"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

First, commercial viability is not necessary or even desirable for
everything. Privatized law enforcement would result in the wealthy
side of town getting a cop on every corner while the poor side of
town would be on its own. The original national motto was not Dog
Eat Dog.

In my town (and probably yours), there are FAR more private security
guards than cops.

I'm sure you're right, but so what? They aren't there to enforce the law,
they're there to protect the property they're paid to protect. Did Home
Depot send out private security to try to track down the would-be muggers
you chased off? Of course not, HD couldn't care less if those same guys
went over to Piggly Wiggly's parking lot and mugged somebody, that's not
their problem.

Second, left up to some folks what is of vital interest would be
whatever benefits them and to hell with everyone else. It's
refreshing when occasionally a law is passed based on what is good
for the whole nation rather than some segment that can afford
lobbyists and fat campaign fund donations.

Adam Smith settled this hash over 200 years ago when he postulated the
theory of "The Invisible Hand." It's essence is that when every person
does what's best for himself, the entire community prospers.

See, just because somebody writes something down and gets some other folks
to agree with him doesn’t mean an issue is "settled". Alan Greenspan
believed in that invisible hand for most of his life, but not too long ago
he was forced to admit there were some serious flaws in the theory. It
turned out that bonus-chasing employees of big Wall St. firms pursued
policies which ended up wounding or even destroying the companies they
worked for *and* caused massive damage to the entire economy. It turns out
that when the financial sector resembles a casino run by lunatics that the
old invisible hand falls down on the job. Ditto with when a company dumps
toxic waste in the river to save money, or when a drug company suppresses
studies showing its drugs have some nasty side effects, or when privatized
prisons give kickbacks to judges to send offenders to their facilities, or
when a labor union gets pay and benefits for its members then end up
dragging down the company that foolishly agreed to them during a period of
prosperity. Just because it's good for *somebody* doesn’t mean its good for
the entire community.

All theories work in an academic setting, but in the real world the end
result is not so simple or so nice, it can often be quite nasty.

Third, the Constitution says whatever the Supreme Court says it does,
that's why a couple of recent cases have recognized that the 2nd
Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms to the dismay
of all those folks who disagree. So until the court rules there
shouldn't be a federal Dept. of Education, there will be one, and
anyone who disagrees is welcome to vote for the party that is
currently trying to strip funding from any government agency that has
inconvenienced the corporate sponsors of that party.

Exactly right. The Constitution, like the Bible, often doesn't mean what
it says or doesn't say what it means. It's up to the Court (or Biblical
scholars), to tell us the straight skinny.

Ironically you managed to get it right despite the attempted sarcasm. Only
in a libertarian la la land would it be otherwise, would it be the case that
we would never need a court to decide a Constitutional issue. As for the
Bible, if you want to believe that Methuselah lived to the age of 969, you
go right ahead. Happily the Constitution means the rest of us don't have to
order our lives on the basis of such beliefs.