The Animus of the Nanny State  by on July 13, 2012 @ 12:49 pm ·
1 comment  in Nanny Statism, The Left, Vulgar Politics
“Politicians treat firefighters like pawns. When my house burned
down, I learned how valuable public servants can be.”  That’s
the tagline of an article on titled “Thank God for Taxes.”
Naturally the author cannot imagine how firefighting could be
better as a private business. It never occurs to him. He just
praises public “servants” and calls for more taxes.1  If Andrew
Leonard could imagine private firefighting at all, he would
probably imagine something like the rival firefighters in 19th
century America that fought violently over who would get to put
out the fire while the house burned down. But of course, this
was caused not by a free market in firefighting but rather a
combination of public property (fire hydrants, roads), lack of
private property rights enforcement (sabotaged fire engines),
and political machines (Tammany Hall) — politicians like Boss
Tweed using neighborhood firefigh