When the local government in Fountain Hills, Arizona, reviewed a bunch of bids and awarded a garbage contract to one company for 25,000 residences in a county of over 4 million, and I was ok with it and laughed at the insane teabagger response, multiple libertarians sneered at me and screamed “LIBERALS FAVOR STATE-SANCTIONED MONOPOLIES” and other such idiocy. Never mind that it was not a monopoly in any way, shape, or form, and was so god damned stupid it didn’t warrant a serious response.
Now libertarians want to turn over airline security to private industry. Fine. Just how would this work? Would we have competitive bids and then award a contract creating a “STATE-SANCTIONED SECURITY MONOPOLY,” or would multiple security firms each get to line up in the airport hangars, and the consumer would get to choose which private firm gets to handle his privates? Who would license the security firms? Would we keep the TSA to inspect the new private security firms? Or would we have to create a new agency to inspect them?
These fantasy ideologies with ever-shifting rationales and rigid attachment to principles over reality are so hard to game out when you actually want to get shit done.