Gee, I didn't mean to raise so many hackles. As a new person here, I admit that I may be out of line in that I don't have a history of the types of conversations that take place here. If my comments were out of the bounds for this forum, please forgive me, and I won't post such radical comments again.
However, since several people did choose to reply to my comments and asked that I reply to theirs, I will. For all the examples people gave me of the benefits of public institutions, I could have given arguments why the private version was preferable, but in the interest of bandwidth, I'll try to respond to the spirit of the disagreement, rather than the myriad of specific examples that would only be redundant to this discussion. In the aggregate, most of the disagreement with my comments on privatization boiled down to, of course, money. Should the government have the right to spend someone's money to benefit someone else. Most people believe that the role of government spending is to do those things collectively that we can't do individually. When that means the common defense, roads (the interstate highway system was really a national defense initiative) or anything else provided for in the constitution, I'm all for it. But we must be willing to admit and recognize that all of the other public benefits provided for by the taxpayers that are not provided for in the Constitution (libraries, transportation, national parks, are done so only out of the kindness of the taxpayers' hearts. They are gifts from the taxpayers. So let's not confuse being nice with being obligated. We live in the most generous country in the history of the world. But a gift is not a "right," and I rankle when people say that a certain gift is not generous enough. On to the evils of privatization. I remember when the City of St. Paul collected trash and operated the city dump. In fact, my uncles were employed doing those things. But the city council realized that it's not the role of the city to provide jobs, but to provide needed public services as efficiently as possible. They determined that the most efficient and cost-effective way to collect and dispose of trash was to let each taxpayer contract with their own trash collection agent. It was not, they determined, the role of government to collect trash. Other than my uncles, I never hear anyone lamenting the loss of city's brillant trash collection operation. If it's not the role of government to collect trash (a public health issue), why is it the role of government to operate golf courses? All that said then, what the respondants to my comments are really saying is that we should continue to be "nice" and continue to provide these services, even though we admit that the public version of these services is generally the substandard version (I remember my wife and I, although improverished, choosing to live in an off-base apartment instead of Navy housing). So I suppose there's value in having the U.S. Post Office and UPS together in the marketplace. It's instructive for young economics students to think about why they prefer to eat off campus instead of in the school cafeteria, or analyze why they'd rather have their own car instead of taking the bus, or to have accounting students calculate the million dollar difference between individual savings accounts versus social security benefits. Remember, the real power of the free market is not the profit motive, but consumer choice. Privatization is not your enemy. Lack of choice is. ;-) Dennis Tester Mac-Groveland St. Paul _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
