For my Libertarian friends

Subject:  Reality message to socialists

This morning, I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by batteries I bought because for the third time this month, the power went out and I was sick of it.

I did not take a shower because I am unemployed still and after 10 months can't give a damn about my smell or general appearance.

After that, I turned on the TV to watch Jerry Springer, but I have to imagine what is said (and what the boobies look like) because of the FCC.  My program is completely interrupted because the local news services feels it is an emergency that one of NASA's satellites is missing screw.

I watched this while making my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food, but was disgusted to find a mouse in my loaf of bread.  No toast for me, I suppose. I take drugs determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration as I think about how my father might still be alive today had the FDA not prevented patients from obtaining life-saving medications.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by my watch, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile, which has been recalled by Toyota (or BMW or Fisher-Price) and set out to drive on the roads built and maintained by the local, state, and Federal Departments of Transportation.  I don't know where I'm going really, as I said, because I'm unemployed.  I guess I like admiring the roads.

On the way, I stop to purchase additional coffee of a quality level determined by 7-11, and forgo buying fuel because it is too expensive for me.  A lady scratching off a lotto ticket with one hand and her ass with the other is complaining about the price gouging of gasoline, despite having just bought a coffee right before me that has a markup of an astronomical amount. 

To pay, I use legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank, who is partly to blame for my sister and brother-in-law nearly losing their home.  On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the Congressionally-regulated US Postal Service (who destroyed my vintage collection of prog vinyls I'd sold for $300 on eBay, admitted the problem was theirs but refused to compensate me because I did not pay $30 to buy their insurance at the time of mailing) and drop my kids off at our local government-owned and Department of Education mandated public school, where they will be forced to learn about gay penguins and the material on a test they will take in 7 months that will determine if they shall pass or fail, not that it matters because they will be told they should have good self-esteem no matter how poorly they perform on anything in their lives.

After work, I push my NHTSA-approved car back home on the DOT maintained roads, to the house which has not burned down in my absence because I didn't leave candles lit next to a pile of dry newspapers.  My valuables are safe because thieves don't care about Beanie Babies and Treasure Trolls.  And if they did, I would try to shoot them with my grandfather's revolver.

I then log on to the Internet, which was developed by Al Gore, and sit on Prog Archives and bitch about conservatives who want our government to stop dragging us further into debt while squandering so much of our damn money.

I don’t get this debate at all. It is not even a real debate. The fire-protection services were government services. The fee in question was a government-mandated fee. The county lines in which the fee was applicable is a government-drawn line that is completely arbitrary. The policy of not putting out the fire was a government policy enforced by the mayor. As he said, in the words of a good bureaucrat, “Anybody that’s not in the city of South Fulton, it’s a service we offer, either they accept it or they don’t.”

So why is the market being criticized here? This was not a real market. Instead, this is precisely what we would expect from government. In a real market, there is no way that a free-enterprise fire service would have refused to provide the homeowner service. They would be in business to provide that service. The fire would have been put out and he would have been charged for the service. It is as simple as that. It is the same as lawn-mowing services or plumbing services or any other type of service. Can we know for sure that the market would provide such services? Well, if insurance companies have anything to say about it, such services would certainly be everywhere.

As it was, the fire burned down as a result of government policy, a refusal of service because the homeowners did not pay what amounted to a tax! The poor homeowner begged for help and offered to pay. He had paid the year before and the year before, so his credit was good. Even so, the bureaucracy refused! (The whole thing reminds me of a scene from Gangs of New York.)

A market doesn’t just mean fee-for-service. The government cannot mimic the marketplace by merely setting prices on its services. A free market means that producers are responsible to consumers in a world of private property and free exchange. Why is this so difficult to understand?