Qualified is qualified. It means that they are fully capable and ready to take on the job at hand. That likely includes those with experience. As for the quote, it's saying that there's stiff competition even after those eliminations.
Dude I told you to read what you quote carefully. It doesn't mention stiff competition, it says "even though the written examination and physical requirements eliminate many applicants." Said applicants are "qualified" because they have high school degrees, that doesn't mean they're fit for the job, and certainly not that they're trained and ready to leap into action.
They're run by volunteers in small rural areas due to lack of funding to handle such large areas, not because there isn't lack of a demand for a job.
The point you miss is that volunteers have a real job on the side and that putting out a fire isn't going to result in the cataclysmic scenario of ruined life and starving children you've been so eager to push forward.
If you actually look around or go to that page Lithrael mentioned and read the comments, you'll see that not everyone 'knows it'.
Let's limit that to intelligent people then.
This doesn't sound like a man who truly thinks the city would have brushed all this off.
It sounds like a man rambling and pleading for a reform of the funding for fire departments, which is fine, but I don't find it too relevant to our discussion. In the end he says he'd have handled it differently, and that's all that matters.
I'll admit getting the streams crossed here. The fact still remains though: One job or them all, I don't see it as worth the sacrifice and they may not either.
That's not a fact, just a guess based on a hypothetical statement.
You're thinking too short term. By setting a precedent that the fire department will always be there to help you out fee or no fee if you can find a way to get them out to your property, you're actually insuring much more wasted resources in the long run. That's exactly why those mentioned fire departments are in such bad shape to begin with. They're stretched beyond their limits as is which is definitely leaving more problems for other people. This was in response to the challenge: "I'd like to know how it could be ethically better for a fireman not to put out a fire"
No, I'm not thinking "too short term"

and I also don't think you're "insuring much more wasted resources" by acting after having arrived at the place of an incident. I don't see any reason to think so actually. And that's also not the reason these fire departments are strapped for cash. They are because of crappy city management and stupid electoral policies that cater to idiots' uninformed opinions. Which is why such incidents should be (and are) used to point out how crazy it is to not fund a fire department.
My stance was/is that they should not be disciplined, nor laid off. It just went more in the direction of lost jobs.
Yeah well when you argue with
me, please don't misrepresent
my stance on the issue.
And now you're going to the opposite extreme. Be it a burger flipper or a fireman, you have a given set of guidelines to follow. You can challenge them if you want, but you do so at your own risk. I wouldn't expect a fireman to be held to any different standard than that of a burger flipper when it comes to their own personal decision about breaking the rules. Being punished for doing your job the way your employer set it out for you is outright madness.
I don't think I'm going to any extremes by flatly stating the truth. Kids still get fireman trucks as toys. It's a profession that our societies hold in high esteem. And it's a profession that requires a certain moral fiber, which isn't the case for most jobs. What do you think is in those written examinations that disqualify most people? Like I told you before, people don't become firefighters primarily to make money. You're not reasoning correctly here because it's just not a job like any other, but apparently you don't want to see that.
Actually, again, you might be surprised. An interesting quote showing another side to this
The person does say people should blame the "County Supervisors/Directors" so I don't really see how it disagrees with what you quoted? But the situation I described and what the person is addressing are different anyway.
Other interesting things: Cranick reported that it took 2 hours for the fire to reach his house and that it was started by his grandson lighting barrels of trash on fire on a windy day.
Yeah that was in the original article. But that's not really related to the talk anymore, since it's long moved from that particular story to a more theorical argument, as Griffith pointed out.
Speaking of morality and the occupation concerned with it, what about officers/ troops in the army who have to kill innocent people for a few bad guys
That's a warcrime. Now that's directly related to Griffith's example about nazis. I'm pretty sure a soldier has a duty to disobey wrong orders and report them to higher authorities, even if in real life it's never that simple. Seriously, that's really the perfect example of the kind of orders you ought to refuse no matter how you look at it.
A Few Good Men is just a movie. See all the scandals caused by the current wars and all the soldiers who've been dishonorably discharged or even faced jail time for sometimes "merely" abusing and degrading prisoners.
From my understanding, it sounds like they could have put the fire out with little or no repercussions. Even if there were some, it wouldn't have led to them getting fired. It really sounds like it's a problem with the politics in that town.
They need fixing, for sure. But It wouldn't have hurt anyone to put the fire out. On the other hand, I think it's terrible that people are attacking the firemen and belittling them to the point of sending death threats. There are some obvious things wrong here, but man do people get their panties in a bunch.
Yeah that's about it, perfectly summed up. The death threats are appalling, but sadly not surprising given the setting.
By all rights, even if they were only dispatchers, they probably should have known more about what to do in that situation than anyone else present.
No excuses for them, Dispatchers or EMTs, either way they fucked up bad.
Goes back to what Griffith said a while back. At some point it goes beyond your job and into what any decent human being would do.