The article said that they are having to do fundraisers for equipment maintenance. Eventually equipment needs to be replaced.

The very article said that even the software needs to be rewritten for new federal standards. Should that be free?

But yet we find money for the largest military in the world - and much of that goes to military equipment and bases that military leaders say they don’t need and for tax cuts.

How much money do you think it would take to fund the shortfall for every rural fire department?

Deficits are a policy choice, not an inevitability. The budget was balanced at the turn of the century but Republicans under G. W. Bush decided that meant they could cut taxes, especially for the rich. They did that again for both Trump terms, before COVID. Unlike the financial crisis or pandemic, there was no emergency driving those decisions and the massive debt increases were entirely voluntary.

Yeah, 60% of the engines in the UK have what it calls "On-Call Firefighters". These aren't full timers, they usually have a "real" job but when their phone says they're needed they go fight fires. They're trained basically the same, but their main income is from that "real" job.

On the other hand, fire hazard continues to reduce, which means that to an ever greater extent the full time crews can deliver what's needed even in semi-rural communities like where I grew up. Their current plan is close the station nearest to me (which was "On-call" staffed) permanently.

Yes a bunch of poor people in a rural area trying to raise money from a bunch of other poor people doesn’t seem to be working out too well…

But in Johns Creek where I use to live where the median household income is $170k. Firefighters aren’t volunteering

https://www.indeed.com/cmp/City-of-Johns-Creek/salaries/Fire...

I am arguing that in the US as a nation, no firefighter should have to “volunteer” that’s where the state and federal government should step in.

I’m more okay with taking my tax dollars as a person who makes a good living to help rural areas and I would vote for a politician to help them before they would.

Is voluntary self-organized service socialist, communist, libertarian, or something else?

What are your feelings about being on call as a software developer because software incidents don’t often happen at night? Would you expect to be paid for it? Or at least a higher than $0 salary?

Agree, I live in (fairly) rural area and most of the people out here don't want much more from the government but maybe roads to drive on, and to be left alone.

Yes it’s not there goal until they go hungry and they are homeless.

Then they beg the president for handouts because they can’t sell their food they are producing.

It’s only socialism when it helps someone else.

Yes because in 2020 when middle of the road Biden barely eked out a win against Trump, I’m sure Bernie would have won.

Bernie’s ideas were way too left field for me and I consider myself to be a bleeding heart capitalist pig - ie let companies make money, tax them and use the money to provide a safety net. Also take away the idea of your insurance being tied to your employment

Right. Either you directly regulate activity, or you adjust incentives. If you suggest one, detractors say you can't do that, you have to do the other thing, and then work as hard as possible to block your efforts to do the very thing they suggested you do. That's because they don't want things to change at all. But that's obviously not an option, so I tend to suggest trying both and seeing what sticks.

This argument seems to be a) intentionally provocative and intending only really to ruffle feathers, not actually put a coherent argument forward

And b) about on par with saying "water is evil" because if you drink too much of it you'll die.

It doesn't help that the people who say that prove an understanding of capitalism is about as thin as a single layer of varnish and their collective ideas for workable alterations would fit on a single index card after it was already ripped up by hand.

they do not.

what gets me is trying to make the argument that market economies are not necessarily capitalist economies. it seems plain over time that capitalism works to destroy markets. As an American I'm pretty pro market, but that means at this point I'm an enemy of capitalism.

Which seems wild to what I was taught growing up.

This is the website of a bunch of rich capitalists who got rich by doing capitalism. Of course you can't call the owners of the website evil on that website.

You shouldn’t be stereotyping rural people like this. Rural communities differ wildly in population and political leanings. On average they are older, whiter, and Republican voting, but this is shifting. Many small communities that were dying out are being revitalized as artist colonies and tourist zones, and many active farming communities are gradually becoming more Hispanic. Framing urban vs rural as red vs blue plays into the hands of the divide-and-conquer strategy that elites use to prevent the population from successfully pursuing radical change.

> And then we should be helping them on the state and federal level.

That’ll just lead to people on the opposite side of the spectrum (politically and in terms of being more urban) asking why their tax dollars are going towards a bunch of rednecks living in the middle of nowhere and destroying the earth with their heavily car-dependent lifestyles. _They should move to the city if they want a fire department! Otherwise, pay for it yourself or quit yer bitchin!_

> Unfortunately, they overwhelmingly vote for politicians that believe just the opposite on the state and federal level.

Perhaps the reason is because the people they “should” be voting for, according to you, are tied to a lot of social policies that these rural folks find deeply disagreeable. In a similar vein, if the 2024 Republican president campaigned on true free healthcare and massive taxes for the rich, you wouldn’t chide Democrat voters for not voting for that candidate on account of his social policies, now would you?

Who needs farmers anyway? Alternatively, they could all move to the big city and farm there.

My issue is not that rural America is poor. My issue is that there vote for politicians whose explicit goal is not to help them. But that’s okay as long as the politicians “fight the woke”.

That didn't answer my assertion.

they aren't "your" federal and state tax dollars. if you want to privately provide welfare for PE out of your own pocket, go ahead, but leave the public's tax dollars out of it.