Re: Firefighters did the Christian thing in letting house burn to the ground

>> Nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it.  Firefighting is
>> dangerous and expensive.
>
> My understanding is that the firefighters were already there, correct?
> And protecting the neighbor's house? Which devastating expenses would
> have been incurred? That of so much extra water?

Yes.  Plus there's additional liability for one.  There's usage and
maintenance of equipment, and there is the additional costs of
firefighters putting their lives at risk.

Plus, it won't be just one fire.  If they do it for this fire, then they
have to do it for every similar fire.  More people will not pay their $75
but will just take the "free" risk of someone else lives and money.  (ha,
this is what the bankers do..they risk our money for their gain).  People
will have an economic incentive to not pay for this "free" service.

>> Should we add firefighting to the ever growing list of human rights?
>
> This kind of thinking, though, is what troubles me so very deeply
> about where we are. Forget about politics, or rights, or money, or
> legal responsibility. *What is the right thing to do?* On a human,
> moral level, what is the right thing to do?

To steal property from my neighbors to help save the property of another?

Bad things happen (especially to people that make bad decisions like this
homeowner)...that doesn't mean I have to do other bad things to make him
whole and not pay for his bad decision.

Plus, from a long term perspective, is it helping him to make it so he
doesn't pay for his bad decisions, but rather everyone else does?  Will he
make the right decision next time or will he assume he will get bailed out
again?  (see bankers again).  From a community approach, what will the
rest of the community learn?  I don't have to pay that...they will still
come save me.
Is that "helping" the community?

> It would appear we've legislated ourselves out of any sort of personal
> responsibility to our fellows, and in doing so provided a tidy cover
> for cowardice and selfishness.

Bullshit.  Stop using our own morality against us to justify your support
for stealing.  If you want to argue it is the lesser of 2 evils, then
fine, let's debate that.  But hurling moral insults of cowardice and
selfishness is not virtuous itself.  It is not wrong for someone to refuse
to steal from someone to give to someone else who was irresponsible. 
Especially when all we are talking about is property and not physical
harm.

> I don't want to make this a political issue, because I don't believe
> it *is* one,

I agree, it is an economic one.  But when you suggest that other's in
society should forcibly pay, you have made it a political one.

> so I'll designate this final comment as an explicit
> aside: Some people on the right like to talk about how the government
> shouldn't be using their money to better society, because it's up to
> the individual to do that. But a situation like this illustrates in a
> dramatic way that some of those people place the imaginary value of
> their money far and away over their incentive to help a brother out,
> and left to their own devices, it'll be dog eat dog, and survival of
> the fittest, just like it's always been.

Yes, it IS survival of the fittest.  You being "fit" enough to take from
my survival to let another survive doesn't change that.

regards,
-Lance


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