After reading Lew Rockwell’s column about Obama comparing his proposed health care plan to the postal service, I got to thinking about other government services that do not compare to the same services provided by the private sector. Rockwell, in his article, compared how hard work on the part of such as UPS and FedEx have allowed them to succeed, while continued government subsidizing has caused a repeated loss at the USPS, and that the USPS has not allowed any competition to its “right” to deliver first class mail.

What services that the government provides are better than a private option?

To begin with, one would say that the military could not operate without government help, but I would argue that it is because of government help that the military operates at a handicap. If left to only those who are trained military minds, the efficiency of the military would far exceed what it does now, as would the cost of that military. There would be no tiptoeing in places such as Viet Nam and today, Afghanistan. With military minds completely running the show, leaving government diplomacy out of the picture, we would have probably already captured Osama bin Laden with nowhere near the losses we now have suffered. In fact, with only military minds running the military, we probably wouldn’t have gotten involved in some of the conflicts that we have. Government intervention has only slowed the progress of the military in achieving its goal of winning the battle, regardless the cost to the enemy. I can only imagine how the Revolutionary War would have gone if diplomats, instead of George Washington, were in charge of it. We would still be speaking with a British accent.

What about domestic police protection, you might ask. You say we couldn’t get by without government providing us police protection. I agree, we need police protection to keep the weak from becoming prey to the unscrupulous strong, but it is government intervention in this area that has weakened the ability of law enforcement to do the job they are trained to do. Again, if only experienced law enforcement people were making the rules, there would be no need for Miranda laws that keep so many guilty from being punished. Reasonable force would not be looked upon as police brutality, and police would not be afraid to do their jobs out of fear of being sued or losing their jobs. Imagine Elliot Ness and his group being limited to what they could do in the twenties. We would still have Al Capone types running things in Chicago and New York. Oh wait, we do have, only now they are in government.

Government can only continue to operate like it does, at a loss, because it can do to the people what it would not allow the people to do to themselves. It steals from them, not at gunpoint, but by making laws that allow them to extort from us nearly half of our earnings, if we have any earnings, to pay for their programs and support their losses. It takes from those who are willing to work for a living and gives what it takes to those who are not. It votes itself raises each year without asking if they are affordable. Imagine, at your workplace, that you were able to tell your bosses that you were going to take a raise without their approval. Do you think you would get the raise? You would be lucky to keep your job in the real world; that is the real world without government interference. Government legislation today would not allow your employer to fire you unless there was some sort of reason that they approve of. Otherwise, your employer could be sued and suffer great losses by edict of some government court system.

What about your company retirement plan, is it as good as what government people give themselves, at our expense? Where can you find a job where you can work for two years or so and get a retirement plan that will pay you an amount equal to your yearly salary when you leave that job? And that’s for life, not just a couple of years. How long would your own retirement plan remain solvent with a plan like that?

Public service was originally designed to be just that, service, not a career choice. Citizen government was what the founders had in mind. They would not recognize the length of “service” by the likes of John Dingell, Robert Byrd, or Ted Kennedy, to name but three. Stromm Thurmond would have been put out to pasture long before he turned one hundred. Most who began this country would not have considered serving in their positions for more than one term. In the first place, it didn’t pay well enough to make it a full time job, and they already had full time jobs at home. Most were either businessmen or farmers whose business and farms required their attention, and they were only giving their time for a limited period. Those early founders would not have considered a career in politics possible. Things sure have changed, but not for the better.