Firefighters Let Home Burn Down in Tennessee Because "Fee" Not Paid

This is not a District of Columbia story. It's not even a Washington, DC-area story. But it is a warning about what can happen when we have fee-for-services government. In a rural town in Obion County, Tennessee, firefighters refused to put out a fire that eventually burned a man's house to the ground. Why? Because he neglected to pay the $75 annual fire protection fee. Firefighters put out a fire at a neighbor's house, because that homeowner had paid the fee.

You can view the television report about this below. It's hard not to say a dozen things about this -- what happened was wrong on so many levels.