Fun fact: conservatives in Tennessee privatised their fire department, with predictable results: people’s houses just burnt down.
A man whose house is on fire will say anything to a guy with the means to put the fire out — best not to trust him, unless you can get it in writing.
Even funner fact: libertarians took over a government in Grafton, New Hampshire, and then the bears moved in.
A couple of choice quotes:
The bears, for their part, were left to navigate the mixed messages sent by humans who alternately threw firecrackers and pastries at them. Such are the paradoxes of Freedom. Some people just “don’t get the responsibility side of being libertarians,” Rosalie Babiarz tells Hongoltz-Hetling, which is certainly one way of framing the problem.
Meanwhile, the dreams of numerous libertarians came to ends variously dramatic and quiet. A real estate development venture known as Grafton Gulch, in homage to the dissident enclave in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, went belly-up. After losing a last-ditch effort to secure tax exemption, a financially ruined Connell found himself unable to keep the heat on at the Meetinghouse; in the midst of a brutal winter, he waxed apocalyptic and then died in a fire.
Turns out public services are – shocker! – for the public good, and taxes aren’t theft. Who knew public works and social programs actually help communities? Crazy, I know.
