Do yourself a favor and read the whole essay. Ed at Gin and Tacos writes great stuff.
http://www.ginandtacos.com/2008/08/31/atheistsfoxholes-libertariansairplanes/
"In short, to the extent that I care more about what happens to people – real people, here in the real world – than I care about patting myself on the back for being 100% true to pure free market principles, I’m liberal. Regarding the term’s use as an insult – when you are ready to volunteer for a flight on Market Self-Correction Airways or have your kid to eat the Mad Cow meat and die on a ventilator with blood hemorrhaging out of his eyes, then we’ll talk. Until then, politely lean forward and blow it directly out your ass. There is no insult I can take seriously from people who are so fanatically devoted to free-market idolatry that they would rather see lives lost and ruined than controvert its sacred principles. People who care more about free market ideology than human life prove themselves remarkably undeserving of either."
The deregulation fanaticism has brought our nation nearly to its knees, without most citizens making the connection at all. Toledo, Ohio lost drinking water for 3 days due to a toxic chemical in their water supply source, Lake Erie. The chemical, mycrocystin, is made by blue green algae that are now rampant in many inland lakes here in Ohio, especially Lake Erie and Grand Lake St. Mary's. Lake Erie is where Toledo gets its drinking water. The algae blooms are fueled by sewage, manure and fertilizer pouring into Lake Erie. In 2002, the republican lead legislature and governor (Taft, in 2002) took the regulation of factory farm manure from the OhioEPA and gave the regulatory responsibilities to the Ohio Department of Agriculture, putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Our GOP legislature refuses to properly regulate and inspect home sewage systems, as more and more homes, in Ohio, are built in unsewered locations, allowing massive quantities of raw sewage to flow into our streams, rivers and lakes due to the failure and lack of inspections of home sewage systems. The regulation of home sewage is done by county health departments, whose budgets have been slashed by the republicans in their anti regulation fervor. The regulation of fertilizer from farm fields, family homes and golf courses is not even on the radar here in Ohio. The lack of funding for improving infrastructure like waste water and drinking water plants is a scandal in and of itself.
Because this is complicated, people cannot reason this out for themselves. They need information so they can understand the relationship between the lack of regulation and not being able to have safe drinking water. This is only one issue that people are completely in the dark about. By keeping people ignorant, the forces that enrich themselves at the expense of public health and loss of democracy thrive. Simple slogans by simple minded politicians seem appropriate to folks who do not have the tools to comprehend what is needed and why government regulation is the only way to have things like clean drinking water and properly functioning public schools. Thus, libertarians are not laughed out of the room when they propose their silly and astonishingly selfish ideas.
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