A bizarre incident last week in Tennessee, in which firefighters watched a family’s home burn to the ground because they had forgotten to pay a $75 annual subscription fee, has led to a debate about the limits of libertarian visions of limited government.

As local NBC affiliate WPSD reported, the family of Gene Cranick in Obion County, Tenn., called for help last week when a fire broke out near their home but were told that since they had not paid $75 this year to the city of South Fulton, the local fire department would not send a truck to help.

Mr. Cranick later told The Associated Press that he had paid the fee in years past and that it had simply slipped his mind this year. Even when he offered to pay whatever the cost might be to put out the fire, the department refused to respond to the emergency during the two hours it took for the flames to spread from his yard to his house.

Firefighters did eventually arrived on the scene, but only to protect the property of a neighbor who had paid the fee. WPSD’s video report, above, showed the crew standing near the fire as it burned but refusing to intervene.

One of Mr. Cranick’s sons was later arrested for attacking the South Fulton fire chief.

As Zaid Jilani noted on the Think Progress blog, the fire led to a debate among conservatives at The National Review’s Web site.

In a post on Monday about the fire, Daniel Foster began with the observation, “Oy, this is bad for the libertarians.” He explained:

I have no problem with this kind of opt-in government in principle — especially in rural areas where individual need for government services and available infrastructure vary so widely. But forget the politics: what moral theory allows these firefighters (admittedly acting under orders) to watch this house burn to the ground when 1) they have already responded to the scene; 2) they have the means to stop it ready at hand; 3) they have a reasonable expectation to be compensated for their trouble?

In reply, Mr. Foster’s colleague Kevin Williamson wrote that the city’s fire department was offering a benefit to some people living outside its limits,

And, for their trouble, the South Fulton Fire Department is being treated as though it has done something wrong, rather than having gone out of its way to make services available to people who did not have them before. The world is full of jerks, freeloaders, and ingrates — and the problems they create for themselves are their own. These free-riders have no more right to South Fulton’s firefighting services than people in Muleshoe, Tex., have to those of N.Y.P.D. detectives.

A local news site reported that South Fulton’s mayor, David Crocker, “said if the fire department operated on a per-call basis outside the city, there would be no incentive for anyone to pay the rural fee. As an analogy, he said if an auto owner allowed their vehicle insurance to lapse, they would not expect an insurance company to pay for an unprotected vehicle after it was wrecked.”

That led a Tennessee blogger, Jeff Woods of The Nashville Scene, to propose a solution:

I am really torn on this. On the one hand, I understand the mayor’s position. If you don’t pay the fee, you don’t get fire protection. Your stupid decision, your loss. On the other hand, we live in a society….

This may be a new state law we need: If fire protection is available to you by subscription and you refuse to pay for it and the fire department has to come to your house to remedy that dangerous condition, you’re going to be charged for it — the cost of work missed (assuming the firefighters are volunteers), the cost of running the truck or trucks, the labor, etc.

A modest proposal: Make it costly — say, $10,000. That way, it makes more sense to just subscribe and pitch in.