Last week, I read something in the news that really shook me to my core. I wasn’t inspired to live a better life or emotionally moved by some depressing image of a starving child in Uganda. Simply put, I was dumbfounded and rendered speechless by the fact that some Americans are so incredibly stubborn that they enable certain situations to spin out of control and into reality.
The setting is South Fulton, Tenn., a town that believes and practices under the conservative notion of on-your-own and privatized society and informs a policy agenda that primarily serves the wealthy and privileged. This means that if you want the protection and service of South Fulton’s finest or any help from the privately owned South Fulton Fire Department, you’re going to pay annual fees.
Gene Cranick, a resident of this tea-party Tennessee town watched helplessly as his home burned to the ground earlier this month, killing his pets.
When the privately owned South Fulton Fire Dept. arrived on the scene it had come to the conclusion that the Cranicks had not paid their $75 fee and despite offers by both Cranick and his neighbors to pay the forgotten fee on the spot, the department declined.
The firemen didn’t even get out their hoses until the fire spread to a neighbor’s field — one that had paid the fee. The firemen bravely extinguished the field-fire and drove off, leaving the Cranick residence smoldering in the truck’s rearview mirror.
Despite the ridiculousness of the situation, the actions of the South Fulton Fire Department have been defended and justified by David Crocker, the Mayor of South Fulton, Glenn Beck and Conservative media everywhere.
“If they put out his fire that would be allowing him to sponge off of someone who had paid the fee,” Beck said.
Let’s consider a hypothetical situation at some fictitious high school — George Agricola High School — located directly on the banks of the Pascagoula River in Neshoba, Miss.
Let’s say the high school was recently shut down due to excessive flooding in classrooms, teacher lounges and hallways, leaving them damaged beyond repair. Six months prior to the flooding, the school was supposed to have planned inspections by the Mississippi State River and Wildlife Dept. However, but due to recent changes in local legislation, these inspections never happened.
If the town of Neshoba was operating under similar legislation to that of South Fulton, Tenn., then George Agricola High would be responsible for finding and hiring a private company to inspect its pipes, sewage systems and foundational river-water barriers.
Due to budget cuts and shifts in school priorities these inspections got pushed back and a flood ensued. The total cost of damage is an estimated $1.5 million. For most schools, that bill would be devastating.
Although the second situation is purely hypothetical, its lesson is not to be missed. If we lived in an America as envisioned and legislated by ultra-right wing Tea Party types — a country where everything will be privatized — “Neshoba” and South Fulton will be your reality.
There may not be a George Agricola High School, or a Mississippi State River and Wildlife Dept. but there are people out there who believe that this is the course of action America should take.
Just imagine paying annual fees that are far greater than the taxes we currently pay for all of the same services: road reconstruction and repair, fire protection, police protection — I digress, even the transportation via buses of America’s youth to their public schools — oh wait, there would be no such thing as a public school. That means us too, sorry, ASU.
Although, maybe that is more appealing to the Conservative Americans out there…If there are no public schools then there will be less children who will grow up asking the question “why,” and challenging the status quo.
Tell Ben to shut up at ben.karris@asu.edu
