Peace sign up, index finger down

Too poor to pay taxes? Burn, useless prole.

green-street-politics:

hearshotkiddisaster:

green-street-politics:

hearshotkiddisaster:

jonathan-cunningham:

Home burns while firefighters watch, again

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.

Well, it took long enough, but our government has finally devolved into the same environment that lead Marcus Crassus to his wealth. Countdown until we ~~start letting the poor die when they can’t afford healthcare~~. Whoops, I mean countdown until ~~Police don’t have to answer calls from poor people~~. Whoops, I mean countdown until ~~poor people get arrested for sending their kids to well funded schools~~.

Well, damn. I’d like to write a ridiculous, hyperbolic sentence about the next step in our disenfranchisement of the poor, but I can’t even top reality.

So by choosing not to pay, the homeowners chose to not have fire protection. Services like that cost money. If this has happened so many times before, the family must have known the risk they were taking by not paying the fee. $75 / $6.25 a month is really not that expensive. Yes, it’s terrible that their house burnt down, but the family had to have known what they were getting themselves into by not coughing up the cash.

Okay.

$75 / $6.25 a month is really not that expensive.

It might be chump change to you, but for some people it is the difference between having shelter or heating or cooling or transportation or food or education.

Yes, services like that cost money. Tax money. They are paid for by TAX MONEY. Not special poor-people fees.

Maybe for some people $75 might be the difference for any of those things. But if we’re playing that game then it could also be that the homeowners bought cigarettes every month and wasted money on that instead of paying the fee. It could be either. Neither of us can know the exact conditions.

Also, you have two areas here; the city of South Fulton and the unincorporated areas of Obion County, where the fire happened. The people living in South Fulton pay taxes and part of those go to the fire department, yeah. The county taxpayers do not fund the fire department. Two different sets of taxpayers funding two separate governing bodies. Yet the people of Obion County can choose to pay the fee of $75 to have the fire department provide services to them. The city is under no obligation to help the citizens outside of their coverage area. They’re doing it as a favor and only asking for a small amount.

If they were under no obligation to help them, why were the firefighters sent out there at all?

I honestly don’t know. Actually, that was the thing I thought was stupid about the whole ordeal. The fact that they were sent out there in the first place to do nothing.

If they’re paid by the poor’s tax dollars (the rich aren’t taxed as much), than isn’t it their job to put it out? Can’t the people sue the city for not only fucking up these people’s lives, but charging a fee for service that they already technically paid for through taxes?

Source: jonathan-cunningham