Libertarians needn't worry, the world is getting privatized every day

Libertarians fret because so few government functions have been privatized, but if they want to feel better, they should note that all new technology efforts are done privately. Take the trans-Pacific fiber Google and other companies strung recently. Or the whole open-source movement. Or all the different standards: Wi-Fi, WiMax, RSS. The government can't take over these efforts because it moves too slowly. Instead of whining about what should be privatized, and asking for the government's help in doing it, libertarians should just try to put their ideas into practice. Of course, then they couldn't bash the U.S. any more, so they would never do it. One example is private schools. Libertarians want vouchers. But what's keeping them from making a network of private schools and figuring out how to finance it. Private schools are a competitor to public schools, so improve them if you want them to win. I'm not mocking libertarians; I think doing these things would work. The high-tech, private world is moving fast, and people that spend too much time whining about society and the government will be left behind.

the new world order

America runs the world, and it will for the foreseeable future. Here's how we should do it:

• Unilaterally end all our trade barriers. This way we can co-opt countries who are not contributing enough to the global economy by pulling them into the free market.
• Kill whoever kills, or credibly threatens to kill, Americans. This includes Mexican drug soldiers, Pakistani terrorists, and other enemies. We should attack them all-out. No more half-assed poking at Pakistan. We should also just occupy Pakistan, and Iran, too, because we will spend more money fighting them indirectly in Afghanistan and Iraq than we would taking the fight to them. Speaking of half measures, once we destroy the status quo in a country, we should...
• Run foreign countries directly. Giving Iraqis money to run their own country doesn't work; they just steal it. USAID doesn't help much either. Although it does do worthwhile infrastructure projects like wells and pipes, it spends too much trying to preserve a rural lifestyle that really should be eradicated. To stimulate Iraq and Afghanistan's economies, we should make them tax havens. This would bring in the foreign investment they desperately need. 60% of Iraqis are employed by the government, and they are just doing make-work. Bringing in foreign companies would get infrastructure built over there in a hurry, and pay Iraqis more, and wouldn't cost us near what giving them government jobs does. An Iraqi or Afghani military makes no sense; we already have the only real military in the world. We just need to plop a couple of bases down over there and keep defending those countries ourselves. Afghanis and Iraqis can be policemen, though. There needn't be a rule barring Afghanis and Iraqis from the government. They can join the government if they get elected or hired without racial preference.
  

Anarchy is just an Idea

There is no such thing as anarchy. It never happens. One power structure doesn't collapse without another simultaneously rising. According to more radical libertarians, Somalia should be a perfect country, because its government collapsed and they had a fresh start. This is basically what they advocate for the U.S. It doesn't work, though. In fact, such a radical transformation is just inefficient, like reinventing the wheel. Getting stopped at checkpoints along the road every couple of miles, constantly worrying about who will take power next...it's a mess. If no one else, American libertarians at least should stick to the U.S. This recession is a great opportunity to cut taxes and government programs.

browser ui

Imagine if the browser's address bar was even smarter than the awesome bar—a genius bar, I guess. As you type, it recognizes your intent. Type “browser's address bar,” and, like the awesome bar, it shows matches in your history. It also shows search results, like the omnibox in Google's Chrome. As you type, the search results dwindle. Type this entire post, and this post, and others related to it, would pop up. However, if you were just quoting this post, and you continued to write your own post, all search results would disappear. The genius bar would automatically add footnotes, and turn the quote into a link to the search for the quote. As your essay gets longer, the bar becomes a large text input area, complete with text formatting options that would pop up above the essay. Once your essay reached the bottom of you screen and required a new page, the awesome bar would now be a full-fledged word processor. By default, writings would be public. You could just drag the whole thing to a sidebar of contacts, though.Click on the person you want to send it to, and a contextual menu pops up--send it to the person, chat with person, call person?

Much like FriendFeed aggregates and improves receiving information, the unified writing interface would help sending information. One UI expressly for writing beats all the disparate ones that are tacked on to web sites and apps. A good example of this idea in practice is Posterous. This service lets you write an email, then make it a blog post by sending it to post@posterous.com. This makes your email client more useful, which is good because people usually keep their email client open all the time. It saves people from opening another app to blog, which makes good sense. I rarely blog, so even logging into blogger is a little inconvenient, as it is not routine for me;it is not as integrated into my workflow. Right now, my incoming messages are split between google reader and gmail, while my outgoing messages are split between comments on blogs and personal messages on gmail. Ideally, this would all be one service, which I guess FriendFeed is.

Bureaucrats per Acre: a new metric

Imagine a Wikipedia that could only be edited by people in New York City. Each article would be less peer-reviewed, and many topics would no longer be covered at all. Now imagine a Wikipedia that only people in the state of New York could edit. It would be better, undoubtedly, but not as good as one open to the whole U.S., much less the Wikipedia that actually exists, which integrates expertise from the whole world.
Local governments, like cities and counties are hopelessly crooked and unresponsive, because there are too few people watching them. States are better, because they have more people watching them (the whole state) and they de-duplicate government functions somewhat. The U.S. Federal Government is the best legislative body the world has ever seen. It is very closely watched, as the turnout in this years election proves. It houses some of the most effective, efficient government agencies ever, such as the U.S. military.
Topping all these forms of government would be a world government. It would, of course, duplicate functionality less than any other kind. Having one police department instead of 1,000's allows for more specialization, innovation, efficiency, and incorruptibility, thanks to the increased spotlight such a force would endure. It would also be needed in volatile places like Iraq, which increasingly needs policemen more than it needs a military presence. It would have the added advantage of bringing enough minds to bear on issues that are location-specific, such as floods or snow. There would be a state of equatorial coastal communities, a state of mediterranean coastal towns, a state of tropical tourist towns, and so on and so forth. Then the unique problems of each of these types of cities could be tackled by a larger group of citizens than ever before, working closely, when before they didn't work together at all.
Of course, this is a long way from happening, and I can't say when it will, but I know who will make it happen: America. As evidenced by our world's-best federal government, we are the greatest innovators in governance. We will start having fewer states, that make more sense. Then, as we annex countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, we will make them part of that system immediately.
Ultimately, US hegemony will mean less taxes and better government.

The Collapse of the Political Parties

While the Democratic Party seems stronger than ever and the GOP weaker, they are in fact both weaker now than before. This is borne out out by more voters identifying themselves as independents. Both the parties, and all the special interests that have supported them are circling the wagons in preparation for the attack of everyone. They are collapsing into the same policies. Look at the very bipartisan immigration reform bill. Bipartisan is supposed to make something good, but it is often bad, and the reason for the big bipartisanship push is that the partisans (Republicans and Democrats) are both weaker, and together they are stronger. Immigration may be the straw on the camel's back that makes us a more representative democracy forever. The Feds are spending more than almost anyone wants. The only people who support this waste are special interest groups, like big corporations and unions. Big corporations are shrinking by the day, and unions are history. So far, Americans have realized that liberalism doesn't work, and corporatism doesn't work, so they are desperately casting about for something...different. Obama isn't it, which people will soon realize. By then, we will have started to see a decent alternative, namely, small government at home, big government abroad, to paraphrase George Will.