It’s kind of ironic that, if you remove all mention of Christianity - muscular or otherwise - from Fischer’s piece, he’d still be making a specious argument.

First, like a broken clock being right twice a day, he’s not completely wrong about the homeowner. The gentleman does and did have a responsibility to protect his home, his family, and his pets. He could have done that by paying the subscription dues of $75.

That’s the end of Fischer’s being correct.

However, the fire department had a moral responsibility - once they’d responded - to put out the fire and deal with the legal and financial issues after the fact. So, no Mr. Fischer, the fire department is not off the hook. They abrogated their responsibility as well.

So did the county commissioners of Obion county. They are responsible for the well-being of their constituents, and the subscription option they used to keep the county taxes lower (most likely) was an abrogation of their responsibilities - so they’re not off the hook either.

The problem with Fischer is the rather simple minded conclusion that only the homeowner had a responsibility here.

The only group I may - and I stress may - get a pass from me would be the city council of South Fulton. After all, they’d be wrong to fund the fire department from city taxes, and then use that department to fight fires in the county where people would be receiving the service for free - paid for by the residents of the city.

But even here, I think the city council and mayor came up with a problematic (i.e. subscription) method for covering folks outside the city limits. I would have preferred, were I a resident, that the council work with the county commissioners to find a better way. Their decision to offer a subscription service led to this situation - an unintended consequence.

The city council may have been better off telling the county commissioners that the cost of providing fire service to county residents would be X dollars per year, and leaving it up to the county commissioners to figure out how to fund it - or form their own fire brigade.