Welfare, Economy, Community and Law

This is going to address a number of subjects that have come up in the news recently, the inspiration of which came from a recent discussion I had with a few of my friends on Facebook. Recently, in the US, firefighters let a house burn down because the couple who owned the property had not paid the annual $75 fee in order to be covered by the local fire service. Whilst most people would object that this is a horrible outrageous thing to do, it is not so obvious. Although before I get into why, it is important to look at the specific case:
"Her grandson, Lance Cranick, 21, who lived there with her and her husband, started the fire while burning trash in a barrel. He went inside to take a shower and upon returning saw a shed next to the house in flames. It spread despite his efforts to put it out with a garden hose.

Paulette Cranick said they had paid the fee in the past, although sometimes late, but it slipped their mind this year."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gDfgMP_E0tdxWoStirdC9tycATygD9IML9VO0?docId=D9IML9VO0

In this case, the fire was a result of hideous gross incompetence on the part of the grandson, and a lesser but still egregious case of incompetence on the part of the grandparents. In this case, I firmly believe that the fire service SHOULD have helped them. The grandparents should have paid the up-front fee plus a fee for the call out, and the grandson should have face a serious fine, maybe even mild prosecution for such stupidity.

Let us look at the issues in more details. The defence of the fire service was that: a) the family had not paid their annual fee, and b) if people only paid the $75 just when there was a fire, they would not be able to afford to operate. Now, contrary to popular belief, these are actually reasonable and valid reasons, however, they only apply to specific cases. In the case of this fire, the family had previously paid the fee, they had forgotten this time. Therefore, they were not refusing to pay out of laziness, or another malicious reason. Therefore, the fire service were completely out of order for not turning up. Furthermore, it turns out that a neighbour called the service and had them firefighters put out the fire that had spread to their property. The firefighters did not put out the fire in the property because they were forbidden by the fire service they worked for. This brings up another issue that I shall discuss later.

The only way for the fire service to legitimately let the house burn was if the family were lazy, freeloaders who deliberately refused to pay the service. Why pay for a service when you can reap the benefits for free? The issue here is that, if you do not pay for a public service you should not expect to reap the benefits of that service. The same principle can be extended to car insurance health care/insurance. If people CHOOSE not to pay for these things, then, quite simply, they should not receive these services. Secondly, a fairly obvious criteria is, if nobody's lives were in danger. Then the people should have been heavily fined and received a prison sentence/community service for being lazy freeloaders. This brings up my point that state welfare should not be given to those who CHOOSE not to do anything to get themselves out of it, such as benefit thieves, chavs, et al., who COULD work, but CHOOSE not to, because it is easier to sponge off of the government. In California, people have been spending their welfare on luxury vacations, $200 trainers, massive TVs. Services like these are NOT basic rights, because, if implemented as such, then society would become bankrupt. Now, I do believe in welfare to those who truly need it, although I think that charity welfare is far more effective than state welfare.

However, another issue that this case brings up is the case of absurd legalism. I shall first reference another, more obvious case of what I mean:
"I think the Wall Street Journal makes some excellent points in favor of maximizing free speech in Snyder v. Phelps, and I’m almost with them. I’m not a free-speech fetishist in every realm of public life, but I am something of an absolutist when it comes to political speech. The founders didn’t intend to protect the rights of snuff-film makers and crush-video peddlers but they surely intended to protect the rights of political dissidents and the like.

All of that said, I guess I just can’t go all the way over to their side on this. Disrupting funerals for pretty much any reason is in bad taste. Making a mockery of the funerals of dead American servicemen is beyond disgusting. If ever there was a reasonable zone of privacy for families, such funerals are it. Why a locality can’t pass laws that respect that privacy is beyond me."
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/248913/free-speech-phelps-jonah-goldberg

People were unable to send the Westboro Baptist Church members on their way, because they were not breaking any laws. The firefighters were unable help these people, because they were bound by an absurd absolutist policy. This is an increasing error in Western Society. Citizens are completely unable to prevent things that are wrong/do things that are right, if by doing so they are breaking a law, or if there is no law against said thing. We live in a day and age where we are legally unable to act against things that are wrong if the law says we cannot. Back in the day, if somebody attacked you, you could hit them back. If people picketed your son's funeral with hateful messages, you could 'send them on their way':
"It’s true. If this country worked more properly, if you saw whole bunch of battered, bruised and bloodied people in an emergency room, you might ask “What happened to them?”

Then someone would say, “Oh they went to a Marine’s funeral and shouted something about ‘fags’ and ‘thank God for dead soldiers.’ Then they wouldn’t leave when asked. So they got their asses beat.”

And you’d respond, “Ah. Sounds about right.”
And then you’d go about your day."
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/248928/hidden-law-fighting-words-phelps-jonah-goldberg

"Jonathan Rauch, one of my favorite writers, has been arguing for quite a while now that there should be two kinds of society, conventional and legal — and only rarely should the twain meet. He says that we must obey what he calls “hidden law,” which he defines as “the norms, conventions, implicit bargains, and folk wisdoms that organize social expectations, regulate everyday behavior, and manage interpersonal conflicts.” Once you start looking for examples of the hidden law, you will see it everywhere. The shotgun rule for car seats is part of the hidden law. Stealing a friend’s girl is against the hidden law, and so is taking credit for somebody else’s work. Table manners, restrictions on double-dipping potato chips, and common courtesy are part of the hidden law.

There are also some big things that are part of the hidden law — or at least should be — according to Rauch. Euthanasia, for instance, used to be the sort of thing left up to families and priests and doctors and friends. If someone is in pain and there’s no hope of saving his life, the relevant loved ones would make that decision. Yes, it is illegal to kill someone. But the representatives of the state would simply turn a blind eye in such an instance, because society understands that the state is ill-equipped to deal with such things. Grandpa was relieved of his pain; and police, prosecutors, and the like winked at the whole thing. This is how the world is supposed to work according to Rauch, a self-described soft-Communitarian.

Along came the lawyers. With their hyper-rationalism and self-righteousness intact, the lawyers declared that if something is wrong, it’s wrong for everyone — and therefore it must be illegal for everyone. Conversely, if something is legal for someone, it must be legal for everyone. As Rauch writes, the American law school “is the most ruthlessly anti-communitarian institution that any liberal society ever produced.” All of a sudden, doctors were put in a position of monstrous, legalized power; they could decide whom to kill. That’s not a precedent you want on the books. There’s a big difference between winking at an exceptional case and legally empowering doctors to kill people. Pretty much everyone can understand this distinction, except for lawyers and a few other zealots. Indeed, one of the reasons prosecutors and cops developed this blind-eye approach is that they knew juries would be unlikely to convict a doctor for doing the right thing, and therefore they choose to save everyone concerned some anguish. It’s a rich tapestry of interwoven fictions."
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/204693/restoring-hidden-law/jonah-goldberg

Lastly, this is a brilliant argument against privatisation of emergency services. This is only a side point, but it was raised recently in a recent discussion/debate between Lee Doren and Cenk Uygar (of HowTheWorldWorks and The Young Turks respectively).