"Those of us who love freedom are in such a tiny minority that we wouldn't stand a chance of survival; Galt's Gulch would be annihilated quickly."
I'd put it differently. I suppose most 'love freedom'. It's just that they're not willing to live under a libertarian philosophy. I do believe that in some sense, the libertarian way is a superior way if society were composed of only libertarians who strongly believed that it was wrong to infringe upon others freedoms. I do believe that 'Galt's Gulch' would be annihilated very quickly.
To be honest, there is a lot in the libertarian philosophy (if you can say there is such a thing) that appeals to me and I'd rather live in such a society, but I have difficulty in believing that it could ever be implemented on any scale due to the frailties of human nature.
"What's distressing is the circularity of the argument: in effect, we (probably) need to be defended by a state, precisely because we need to be defended from states. We need them because we can't get rid of them. If we could get rid of them, we also wouldn't need them. My head hurts."
I'm afraid your head will hurt until that 'sweet bye and bye' when the lamb lies down with the lion, etc., etc. As long as there are those who believe that what's theirs is theirs and what's yours is up for grabs, we will need the state to enforce certain rules of behavior or to prevent some one from enforcing their rules.
"True! I'm surprised you're the first person to point out that we lost that battle, after I cited it so many times! If the US fit my earlier description--namely, everyone armed to the teeth and willing to fight to the death--then the Brits would probably have lost eventually, but casualties would have been far higher than they actually were."
Or to point out that the colonists were not at all uniformly behind the revolution. From the numbers I remember, the population was fairly evenly split between those who wanted independence and those who did not. Varied by region of course.
"The flaw in my theory is that humans don't work that way. Kill a few, and the rest will obey like the sheep they are. Privatized defense requires a critical mass willing to take responsibility for, and command of, their own lives."
Another flaw is that Ghandi was lucky in his opposition. He recognized that the British were not barbarians. Some simply wouldn't care how many they killed 'if God (or the 'greater good', etc.) was on their side'.
"How did so many railroads manage to coordinate their use of the rails? Should trains have been colliding all over the place?"
That's a fairly simple problem because a train can only be on one track at a time and there was only one person (centralized system) responsible for that segment of track. That person could tell which train to use which track at what time (deconfliction). That is certainly not the case where airplanes can fly at an almost infinite number of speeds, altitudes, and directions. In addition, there are significant differences in controlling movement and responding to a threat. Railroads didn't overlap, air defenses do. It's just not the same problem.
BTW, one of my favorite stories is how the RR got together to establish time zones.
"That's actually not a very hard problem for a market to solve. People coordinate all the time, because it's in their best interests."
The problem here is that we are talking about the coordination of the use of lethal force, not something most people have much experience with.
"But let me clarify. When you speak of many companies all providing linebackers, you're suggesting that the defense is nothing but a giant linebacker. It isn't."
Agreed. I was careful to state that one company provided a defensive safety and another a linebacker. In fact, I specified that there were eleven different contractors all providing only a single player to the defense. You were talking about different segments of the market and so was I.
"The government does this very inefficiently, on the whole."
Governments can be inefficient but so can companies. Companies are probably more efficient than governments in most cases. The thing is, 'efficiency' is not necessarily an attribute in national defense. As in most life and death situations, living is more important than living efficiently.
"After 9/11, their idea of protecting airports was to fill them with men carrying M16s."
I really don't think that 'protecting airports' was the real purpose of those troops. They were there to reassure people that it was safe to get back in the air. Did they actually contribute to safety? Maybe in rare instances. Was this an efficient use of resources? Maybe depending upon how you define efficiency. Certainly more efficient than shutting down our air transport system.
Exactly--that's why my head hurts. The State is the people who believe that what's theirs is theirs, and what's mine is up for grabs. So will this "State" thing of yours protect me from itself? Sigh. I didn't think so.
(By the way, I read a fascinating piece today on the law of Bitur-Camember, which relates to this issue. It states that the amount of resources "up for grabs" is almost exactly equalled by the resources spent lobbying to get your hands on it.)
That's a fairly simple problem because a train can only be on one track at a time and there was only one person (centralized system) responsible for that segment of track... Railroads didn't overlap, air defenses do. It's just not the same problem.
The overall point, though, is that coordination isn't nearly as hard as you were suggesting. As for "overlapping", they overlapped wildly! A train making a long trip would carry goods for many railroad companies on the same train, using cars belonging to many railroad companies, over roads belonging to many railroad companies. The car might belong to a different company than its load, which was different from that of the road, which was different from that of the crew. The coordination issues are much snarlier than you appear to think. Many different models were tried for allocating the cost fairly between the owner of the cars, rails, crews and cargo, and for making sure that everyone eventually got their money, and their property, where it belonged.
I really don't think that 'protecting airports' was the real purpose of those troops. They were there to reassure people...
Exactly! I'm sure you're as disgusted as I am by that! The government spent millions, and wasted thousands of valuable military man-hours, for no purpose whatsoever except to score political points by making people believe the government was "protecting" them, when in fact it was weakening their protection in order to put on this show. Private defense contractors would go out of business doing idiotic things like that.