How the hell did we get here? More important - how can we get out?

So, I saw an article online on Yahoo News today. And my initial reaction to it was both shock and anger. Afterwards, it changed to very very sad. Here's the link for anyone who wants to read it, but I'll give a brief overview for those who'd just as soon not.

There is a small county in north western Tennessee called Obion County, where residents are required to pay an annual $75 fee for the fire protection services from nearby Fulton County. The home of a man who had not paid the fee caught on fire, and the fire department refused to come put it out – even though he offered to pay all of the expenses necessary to save his home (which I have no doubt would have been a lot more than $75!). They still refused.

However, when the man's neighbor called because he was afraid the fire would spread to his property as well, the fire department came out. Apparently he had paid his $75 for the year. When they arrived, the neighbor's house was not yet in danger, so the fire fighters (and I use this term very loosely) – are you ready for this? – sat and watched the fire, jumping into action only when the fire really did threaten to spread to the neighbor's home. In the meantime, the house where the fire started burned to the ground.

Without going into (at least not here and now) the issues of having to pay a fee for services from a Fire Department, on the surface, I can see the rationale behind it. Maintaining a fire department is very costly, and an annual fee that comes out to $6.25 per month is not an unreasonable amount to ask of people in order to maintain the fire department.

And – logically, I can even understand the rationale behind their saying that they won't come out because the guy technically is not one of their clients.

This one's tougher case to make than the fee itself, and made even harder by the fact that the guy was willing to pay – not the $75 annual fee on the spot, but whatever the expenses would have been to save his home.

But again – he's not one of their customers.

But that's what made me so angry; that the money became the most important factor for this fire department. It's not as though $75 is such a huge amount of money. At the current minimum wage in America, $75 is less than 10 1/2 hours of work. So standing on the "principle" of not being ready to help save a man's home and possessions over a paltry sum of money seems beyond ridiculous. And even if you could justify it logically (which I don't for a second believe that you can) by saying that since he didn't pay, they had no reason to go out of their way to help him, what about when they were there anyway – with all of the necessary equipment for putting out the fire – and they still stood on their so-called "principle" of this guy not being their "client"?

Completely inexcusable.

What turned my anger to such sadness was reading the comments posted by readers to this article. So many of them looked at the whole episode purely from a point of dollars and cents. One person wrote "He didn't pay – what did he expect?", another one called the guy a "freeloader" that got "burnt for his cheapness". I could go on for pages upon pages of the comments along those lines, but you get the point.

Where do we draw the line between looking at people as "customers" instead of our fellow human beings? To stand by and watch a mans' entire world go up in flames – and to purposely not lift a finger to help because he didn't pay you the equivalent of what a 15 year-old kid earns for one shift working at McDonalds???

Many restaurants and stores have a policy that only customers can use their restrooms. I understand the reasoning behind this – and in most cases I don't have a problem with it. But if I'm walking with my 2 young daughters, and one of them suddenly needs to go the bathroom urgently and simply cannot hold it in – if the place of business refuses to let us in because we aren't actually customers of theirs – are they "standing within their rights and their policy" or are they letting a technicality drain them of their basic humanity?

And that's where I think the crux of this whole issue lies. It's not really about the money. The fire department demonstrated that when they wouldn't come in spite of the guy offering to pay whatever the expenses. The real issue is about such a strict adherence to "policy" and "procedure" that all too often we lose sight of what those policies and procedures are (or should be) there for – which is to help people. To make the world a slightly better place than it was when we came into it. To use the ever-developing technological and scientific advancements being discovered for the good of mankind. Not to help us define and re-define rules that cannot under any circumstances be bent, much less actually broken.

The number of comments in the article which supported the fire department made me want to cry. I love it when we see an article like this – with what seems to me a very clear case of man's inhumanity to man, and the outrage is unanimous – the heartless bastard in the middle of the whole thing is basically turned into an outcast and pariah by everybody. That is didn't happen in this incident is much more serious and disheartening than the incident itself.

So the guy didn't pay his $75. So what?!?!?!? For that he loses the status of a human being deserving of compassion, love and understanding?

God help us all if this is how low we as a race have sunk.