What's wrong on a moral level about this story is that the homeowners refused to pay for the fire department, decided to live on unincorporated land, and then expected the firemen to risk their lives to save property -- not to save lives, just to save property.
We can't have a functioning society if people who opt out of paying for it demand to benefit from it anyway. If people could get away with that, nobody would pay for the fire department and it wouldn't exist. By caving in this situation, the fire department would have signaled to everyone else that it's ok to not pay.
Maybe the tax that supports the fire department ought to be mandatory? Sure, that is how it works almost everywhere in the US. People who live in places where that is not the case are doing so on purpose, and they would vote against changing it.
Want to live in the middle of nowhere and depend on the government for little or nothing? Go for it, but don't complain when you want the government's help. Want to live in a city with a lot of government services? You can do that too. At least people have a choice.
In the last year you failed to aid Ukraine in their war against Russia, failing to even provide weapons that you’d agreed to provide (but only agreeing after terms had been reached to make sure you got paid something). https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/16/ukraine-slams-germany-for-fa...
And that’s just on the continent in the last 20 years. If we were to go back to say around 1945 I’m sure we could find a couple more instances of Europeans being not so helpful.
I think it’s fair to compare only intranational affairs with other intranational affairs, as correct as you may be to point out the shortcomings. But these are apples to orange comparisons.
The public transit point is fair, but my understanding is that that is due to the right wing government, which is also the root problem in America.
We can't have a functioning society if people who opt out of paying for it demand to benefit from it anyway. If people could get away with that, nobody would pay for the fire department and it wouldn't exist. By caving in this situation, the fire department would have signaled to everyone else that it's ok to not pay.
Maybe the tax that supports the fire department ought to be mandatory? Sure, that is how it works almost everywhere in the US. People who live in places where that is not the case are doing so on purpose, and they would vote against changing it.
Want to live in the middle of nowhere and depend on the government for little or nothing? Go for it, but don't complain when you want the government's help. Want to live in a city with a lot of government services? You can do that too. At least people have a choice.