Quote from: Elwar on May 06, 2016, 08:59:22 AM

...
My garbage, water, sewage and power are all private companies.

Your water and sewage are private companies? Something smells. Where do you live/name of companies?
Unless, of course, you got a septic tank and a well.

Quote

So...the idea that by not relying on government those things go away is a failed assumption.

Has anyone ever suggested that it's metaphysically impossible to have those things without a government?
London, for instance, used to do just fine without public water and sewage ...scratch that, it did just fine just fine until Thames turned into an open sewer (because no jackboots with their environmental regulations, lol), Cholera epidemics broke out, and, after The Great Stink of 1858, people decided that maybe letting everyone poop wherever they want to -- in the street, in the Thames -- was just too much freedoms. In come city sewage.

Perhaps you might peruse a few history books? Learn how come we got them gubermint institutions and intrusive regulations we gots today? Might take some of your edge off.

Quote

There are also private roads

Yes, there are. They're called "driveways." You lay a road on your property, and it's a private road.

Quote

and private police forces.

In Somalia, yes.

Quote

I even had a private fire department when I lived in Georgia. One of the highest rated fire departments in the state.

Really? Which one is it? Link? Because every time I search for privatized fire departments, I keep getting stuff like this http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/nyregion/experiment-in-private-fire-protection-fails-for-a-westchester-village.html?pagewanted=all

Quote

I actually did have a problem once with my garbage service. So I cancelled their service and called a new company. Meanwhile the next county over that had a public garbage service was having a big controversy over their garbage service not picking up garbage, people had to complain to the government, the unions got involved, there were protests and hearings. Idiotic.

Where was this again? Name of the company and the one you switched to?
I mean sure, I've lived in BVI for a bit and garbage collection was private, as was sewage (septic tanks, of a sort), and water (collect rain into a sistern below the house where the basement usually is, call water truck if you run out), as was power (one private company with bigass diesel generator/intermittent service and no competition, your own diesel generator as alternative), as were most of the roads (AFAIK, had to pay a guy with a CAT to clear/level mine after a storm).

This worked fine, but shit don't scale. Laying multiple parallel sewer lines and building multiple sewage processing plants is simply idiotic. As is having to call a guy with a backhoe to disconnect you from TastySew sewer line and lay some pipe to hook you up to Exclusive Sewage Services every time TastySew raises its prices. Ditto for multiple water mains.
Do I really need to explain this stuff?