Taxes are bad. Watching your house burn to the ground because of unpaid FEES, however, priceless. Get it? Fees aren't like taxes. They're different. Because poor people have to pay exactly as much as rich people, making the system "fair." And if fee-paying people have to sustain a little fire damage because the non-fee-paying people have fires burning out of control, hey, at least the fire department will put out that fee-paying person's fire.
As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, last week South Fulton Fire Department firefighters from Obion, Tennessee, stood by and watched as the Cranick family’s home burned down — which also led to the death of the family’s three dogs and a cat — because their fire-fighting services were available by subscription only, and the family had not paid the $75 fee. Immediately, right-wing writers at the conservative movement’s bulkhead magazine, The National Review, defended the county and argued that firefighting should not be a public service available to all, regardless of ability to pay.
Now, yet another major conservative has joined the defense. On his radio show this afternoon, leading right-wing talker Glenn Beck and his producer Pat Gray openly mocked the Cranick family. After playing a news clip explaining the situation, Gray adopted a southern drawl and began to mock Gene Cranick’s explanation of how the county’s firefighters refused to help his family.
