I'm not going to embed it but Jon Stewart had an interesting conversation the other evening with Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News. I enjoy seeing two men on my TV discussing political differences without engaging in theatrics and hysterics and trying to shout the other down. When voices rise on most debate-type shows, it usually sounds to me like roleplaying, not unlike professional wrestlers putting on an act for us. On the old Crossfire series on CNN, I often thought that while the two combatants probably were genuinely Liberal or Conservative as per their roles, they couldn't possibly believe that their Talking Points weren't full of holes.
Napolitano is a Libertarian of the "government bad" mindset…though oddly enough he's all for government running a court system in which judges engage in what others on Fox would call "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench." And while he despises the notion of the government taking tax dollars from you at gunpoint, he seems quite happy with the idea that it will enforce a judge's decision and take fines and compensatory damages from you at gunpoint or maybe lock you up.
The oddest moment to me in the Stewart/Napolitano chat was after the latter began asking why anyone would give their money to the government. The host responded…
STEWART: Because you think they're going to hire a bunch of people who if your house catches on fire will come there with water.
NAPOLITANO: I can do it better for you if I have an insurance company that promises to keep my house free from fire.
I'm going to guess that's one of those things that Judge Napolitano would wish he'd phrased differently…but given some of the other things I've heard him say, maybe not. Really? How is an insurance company going to make good on a promise to keep your house free from fire? Are they going to put it out for you? All eighty thousand insurance companies are going to have crews near where you live who'll be available 24/7 and have the necessary equipment and training?
Naw. He must mean that private fire departments are going to spring up and that State Farm and Prudential and Mutual of Wherever will contract with them to show up at your house with hoses and axes when needed. But how could these hypothetical companies do a better job than what we have now? And wouldn't they just hire the same firefighters and get the same equipment but build a profit for the company into the deal? How could that possibly be better or cheaper?
Maybe Napolitano isn't talking about private firefighters. Maybe he's talking about them letting your house burn down and then paying to rebuild and replace everything. No, that can't be it. Very few people whose homes burned would feel whole again to receive a check for the book value of what they lost. And can you imagine what your premiums would be like for insurance if they just let homes and their contents burn and then paid to replace everything? This kind of silly, impractical thinking is one of the reasons that the Libertarian movement doesn't get farther in this country.