What would you do?

You’re a firefighter and the department gets a call to a housefire at a distant farm. The home is in an area without services, but owners can pay an annual fee for protection, a sort of fire insurance. Oops. The owners of the house on fire didn’t pay the fee.

The fire department allowed the house to burn.

It isn’t a case of wishing ill on a family – losing their house and possessions in Obion County Tennessee – but there are a lot of issues at work. The family home is something special, almost sacred. Should it have been allowed to burn? Should firefighters go to work even though the homeowner declined to participate in the very program that could have saved their residence?

Why didn’t they pay their fee? Did they really forget, as they later claimed, or were they like some who believe themselves immune to tragedy? Couldn’t afford it? Everyone’s in a hurry to pay the bill when the power gets cut off. Is the power company being unethical to turn off the lights? If a doctor gets sued for malpractice, can he or she run over to the agency and quickly buy an insurance policy?

We know it doesn’t work that way.

When steam is rolling up from the radiator and the front end is crushed, it’s too late to change insurance policies. You either have it, or you don’t. Do you get mad at Allstate because they won’t pay, simply because you didn’t mail in a check?

It’s confusing, to say the least. We don’t want big government, but when something touches us personally, we want the services the government provides, a firetruck instead of a garden hose. Homeowners in Tennessee are planning a vote to decide whether a majority wants rural fire service, but if it gets voted in, it won’t be cheap.

And homeowners will have to pay for it, one way or another. In the meantime, there are fire sales on garden hoses…