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Look, no one is arguing that Private Enterprise could likely do many things the government does more effectively, the point you are missing is that you assume because they could do them more efficiently, they would do them! That is where the idiotic idealogical viewpoint always falls apart. You automtically assume that private industry WOULD do the things governments do... and reality is, they won't.

Governments duties include things that no private company will touch... for a multitude of reasons... Government can't just say, sorry PASS... there are fundamental things and obligations it must fulfill... unlike private industry it can't just pick and choose. I don't see private industry chomping at the bit to find a cure for Ebola, or even investigating it seriously... yet when an outbreak happens, who has to go clean it up? Sure isn't Phiser or Bayer, I can tell you that. Was the irradication of smallpox the action of a private company? No, was the Salk Vaccine? No.. Were private companies rushing to clean up the environmental damages decades of polluting had caused? No... they weren't...

There's and outbreak of TB in NYC, government can't just say, nope sorry, no profit there, we're gonna sit right here.

Most people don't have the foggiest idea of the role government plays in their lives... sure they don't want it intruding, I sure don't, but they don't understand and respect exactly how much government work goes on to allow them that reasonably comfortable life they have. You own a home, likelihood is very good, governments subsidizing you.... You on a municipal line for water or power? Likelihood very good government money helped build those faclities. You work in construction? THere is hardly any construction that goes on in this nation, commercial or otherwise that doesn't have some sort of government funding involved. You drive on interstates, have your refuse removed and taken to public landfills... enjoy pleantiful foods all of which at some level directly are the result of government actions and programs... Just because you don't know about them, doesn't mean you don't benefit from them.

The fact you can buy private property and be reasonably sure that it won't be taken away by some schyster with a fake deed is because of government. The fact there is a hospital within an hours drive of well over 90% of all americans is a direct result of government programs and spending. The fact your traffic signals work, emergency services exist are all government programs.

The fact that most rivers have been tamed, and floods are now a rarity, not a regularity, government program (private idustry sure wasn't going to tame the rivers.) The power grid that cris crosses this nation, governement funded... Hoover Damn, that allowed the growth of the southwest, and provided power to most of it as well, government program... etc etc etc...

It is absolutely foolish to make the incredibly naive leap of logic that private industry would do the things government does... they wouldn't, and won't. Your supposition that they would ignores history... if governments were only needed for fighting wars, there would be few governments ever.... your believe that is all they are good at or neccessary for, shows such ignorance, that either you have never thought about it, or you just refuse to see. Please go to a country without a real government... go to Somalia, or the ilk... see what it is like someplace where government truly does NOTHING but further its own power if it can... then maybe you can see exactly how much good government does do.

We aren't ever going to agree. You look at government and see one thing. I look at the same thing and see exactly the opposite for example, you say

You on a municipal line for water or power? Likelihood very good government money helped build those faclities.

You see something that helps quality of life. I see tax dollars taken and spent wastefully for something that private industry could do better (an example is Atlanta - a corrupt African People's Democracy if ever there was one) Even in Atlanta privatization of the water system is saving $8,000,000 a year.

Another example - you say

The fact you can buy private property and be reasonably sure that it won't be taken away by some schyster with a fake deed is because of government

You see protection of private property. I see the property tax system that ensures that if you don't pay an annual bribe to the county/state your property will be taken away by some schyster with a real deed. And so it goes.

I don't think I will ever convince you, and I know you won't convince me.