<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#009999">To me this is like the tiwlight zone. Firefighters standing around watching a building burn to the ground. I mean the way I thought it works is you pay your taxes to the city or town and they pay the firefighters. I Never heard of this membership dues protection thing before. It is to much like mob style protection. Imagine if the police worked this way, as they stand around watching you get the crap kicked out of you because you never paid your police membership dues. Some things are just not meant to be privatized like this.</font>

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNew...446950-ap.html

[ 02-17-2006, 03:12 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

I didn't think anyone would ever try and privatise something like that! Isn't it one of the textbook examples of things that can never be privatised effectively?

That story really sucks though, can't help but feel for the owners of the garage.

[ 02-17-2006, 03:51 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

That's a lawsuit that seriously needs to be filed, I hate frivolous lawsuits, but letting property burn (and they specifically said they were only there in case the homes of "members" caught, not unfortunate neighbors who weren't members), something is seriously @%$*ed up

Yeah, you called it, pritchke. It's pretty close to mob stuff.

You'd think if they put out the fire, he would be grateful enough to pay his dues. As it is, now he will be resentful, if he ever pays them. I have to wonder if that non-payment-so-no-fire-protection stuff will affect his insurance too, because fire protection is a standard requirement for property insurance (if it isn't there, it counts as a change in the risk, which if unreported is grounds for the insurance company not to pay up). Therefore, he may not have money to pay those dues because he'll be trying to replace property that the insurance company won't pay for.

You know, I really have to wonder if something else was going on there. The name of the owner sounds foreign - Bibaldo Rueda. Maybe they don't want "his kind" around in rural Missouri.

While I won't comment on the "race" thing, I will say this is disgusting. Unless this man doesn't pay taxes and takes potshots at passing Policemen and Firefighters, they should have done something.

I'm strangely reminded of the fire scene in the early part of Gangs of New York. How much we're regressing is incredible.