http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs72.html

Libertarian Foreign Policy in the Hobbesian Crosshairs: A Reply to Bret Stephens
by Robert Higgs

***Begin Quote***

Nobody “forced” Americans to begin to build a navy in the 1790s. Government officials and seafaring merchants decided to do so and to deploy this force against (among others) the pirates to whom the government had been paying protection money. They might instead have continued to pay off the Barbary raiders. Or they might have rested content to let the merchants of other nations, perhaps Great Britain, which already had a large navy, handle the shipping of American goods in the Mediterranean. The fact that U.S. leaders resorted to force does not demonstrate that they chose the best option. This option did, however, socialize the costs of engaging in the Mediterranean trade, spreading it across all American taxpayers largely for the sake of the traders who had an immediate interest in the matter.

***End Quote***

Here’s a interesting formulation of gooferment.

SOMEONE has a problem. Whey then make it a gooferment problem, it can be FIXED regardless of cost. TAXPAYERS pay and SOMEONE benefits.

Look at everything the gooferment is in and you’ll see the same paradigm and meme in play.

# # # # #