Government repair service

OK, I was going to write a whole rant about government as a prelude to a video by ReasonTV and then decorate it with a simple cartoon or video about a man-orchestra.

But then I found this great illustration of the idea that something that is done by private, specialized businesses is better than by jacks-of-all-trades that each socialist government tries to be. (The video also shows what happens when two socialist government fight for the control of the simple people’s money, and how the people will always get more money when they go back to the idea of specialization.)


(HQ may be unavailable)

And now the original rant:

The government extinguishes our fires, sends our mail, builds and fixes our roads, educates our children, cures our sick, makes our poor richer and our rich poorer, takes our money and directs it to the science projects that we certainly will benefit from, takes our garbage, explores space for us, watches the volcano activity, fixes our electric lines and plumbing (and selects which utility companies should become monopolies), negotiates international trade treaties, runs buses, subway trains and streetcars (but alas, not railroad trains, long-distance buses, taxicabs or airplanes — at least, not yet), extends credit to and bails out businesses (with our money, of course) that we would certainly bail out had our money belonged to us; the government protects us from ourselves and makes sure we don’t make any decisions that would be bad for us (too bad it doesn’t tell us which brand of laptop to buy next or which cell phone carrier to sign up with).

Did I miss something?

Oh yeah, the government also passes laws from time to time and sometimes even fights crime, safeguards our rights and protects us from the enemies, but that’s secondary. Just like nobody buys an iPhone as a phone — it’s a toy that is also a phone — nobody expects the government to be just a safeguard. This original idea of the Founding Fathers — that the government should only guard our rights allowing ourselves to do everything else — is as ridiculous as a telephone that is used only as a telephone (or, at most, a communication device) and not also as a ping-pong racket, a grand piano, a lighter, a flashlight, a beer can opener, a micromanipulator and a car key.

Therefore, this suggestion by ReasonTV actually makes absolute sense. And I don’t want to hear any sarcastic snickering!