Comment Re:I'll tell you where (Score 1) 776
If you can manage to remove your loonybin libertarian spectacles, wipe the foam from your mouth and pause to consider for a moment:
Suuuuure.
You will find that fire officers/fighters do put a very great stock in rescuing people from house and other fires. Never really heard of them preventing the spread and leaving the people inside to choke.
What I'm gathering there's a problem here with either Reading Comprehension on your part or Clear Writing on my part. Either that or you fetish for Straw Men.
While rescues of initial victims are a happy event often made possible by the personal heroism of Police Officers and Fire Fighters they are not the primary function of Police and Fire Departments in most towns and counties. Property recovery isn't the main focus of burglary investigations either. Most rescues from burning buildings don't involve single-family homes, but rather extricating people from neighboring apartments to where fire is spreading. If the fire breaks out in your apartment and you're still in there by the time a fire fighter could rescue you then you're most likely dead. That's why fire escapes can be so important.
We have too many people that do not understand even the most basic personal responsibilities in large part because of idiotic, romanticized, and sheltered notions of what emergency service personel can do. I meet people who expect cops to run forensics on smash-and-grabs. I see people pointing fingers when the Fire Department didn't arrive in time to save somebody's kid from a home where that someone didn't replace their smoke-detector batteries. I read people who are utterly horrified at the idea of any citizen carrying a licensed firearm for self defense because "that's what we have police for!"
Police Officers are not your personal bodyguards or home security personel. Fire Fighters aren't psychic, can't fly, and their trucks don't teleport. CSI-[Insert City Here] is fictional. The person who has the primary responsibility for the safety and property of an adult of sound mind and body is that adult. I'd like to think the folks that pretend otherwise fell of the back of a turnip truck, but they usually come from dense urban areas, suburbs, or college campi.
I suspect you probably wish fire services could only stop the spread because you see government (any larger than the minimum possible) as an intrinsic evil. "We must set the example, self-reliance is the only way, etc.etc."
I suspect you might just be a complete nutter.
Regarding possible taxation of things that are bad for you; you are following a fairly typical libertarian fundamentalist tactic - wilfully conflating banning things and putting taxes on them.
I think you may be looking for the poster across the street. He actually posted words about banning or taxing things. Can't miss him.