This is Disgraceful!

Within the past couple of years reports have surfaced out of Tennessee describing two incidents of firemen standing by as homes burned because the homes occupants did not pay annual fees to the county for firefighting services.  It is acknowledged by this writer that firefighters and their organizations are locally developed and maintained under various systems whether they be volunteer or governmentally based.   And it is acknowledged that local governments and NGOs are increasingly stretched under budgeting concerns.  But it also true that all of these organizations throughout the US ascribe to national standards of organization and practices, and receive at least some money from county, state, and federal sources in order to maintain continuity of standardized, quality services, thereby protecting life and property.  It should follow that appropriate funding be made available from public sources to satisfy the operational needs of these organizations.

When funds which are derived from taxes are diverted away from the public good and are instead squandered on the endless wars of imperialism, and the ability of the rich to make themselves richer, or when the economic base of the country is undermined by gambling schemes initiated by large corporate banks for the sake of the few, and corporate stockholders, or when large multi-national corporations having bought our supposed elected officials, collude with them to destroy organized labor and send jobs overseas for the sake of their obscene profiteering, the people suffer and the state becomes corrupt.  Perversity reigns when the moneys which should be available for the health and welfare of our citizens, is instead found in the pockets of the few, but filthy rich.

 There is an incredible amount of wealth in this country, unfortunately we increasingly find it in the hands of those who live like parasites on the backs of those who must carry the burden.  Part of that burden, in this case, is the pain and heartache of watching ones home burn as those who have the ability to remedy the situation stand by and do nothing.

This is disgraceful! We have lost our sense of civility toward one another. We are so afraid that someone is going to get something they don't "deserve", that someone is going to get one up on us. What has become of the concept of civic duty?  We have become more concerned with profiteering, the imposition of morality and religiosity, than the extension of compassion and care of one another.

We can't continue along this path and consider ourselves a civilized nation.  For what purpose does a nation or a state serve but to act in accordance with the welfare of its citizens? Is providing fire protection services not a perfect example of how to support the greater good?

The conditions behind letting that home burn are in opposition to maintaining the greater good of our citizens, the original reasons for the establishment of this nation, and in fact, have become “destructive of these ends”.