If the Republicans are right [that the private sector always does a better job than the government], then we should not hesitate to bring an end to the government's involvement in fire & police protection, road & sewer construction/repair, and even national defense.  Of course, in order to reap all the benefits of capitalism in these industries, we’d not only have to privatize them, we’d also have to make sure that there are a number of firms in each of these industries competing with each other to provide the services we want, that the government will no longer be providing.  After all, without the pressure of competition, privately-owned firms are no more efficient than governments are.

How would things be different if we were to get the government out of the security industries?  Well, for one thing, we’d have to put up with the endless advertisements that competing police forces and competing fire departments would be putting on the air.  If you ever found yourself needing to call for a police officer or a team of fire fighters, you'd first have to decide which privately-owned service you'd want to call (assuming you had not already chosen a 'provider').  You'd have to compare prices and different packages of services that they'd be offering at the time.  Of course, the very first thing they would ask you if you were to call is if you were covered by that police company's protection services and if you had been current in your monthly payments.

Assuming you were covered by one of their services plans, you would then discover if/whether the plan you paid for actually covers the particular kind of service you were calling them for.  Of course, some people would not pay for police or fire protection because they would not be able to afford the premiums.  They'd take their chances.  So if your neighbor's house caught fire, and he hadn't paid for any fire protection services, his house would burn down, but perhaps not before it ended up catching your own home on fire.  Still others would be able to afford some coverage, but maybe they would have to select the high deductible option on the service package they chose, that they thought they could afford.

If the Republicans had succeeded in getting the government out of the road/sewer construction/repair business when they were in power, we would still see roads and sewers in America, but we’d also have to put up with certain inconveniences, like toll booths every few miles.  Of course, in order for there to be any real competition in these industries, we'd also need to have parallel, competing highways and sewer lines.  Can you imagine that?  Two or more sewer lines dug so that competing firms would be able to offer the same services to the same cluster of customers?  In those areas where it would be prohibitive for a private firm to build a competing highway, the fruits of competition would disappear and all users of the single road would pay monopoly prices in order to connect with the main arteries.

And if we really wanted to enjoy the benefits of capitalism in the national defense industry, we'd have to encourage the existence of competing, privately-owned armies.  Of course, some Nervous Nellies out there would be concerned about the possibility that these competing armies just might want to go to war with each other some day, or that they might want to use their raw power to impose their will on Congress, but we all know that nothing like that would ever happen in America, right?

It is when you try to imagine the nation switching from certain government-provided services to the private-sector alternative that the advantages of having the government run some industries becomes apparent.  (Note: one industry the government needs to get out of right away: the mail delivery industry.)  There is no rational reason at all for the fear and anger that Republicans are expressing at the town hall meetings.  They are either fearful and angry because they are clueless, or they are intentionally expressing fear and anger because they know that it is often a good way to scare people into giving them (or their rich friends in the insurance industry) what they want.