No you'r right, we should all blindly follow orders regardless of what that entails. I mean, your personal moral code or responsibility as a human being don't come into the equation. If people just done what they were told then they'd be free of any responsibility for their inaction, right? That's exactly my point, THEY didn't put out the fire. Political nonsense aside they are responsible for what they done. No-one can MAKE you do anything you don't want to. Ever. Blaming other people (chief, mayor, politicians...) doesn't change the fact that the descicion ALWAYS comes down to you. I'm not saying all firefighters are like this, just the ones who were responsible for this. LOL, capitalism Seriously, even if they are just being dicks over $75 is it so unreasonable to put out the fire and charge them afterwards? I hardly think they'd refuse to pay if you saved their home and animals.
What you are suggesting is freelancing. You know why freelancing does? It gets people killed. What is worse: allowing some wood to burn down or allowing people to die for no reason? This isn't as simple as you think. The fire department isn't just a bunch of guys who get together and whip out the water hose when there is a fire. It's a highly structured organization with highly trained individuals. I can tell you that you probably won't be able to get through the training, much less end up in the fetal position on your first fire. You don't do as you please and you don't disobey orders if you disagree. If a life was on the line then you may have an argument but you don't. It was a house. Yes pets died but ive covered that. It is a fucked up situation but the firefighters are not at all at fault here. They had no choice. I'm guessing you're at your "rebel" stage so you think you know how shit should be run, and if you disagree with someone then fuck them, right? I just hope you don't go for a career where lives are at stake because you will kill someone.
Freelancing when there's enough people to put out a fire next door? I don't pretend to know how it works but when there's enough to put out one fire just bscreams of "I really can't be arsed, sorry". Haha, personal attacks now, lovely So firstly it's someone elses fault that their actions were disgusting and now i'll curl up in a fetal position? Rebel stage? Hardly, I jjust don't consider "someone else told me to" as a valid defence for someone's actions.
no attacks. I'm just saying that these men are put through a lot that many can't handle. I may be misinterpreting what you are saying. Would you have disobeyed the order? And freelancing means that you go off and do your own thing without the approval of the ic
Just turn the hoses on the house. And yes I would freelance for a person or even an animal. Is the fire department the gestapo that they have to be obeyed without question? That's how this atrocity came into being. And yes, I call it cowardess not to stand up for what is right. My family would be distressed if I had not made thew right call. I couldn't have put it better.
Then we'll have to disagree on what the right call is. My responsibility is to provide for and protect my family above all else and if it happens to cause some distress, then so be it. It wouldn't be the first time I've had to make unpopular decisions. Like I said, it's easy to judge others and be a hero on the internet. Real life is a whole different ball game.
Sometimes I think this entire forum just looks for reasons to hate Government run organizations First of all, why are you bringing people into this as if they let someone die over this? No one died. Just a pet and a house was lost.
Yo mushroomsatsuji- I realize where you're coming from, but at some point human rationale has to take over. If you were in the military and your commander ordered you to shoot your friend in his sleep because he was a suspected traitor, would you? "Just following orders" huh? Or if your unit was captured and immediately your commanding officer ordered you to run right at your captures so you can be shot down in a hail of gunfire, so that your squadmates might get away? "Just following orders?" No, sir. As a species, we are much more fucking intelligent than that. Hell, even a dog wouldn't walk across broken glass if it's owner of 10 years was screaming in it's face to "come here," even for a treat. And on top of that, are our lives really more significant than that of a dog's? Do either of our lives hold more value than the other in this universe? The answer is a resounding no. We are no more important than the bacteria residing in our bowels, and that, sir, deems your argument invalid. The firefighters deserve as much blame as the mayor/everyone in that fucked up chain of command.
However, mushroomsatsuji, I want to reiterate that I realize where you're coming from. Obviously, here we're not talking about a clean cut situation. When referring to "following orders" and whatnot, I clearly wasn't talking about a situation in which the ethics isn't brought into consideration. For instance, if you are told there is a woman trapped on the third floor of a burning building and you are ordered to go find and rescue her, I'm not arguing that you should stop off at the second floor to play a game of pool so you have some time to think about if you should follow those orders or not. I'm merely stating that in these kinds of sticky situations it's not always vanilla to just follow orders. It's more complicated than that. Ever seen "A Few Good Men?"