The quote is just a little too over the top. I know Scocca checked it out but I just don't buy it. Its the sort of thing one of the parody trolls would write. Goodness knows libertarians are morons but that is just a shade over the line even for someone with the stupidest ideology on Earth.

"Libertarianism" is an "ideology" in the same way that Mickey Mouse is a "rodent".

A real ground floor investment opportunity right there.

This "mythical" company sounds like the libertarian version of underpants gnomes.

If there hadn't been mention of the Dad belonging to a militia, there never would have been notice of this.

Drunk driving arrests and convictions have been a boon for court mandated alcohol treatment. Private companies who charge the patient and have the power to decide when they can stop treatment.

I'm sure there are a number of private companies who would be delighted to expand into confiscating and selling babies. Oh wait.
The adopt a foreign baby centers already do that. They could simply expand into the US.

A true libertarian would have argued that the baby is his property and he can beat it to death if he wants to.

Set aside the question of how effective this imaginary private company is going to be at ending child abuse. What's the business model here? Where does the revenue come from?

Perhaps we could all come together, as a society, and chip in to fund this private company. The money could be collected by everyone putting in a few extra cents every time they buy something. And since the public would be funding this private company, perhaps we could also have a say in who runs it. If people were interested in running the private company, they could put their name on a list, and then everyone could vote for who they felt would best run the company. This would be far superior to publicly-funded government run by elected officials!

Oh, wait...

Wingers & glibertarians are much more likely to set up domestic abuse companies than domestic abuse prevention companies.

Outsourcing abuse -- that's where the money is.

Private prisons seem to be doing quite well; here in PA they have paid bribes to judges, who sentence young offenders to their tender mercies.

From a libertarian standpoint, the only rights any person has (including an infant) are negative liberties: the right to free speech, to have contracts honored, to freely associate, etc. One's only freedoms are ***from*** the government. So if a kid doesn't like the whippings, he/she is free to go find a job and support himself.

The scandal isn't that a libertarian would defend the Oathkeeper/child-abuser, but that libertarianism absolutely mandates that defense, and any libertarian who professes otherwise is either being disingenuous or contradicting himself.

Of course, if the family hadn't PAID that private-enterprise family welfare company their yearly $75 fee, they would just wait on the sidewalk in case the domestic dispute spilled over to the subscribers next door.

"The family should be left to resolve it on their own," [Amanda] Biondolillo said. "Or private enterprise -- private companies can contact the family and say, 'We heard you were hitting your kids. Can you stop that?' "

That's pretty ambitious,,,
Is she trying to replace Palin as the 2012 Reteaplicant Presidential Nominee?

Private prisons seem to be doing quite well; here in PA they have paid bribes to judges, who sentence young offenders to their tender mercies.
Posted by: DAY

A case of life imitating pop art trash -- there is a 1959 teensploitation movie with this exact plot. It's called Untamed Youth and it stars Mamie Van Doren and Eddie Cochran.

And no, I am not making this up.

No, they put "Stop Hitting Your Kids, Inc." on their vans, and then charge people NOT to show up at their house.

Geez, what next? Some right-wing media personality saying that the war in Afghanistan should be turned over to the private sector?

Oh wait....

"Because I have not seen the government do anything except cause problems, with an exception of maybe defense, but I'd like to give it a whirl, on defense that wasn't solely run by the government. I think you have private individuals that could probably take care of things in Afghanistan better."

-Glenn Beck, 6/19/2010

Or banks could just sieze underperforming babies and sell them to more deserving families. Of course there would have to be safeguards like affidavits and so forth.

I do not understand how the idea that private enterprise always does better at everything than does the public sector has become embedded in our culture. Private enterprises fail, go out of business, provide bad products, poor service, and totally screw up all the time.

The last time a friend of mine said "Government should be run more like a business," I asked "Which business? The airlines? The regional department store that just went bankrupt and closed after over 100 years? How about Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers? Bernie Madoff was a private enterprise -- how about him? Hewlett-Packard under Carly Fiorina?" My friend's response, after a moment of thought: "You certainly have a valid point. The private sector doesn't always get it right either."

On race issues libertarians have no answers except counterfactuals. For example on this issue of slavery and Jim Crow the typical answer your will here from a libertarianism is that it would have ended on it's own without government.
Libertarianism is a nice thought experiement for stoners in college but have no real-world application to social problems.

No, they'll just equip the baby with a Dune personal force shield in return for 25% or the baby's adult life income.
The contract with the infant will of course be legally binding.

The fatal weakness of non-scumbag libertarians is not that they distrust and despise all government--that's fashionable--but that they rely over and over again on a swift and incorruptible court system (with tough enforcement powers) so that those Holy Contracts will remain in force...
....and somehow that's not government....

What's the business model here? Where does the revenue come from?

Duh! The business model is that this government agency will be replaced by a subsidiary of Halliburton. This subsidiary will perform the same services the government agency did, but without any regulations. And then they'll bill the Federal government triple what the agency used to cost.

I would not trust the welfare of any human being at any age nor animal in fact with a libertarian or conservative of today. The living matter nothing to them, just the money.

dang. chrenson beat me to it. but (s)he forgot to mention that the private company will hire hamburger flippers and pay them minimum wage and no benefits to do the actual work.

Whew, what would these Tea Pot Libertarians do if they found themselves in American during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s?

Now, to them, that was a time of true socialism here in America. One could buy gov't. subsidized gas for around $.50 a gallon. One could send his/her child off to an education system that could afford enrichment for its youth population through intramurals and afterschool programs. One could count on fire protection and law enforcement to be more than a random encounter at either the right or god forbid the wrong time.

This "libertarian" you speak about Mr. Benen is obviously more of a moron than any sentient libertarian would ever be! -Kevo

Of course they will be paid with a claim on the earnings of the child in question. Since it would obviously take too long to collect in the normal manner of business, they will be able to sell the claims for payment to banks that will package them for longterm investors. The bill will be calculated on the basis of hours worked, without regard to success, and all records will be retained for 10 years. Beneficiaries will be allowed to dispute their bills once they are 18 years old, but their only recourse will be against the originating company, not the holders of the note.

Thus we continue a financial model that has worked so well in the housing industry.

The real solution is obviously tax cuts