DIYbanter - View Single Post - Harper CANNOT be trusted with a majority Gov't.

HeyBub[_3_]

wrote:
Markets do NOT fix the private sector where "essential services" are
involved.
If they did, you would have private fee-for service fire protection,
and "policing" as well. When a private company/consortium, like, say,
BIG OIL gets a monopoly, they have the country (and the world) by the
short and curlies - and they will NOT let go.

You better get better examples. Eighty percent of the firefighters in the US
are volunteers and very little tax money - if any at all - it expended in
their support. (Volunteer Fire Department spaghetti dinners are a hoot!)

As for police, well, in my large city we probably have ten times the number
of private security guards as we do cops on the beat. It would be a small
thing to invest them with the same arrest powers as police. In MY state, the
big difference in arrest powers between a law-enforcement officer and a
private citizen is that a LEO can arrest for a crimes not committed in his
presence, suspicious persons, or based on probable cause. Specifically:

"Texas Code of Criminal Procedure
Art. 14.01. [212] [259] [247] OFFENSE WITHIN VIEW. (a) A peace officer or
any other person, may, without a warrant, arrest an
offender when the offense is committed in his presence or within his view,
if the offense is one classed as a felony or as an offense against the
public peace."

Like Marie Antoinette said when told the peasants had no bread - "let
them eat cake".

The reason Marie Anoinette said what she did was because the price of bread
was regulated by the government! As such, bakers refused to bake bread
because they lost money on every loaf. There was no government price control
on cakes, so bakers were free to charge what the market would bear.