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The prisons should be private? The authority of Corrections Corporation should be absolute over citizens unfortunate to end up under its power?

Privatising the public domain is to have massive corruption and the destruction of society. The public domain includes natural monopolies. They must either be public or subject to intense regulation from the public. That's what sane economists have said decades ago before the corrupt rot set in.

Which aqueduct?

Anyhow - in all things the tradeoff. Government tends toward big regulalion and routing the highway through Auntie Jess's house. Private enterprise tends toward incompatible rail guages and "all the traffic will bear"

Quis custodiet - timeo gubernatores et dona ferentes. Ultimately the line is [like I said, same definition] arbitrary.

Governments will be, governments will take - how much is the question.

It's a Monty Python reference.

What has the government ever done for us?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso[/youtube]

It's coming out too dark and for some reason no sound. Not your fault. Is that Life of Brian [which I very much enjoyed]? I do not know that as well as the series.

Right - I didn't think we had a national aqueduct.

Are the Feds into irrigatoin anywhere in the sou'west?

Check your Flash player version? Or get an HTML5-capable browser (Chrome, FF 4 beta, Opera 10.6+, Safari 4+) and opt into Youtube's HTML5 beta.

Yes, it's Life of Brian. The government does provide infrastructure for our water system (though this is often at the level of state or county rather than the feds) and that is roughly analogous to the aqueduct.

Fun facts: Adam Smith favored progressive taxation and government-funded infrastructure. Milton Friedman came quite close to convincing the US federal government to establish a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. And Ronald Reagan signed the largest peacetime tax hike in American history.

Was the TVA at least part federal? I half think it was.

This is why I am apolitical - impotent, hopeless. Governments - can't live with them, theyt won't let you live without them. The poor always ye have with you - and the sick, and the fools, and the government, and even people like me, to be fair.

Monopoly of education makes MISeducation far too easy, and that is always a goal of would-be governors.

Me, I swim in my pond and hope no dinosaur notices me.

It was ALL federal. An FDR New Deal scheme.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 06 Jan 2011, 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If a government rations healthcare the people who do so (politicians) are ultimatley accountable to you (the voter). When private healthcare companies ration healthcare by rejecting insurance claims, the citizen has no way of stopping them or holding them to account. Whatsmore due to their nature (as a private company hoping to make as bigger profit as possible) these companies are incentivized to ration claims as the more claims they reject the more money they make. In a state owned company the incentive is absolutley the opposite- to pay out more as it is ulitmately accountable to the angry voter rather than shareholders demanding a profit.

That only works if it is an allected official, what happens when it is an unelected buercrat (sp? it is 1 AM), what do you do then?

In the case of a private company, it is guaranteed to be an unelected bureaucrat. So... worst case scenario in government is the same as the only scenario in private industry?

But really, all of those "unelected bureaucrats" are appointed by elected officials. Elect a different government official and he will appoint different bureaucrats.

The work of bureaucrats is always subject to the direction of their political masters. Legistlators enact legislation, and Ministers establish policy. These are the framework within which all bureaucrats function.

My job is to carry out the policy of the government in general, and my Minister in particular. And I do so, whether I agree with it, or not. In my world, once the Minister or Cabinet has spoken, I have my marching orders.

Take Arizona right now. Under the direction of Social Darwinists, the government has decided to condemn a bunch of transplant patients to death. One died the other day, by Jan Brewer's bloody hand. The government can be made to change its policy but in the end these are committed Social Darwinists at the helm, they are pleased with the results and are immune to pressure. This is the extreme worst case scenario of what can happen under a public health care system - that an evil, despicable government of bankrupt moral code take command. Most governments would not do such terrible things and remember that under a private system these people would be condemned to death anyway.

Essentially teapartiers (and those that agree with them on healthcare policy)are wrong about the nature of the state as they have been misinformed that "all government= hitler" by their news sources. Government can be a positive force for good in your life rather than something to be feared and dreaded. The key is democratic accountability.

Government are generally not accountable in reality. Only in theory. Governments are the leading evil organizations of modern times.

ruveyn

I disagree. Democracy and freedom of speech makes them accountable. If they are not accountable enough then we need to devise ways to make them more so, rather than eliminating them altogether and surrendering everything to a free market that is definitely not accountable.

How is democracy insured in America? Our elections are not even direct. As for freedom of speech, it is more limited than I would like it to be in America, although I do understand the freedoms we have now are great and should not be taken for granted. Also how is there any grantee of freedom of speech?(For America it is the second amendment, but really who is going to start shooting over words if they don't really have to.)