The Cranick family home burns down

As if you needed it, more news that will make you glad you don’t live in the land of the crazy, the USA.

In Obion county, rural Tennessee, you have to pay an annual $75 fee to be allowed to use local firefighting services. A family which had not paid the fee were horrified to see local firefighters watch their house burn down without doing anything.

Gene Cranick says he forgot to pay the fee. When his home caught fire last week, and he couldn’t contain it himself with a garden hose, he did the obviously sane thing to do, and called the emergency services. He got the insane response that because he hadn’t paid his fee they weren’t going to come.

The fire department did eventually show up when the Cranick’s neighbours, who had paid their fee, phoned worried about the fire spreading and destroying even more property. So the fire engines got to the scene, and protected the neighbours’ home. and then stood and watch the Cranick’s home burn down, with pets inside.

What’s even worse? Gene Cranick offered on the phone to pay the fee, and then desperately offered to cover any costs at all involved in saving his home. But the twisted conservative, free market ideology guiding the “pay to spray” policy means that this just wasn’t good enough. A lesson was intended to be drawn from this horrific incident: in a system where you have to pay for public services, if you can’t or won’t pay, then you won’t get them.

Surely you would think even US right wing nutcases can’t defend this madness? Surely this blatant violation of what being a firefighter is all about has been roundly condemned. Well, guess what? There’s never a new low to which the American right can’t sink.

In the right wing mag the National Review, a variety of the completely bonkers no-government anarcho-capitalist mentalists who shouldn’t have any influence over their own breakfast, nevermind a superpower, have been jumping at the chance to rub their hands with glee.

These crazies are positively delighted at the death of pets and a house burning down, because, just as it was intended, it sends a message to the world at large: a decent life and public safety are for those that can afford to stump up for it, screw the rest of you. Kevin Williamson (no relation to the former SSP member and Scottish blogger!) writes:

“The world is full of jerks, freeloaders, and ingrates — and the problems they create for themselves are their own. These free-riders have no more right to South Fulton’s firefighting services than people in Muleshoe, Texas, have to those of NYPD detectives.”

His pal Jonah Goldberg adds:

“Here’s the more important part of the story, letting the house burn — while, I admit sad [yes, you really come across like you give a shit] — will probably save more houses over the long haul. I know that if I opted out of the program before, I would be more likely to opt-in now. No solace to the homeowner . . . As Edmund Burke said, example is the school of mankind and he will learn from no other.”

These people have the same moral compass as Hannibal Lecter. but what should really scare us is that we have a government in the UK that’s ideologically committed to the same ideas as these bastards. The Conservatives here want the state to be like it is there, and their cuts are a calculated political move to try and turn Britain into the kind of non-public service hellhole much of the US has become. Fighting back against the Tories isn’t just about saving jobs and services, it’s about making sure we continue to live in a civilised society.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 7th, 2010 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.