• AtomicHotSauce@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    22 days ago

    Retired firefighter/paramedic here. It’s simple: Fire departments don’t normally generate revenue. It’s a money-sink and local governments don’t like that. The first things financially cut when I worked for a city of 170,000 were always services that didn’t make money. That’s just how it works.

    Why police departments need heavy armor and assault accoutrements is beyond me, though. I mean, all that shit didn’t help whatsoever in most mass-shootings.

    • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      22 days ago

      It’s a money-sink and local governments don’t like that. The first things financially cut when I worked for a city of 170,000 were always services that didn’t make money. That’s just how it works.

      The whole point of government is to collect taxes to pay for stuff that isn’t revenue generating to spread out the costs!

            • the_crotch@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1·
              18 days ago

              All of them? I’m not sure I understand the question.

              First result on google for “socialism definition” as an example

              a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

              Governments running businesses is what “owning the means of production” means, in every context, by every definition.

    • FeloniousPunk@lemmy.todayEnglish
      1·
      22 days ago

      They need to understand it’s a service, not a business. Sure, a fire department doesn’t make money but, neither does a city that burns to the ground.

      As a society, we have simply got to get past the notion that everything that exists needs to be monetized to be deemed worthy of existence.

  • njm1314@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    22 days ago

    I’m always curious about post like these. Are you suggesting that the firefighters failed here? That if there are more firefighters this fire wouldn’t have happened? What would more firefighters have done? Could they block the high winds? Are they able to Make It Rain more?