Bad Exchange

I thought I'd posted a link to Echidne of the Snakes about governments and their uses, but evidently not.  Anyway, Amanda Marcotte (yes, I know; stopped clock, OK?) on how aspects of her (highly privileged) life are affected by "government regulation, funding and organizing":

If people who are just generally "against" government can't see how their day to day life is affected by---usually for the better---the existence of government, I don't know that rational arguments pointing it out are going to make much difference. They clearly live in a fantasy world. Rationality has no influence on them. 

Seriously, just grab a notebook and put in a hashmark for every time you do something that you couldn't do if it weren't for government regulation, funding, and organizing. You'll find you fill a page up before lunch with hashmarks. I've been up for an hour now, and I've made coffee(1,2,3), eaten breakfast (4,5), had a glass of water (6), used the toilet (7,8), checked stuff on my iPhone (9, 10, 11, 12, 13), gotten online through my computer (14, 15, 16, 17, 18) , and read some stuff (19). I played with my cats (20, 21, 22). Oh yeah, this whole time I was wearing pajamas (23) and using electricity (24). I haven't even left the house or finished my coffee so I can brush my teeth. Leaving the house will multiply those hashmarks exponentially.

The footnotes are in the article, in case (not in the footnotes, but:  I don't see libertarians or "small government" types giving up coffee, clean water, computers or electricity, but I'd bet they'd ration them).