of seperating the collection agency and the fire department. There was no need to let the house burn down, no need at all. If people want to argue that, they have to show there was no other effective rememdy to get the 75$ and how 75$ morally outweigh the value of destroying a house.