You’re exactly right about people’s perceptions. Privatizing things that the government has done for so long is not an easy concept to wrap your head around very quickly. Look at the way everyone automatically points to the highway system anytime some questions the usefulness or even the competency of government. I actually had a long-time interaction with one guy who frequented the same forum I did for a number of years…and for years, anytime someone brought up education this guy (who served in the Navy and has a wife and two teenage children…God help us) would always exclaim “How in the world do you expect to get the government out of schooling? Private schools only house a SMALL PERCENTAGE of the school population. There are simply not enough private schools!!!” I am not kidding, or exaggerating. He literally asked “how do you expect to private schools to provide education for every single child?” And he maintained this for over a year at least. Granted, this guy was a total idiot, but this is how deeply ingrained these things are.
They honestly can’t think of how a lot of things would even exist without government. And I can totally understand this because I was once there myself. It’s not a quick and easy journey to anarcho-capitalism…and like they said in Hollow Man…genius is the ability to get from A to D without having to go through B and C. Very few people are geniuses. And the truth is, while “access to educational resources” is quickly diminishing as an excuse, still very few people have the time or the interest in going on that philosophical and ideological journey…which is why our job—as people who have walked that road—to expose, educate, and persuade others, is so important. I can so easily imagine a future in which people cannot imagine the government not running the farming industry and the grocery stores, and believing if we didn’t have our grocery vouchers and government farms we would all starve to death because…“who would grow all the food?”