Misplaced Ire

Pundits are having a field day with the fact that a fire department in Tennessee let a house burn down because the owner didn’t pay his annual $75 fire protection fee. Proof that libertarianism is a failure.

Was it? Cato’s Tom Firey sums it up thusly:

In a nutshell: The firefighters involved were city government firefighters following a city government policy concerning people who didn’t pay a city government fee for a 20-year-old city government program that was adopted in response to a county government decision.

The commentariat is liable to sprain an ankle, jumping to conclusions like that.