Competence

Shannon Love (who btw is a dude) notes a trend in Instapundit's links. In each of the situations Insty considers government has failed to do what it would demand of private enterprise. But the apologists for Liberal policies always argue that government will get the very next thing correct (while ignoring the previous failures):

Leftists like to argue that, by some magical mechanism, real-world politicians make better decisions, especially better economic decisions, than do private actors in the free market. They usually make this argument after either the free market corrects itself naturally or the government interferes. They then simply assert, without any possibility of empirical verification, that the magic government unicorns could have prevented the problem if only they had been given enough power to do as they wished.

An investor who demands more (and perhaps the impossible) out of a company is well within her rights to do so. She can withdraw her financial interest in the company and move along. Doing so rewards companies that do the right thing (typically this means just the bottom line) and punishes those that do not. Leftists have used the tactic of non-investment to pressures countries (e.g. South Africa) and companies (e.g. Nike) to change practices.

But government can revert to coercion to prevent one form of bad action. In doing so, government is almost always fighting the previous war. But notice what else government does. It prevents private citizens the option of influencing behavior through private action.

Query this: Shouldn't Liberal activists oppose government action in favor of private action because their own power is diminished by government action?