Law enforcement: seen by 99.99% of intelligent people as the sole prerogative of the state. Why? Because to let private individuals handle the task would mean only rich people received protection, that people with money could break the law with impunity (these days they just get bailed out by the federal government). Example no. 1,423,675 to show the state option is just as ludicrous as the private option. In the real world neither is perfect. Still, the state option is nearly held up as the only option.
On the drive home today this point was hammered home again. In the middle of rush hour just south of Austin I was passed by a motorcycle cop. A few minutes later I saw him parked along the highway with his radar, scoping for violators of the reduced speed segment of the highway due to construction. Not one mile later we chanced upon a car accident, with an overturned car surrounded by private samaritans. No police in sight. There is no money in saving lives. Maybe unfair, as the accident had just happened. Still, with the nearly daily examples from Radley Balko at Reason.com of police mayhem and brutality against innocents, and other mainstream articles on mis-management and fraud from the so-called thin blue line, where are the calls to eliminate the state police? I do not believe you could flip a switch and overnight have a fully private law enforcement paradigm, as the collective consciousness is too firmly wedded to the idea this is a “wild west” scenario (purely inspired by Hollywood and detatched from reality), and that bloodshed in the streets will rule.
Still, when even free-market libertarians keep faith in the holy trinity of the state (police, law, and defense — all nation-state concepts that dovetail nicely with fatherland/motherland/homeland mystical rites of the state), there is no hope for those who view anything free market related as horrible in being open to a market for law enforcement.
