How we are to pay for this is hardly matter of concern to the polite elements of society but we are agreed on one point here. The public certainly needs more unskilled uneducated men prowling the streets in uniform brandishing assult weapons. No one is disputing this. Health care is another matter entirely.

The United States enjoys the worlds largest socialized economy. US tax payers are charged more in tax abatements and bailouts for big buisines, prisons where better than half the worlds prisoners languish in steel animal pens (2.5 million), intelligence services (including overthrowing other peoples governments), instalation of surveillence and monitoring technology to keep an eye on the citizenry in public places (including the internet), moving first strike military tecnology into outer space, the maintainence of some 900 (yes 900!?) military bases world wide and Pentagon operations including the branches of service, officers retirement payouts and benefits, undeclared wars and the staggering expense of upkeep on some 7,000 Navy warships and nuclear submarines many of which will never leave port, to this add the rather costly if guilty pleasure of shipping foreign captives off shore to be tortured in secret, while at home injecting American prisoners with poison in grotesque public rituals that benefit our children in ways we can scarcely imaginethan the entire government outlay for public services for China and the Soviet Union combined.

Now people want to interrupt our glorious tradition of state sponsored brutality, for what? To squander precious tax dollars on public health instead? What madness what debauchery?! What red demon in hell could concieve of such a wicked design on public morality and private profit?

Society is again threatening the beleagered "buisness community" with another diabolical plot to advance the interests of human need at the expense of profit. This clamor if not silenced can only create the ultimate evil of a democracy that embraces the future and leaves our shameful past to neglect. The disgrace!

Thanks, Michael. Hits the sweet spot for satire, realism, and practical information. Well done.

If the Obama socialists succeed in putting our police forces under government control, what's next -- nationalizing the armed forces? Glenn Beck, save us!

This can't be serious. This is some sort of summer time joke I'm not in on because I'm not American, is that what this is?

Just a tiny example. And for what it's worth, my police department, the Raleigh PD, is a profit center.

Yes the cops are a profit center. The city would collapse into bankruptcy w/o the cops singleminded crusade to write as many tickets as possible, to arrest, fine, punish as many people as possible. To stick as many people as possible into probation, court ordered 'therapy' programs, court ordered drug screening, which all offenders pay for, is the goal.

A small example. When after Katrina the price of gas shot up to $3.30/gal, the city blew through its annual fuel budget about 5 months before the end of the fiscal year. Well wouldn't you know it, the police wrote more than 39,000 traffic tickets in 3 weeks. This is a city of 350,000 people. Even if every ticket is only $25, adding in the obligatory $120 court costs per, the total was about 5.7 million dollars. Or, if you prefer 1.7 million gallons of fuel at pump prices.

It's hard to see how private cops and police departments are differentiated by money when one works for profit and the other works for budget surplus.

You are falsly attributing an opinion to me. I simply posed the question for consideration, hoping that people would think more before the usual "evil republicans!" knee-jerk, but I did not actually state which side of the freedom/security dichotomy I find myself on in this particular issue. Thank you for putting words in my mouth.

If we privatized our police forces, a lot of people would have the option of not paying to be busted for smoking dope.

If we privatized our military, then maybe the neocons could fund their wars out of their own pockets.

Let's privatize farm subsidies and price supports, too. Right now, we use tax money to pay bureaucrats to spend more tax money buying cheese to rot in warehouses so we can spend even more money when we buy cheese. Instead, anyone who wants to support the price of cheese can just buy more than they actually want and throw the unused portion in the garbage.

As one who lives in country with "socialized" police services, I can't believe that there are those in America who think this is a topic worthy of discussion. Mercenaries for cops??? As the actions of Blackwater have shown, a real issue with these guys is to whom are they accountable? Is there the same level of constitutional oversite one supposedly has with real cops? Combine that with incentives for increasing numbers of arrests, the private sector prison industry and illegal wiretaps (an issue that reared its ugly head here as well), and you have all the trappings of democratic fascism. I hope those on the side of reason will stand and fight this menace. Our current government has the unfortunate tendancy to want to emulate your policies, for better of for worse.

No doubt about it- the police enforcement of escalating punitive fines as a method of "revenue enhancement" is not a healthy trend. But in the end, it's most often driven by the immaturity of the majority of citizens, refusing to face up to the fact that their local government services cost money, and failing to be honest with themselves about the nature of their tax obligations.

No one should read this and mistake my advocacy of recognizing the facts as being an advocate of a huge, inefficient, intrusive government. But after a point, it's important for citizens of a nation with any intention of supporting a society with a unified core of values and aspirations to stop taking government services for granted. The alternative basically amounts to re-imposition of feudalism and serfdom. Not so much based on agriculture and sharecropping- more along the lines of servile allegiance to corporate employers with their safety nets and cash largesse, and the increasing class stratification that puts the fortunate technocratic classes into increasingly privileged and insulated surroundings, while leaving the rest to fend for themselves, without commitment to community values, literacy, health care- or, eventually, even basic services like municipal water treatment and paved roads.

That may sound like an extremely dire prediction, issued as it is from what is still presently one of the wealthiest and most highly developed countries in the world. But if one carries the logic of the anti-taxers to the logical endpoint, that's exactly what you find.

Beware Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.

(By the way, GLR, I think you're making an unusual amount of good sense this morning. Maybe it's some new brand of coffee you're drinking...)