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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh
From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Walter Wego speaks out - (nf)
Message-ID: <1774@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Oct-84 00:51:05 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1774
Posted: Wed Oct 31 00:51:05 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Nov-84 03:10:47 EST
Lines: 43

#R:wucs:-43500:inmet:7800148:000:1805
inmet!nrh    Oct 29 23:56:00 1984

>***** inmet:net.politics / dciem!w / 10:57 am  Oct 28, 1984
>Of course, we once had such a system.  No-one now alive remembers the
>time of private fire departments, 

*I* remember those days:  there's some town in Arizona where the
fire companies are private.  I don't know the details, but
National Geographic did an article favorably comparing the private
companies with public ones.  I suspect it may be a state-licensed
thing: the state hires a private agency to take care of fires, but
unquestionably the private agency is in it for the money.

>but lots of houses went up in smoke
>because they bore the shield of a company competing with the one the
>person who saw the smoke called.  

Care to back this up?  I'd particularly enjoy something
like a comparison between the average uncompensated loss due
to fire in the privately-run fire departments with that of 
publicly-owned fire departments.  

>I'd rather have a publicly operated
>monopoly, thanks.  

Why that's MIGHTY generous of you to be willing to tax us to fit
your ideals.  MIGHTY generous.

>I'd also like to do away with private security
>companies; people licenced to carry guns make me nervous, and I think
>we would have more efficient security with a well funded and trained
>police than by dissipating the resources among private firms whose
>objective is not to serve, but to make a profit.

"Dissipating" resources?  Yes sir!  Those public police forces sure
do the job!  Ask anyone whose ever been broken in on by the DEA.
That's what we need all right -- MORE police, and BETTER police.

Thanks, but I'll take the private fire department, and the
private security firms -- they are after profit, so they are 
answerable to their customers.  Public officials, of course,
particularly career beaurocrats, are much less so.