One of the worst things anyone can say to another is that they are a follower, that they can't think for themselves, that they are a 'sheeple'. Indeed, college entrance essays ask for your leadership credentials.

And while we may disdain followers we know more than likely that we are all followers at some point or on some issue and that we as a society are basically all followers. Argh! The reasoning is we all need each other; while it is theoretically possible we can be independent enough to go off and live by ourselves in the desert or wilderness or wherever, we use the language we were taught by our parents to think, read books written by others, think thoughts inspired or thought by others, and endure the same kinds of hardships others have endured before us.

Our socialization is our strength and while we may sneer at followers we depend on them for pretty much everything. The best teams are full of team players, rather than stars. Stars have egos everyone has to deal with; team players cooperate with each other and help each other. While teams may have stars in them, those stars will no doubt be followers in other things too. We can't all be exceptional in every aspect of our lives.

It is naive to say 'I built this all by myself' when I depend on other people to process and prepare the materials I will use to build anything.

One day I was in a group on Facebook where a libertarian woman told us a story of her mentally disabled son whom she would send to government-run functions - I assume so she could have a break and so he could socialize with peers - yet she told us that these functions were dangerous. I asked her what she thought should be done and she said: I thought I had explained that.

She had offered no solution; I assumed she meant that a private corporation should be set up to manage these kids. A private corporation would be expensive and probably want to set up a crony system where it a) must make a profit and b) is fully subsidized by the government, like debt collecting for government fines and prisons. This has turned out to be a massive rort for these corporate parasites, based on the lie that 'government is necessarily less efficient than corporations', which is the greatest con ever worked, and it is still working on the minds of Americans.

The government under-funds these projects because they are constantly battling for funding for other projects that probably affect more people.

It was clear the woman wasn't independent enough or interested in starting this business herself, otherwise perhaps it would have occurred to her that this was the solution she was after. But I can understand not everyone being independent enough or wanting to be an entrepreneur.

I think, alternatively, parents of these kids should get together and figure out the kind of activities these kids would be good at and enjoy, and supervise it themselves. I can understand not everyone coming up with my idea but even with my putting the idea out there, it is still likely no one will do it, it needs a critical mass of followers for an idea to take off. What I was doing is 'independent thinking' rather than 'leadership'.

No, I am not interested in doing it myself because I don't have mentally disabled children and if I did I would seriously consider having aborted the baby if I had known in would be mentally disabled. I think it is irresponsible to have a child that will need constant supervision and would be unable to care for itself in our society after I am unable to care for my child myself, instead of burdening my other children with the disabled child or trusting the state or someone else will take care of my child. I think Sarah Palin is totally irresponsible because as a woman who had a disabled son she should be advocating for better care facilities for the mentally disabled.

Yet these people don't want a government? I don't understand how libertarians can want to live without a government when people who are directly affected by government run programs can't even come up with a solution for a problem they directly experience.

When there is a revolution, often someone who takes the place of the previous head of state often surpasses the tyranny of that person because they are modelling their leadership style on their predecessor (or following the leader). In the past, leaders, i.e. monarchy, were groomed for the role of leadership. The heir apparent was taken under the wing of the monarch and taught how to be a good leader, noblesse oblige. We see absolutely none of this in CEOs or GOP presidential candidates... There is the idea that anyone can be a good leader, but leadership is a skill that can be taught or a talent that can be nurtured, it's not in-built into our DNA like following is.

Clearly the government was intended to be a negotiation between elected representatives, and this is the simple bit: one person cannot think of everything, but corporations have hijacked government with legislation making people irrelevant. This is the part that is wrong. This is what we must protect against - as the founding fathers tried to protect us against corporations before - which was the original reason for the revolution. Corporations have taken away our ability to cooperate directly with each other that was probably based on our ability to negotiate directly with each other, this maintains their power over us.

Whenever a government is removed from power, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, the countries don't become anarcho-paradises, they become hell-holes, and the reason is we are all following the leader.

Libertarians like to pretend there is a gun at my head forcing me not to kill my neighbor. As much as I can't abide my christian neighbors, I really, honestly don't feel any desire to kill them. And my other neighbors, I am very happy are alive and my friends.

Yes the law states it is illegal to kill people and as much as I contemplate killing anyone, I know I will not and not because the government says I should not, but because I know it is what I would prefer not being done unto me - my bottom line of self-interest.

While I am white, middle class, living in a nice neighborhood where there may or may not be guns, I like not having to worry when I walk down the street that someone may randomly decide to shoot me.

In my, not so unique, part of the world, people are rich enough to, I hope, think kind of like me. Nevertheless murders still happen despite the proverbial gun of the state at their head. People are killing each other despite the government saying it is illegal. The benefit I hope is if the government is saying it is illegal to kill, it will make people think twice before killing me, breaking into my home, killing my husband and ruining my seemingly idyllic life.

I honestly don't feel coerced not to kill anyone, despite what the libertarians say. They say they'd prefer if i just decided not to kill anyone. Well I decided not to kill anyone already, but under extreme circumstances I can imagine being driven to the point of killing but only if it was to save one of the people I love, myself or someone I considered non-complicit in a life or death situation. I would also kill to defend my country or tribe, perhaps, if such a situation presented itself.

Recently a libertarian said she thought it was barbaric parents weren't allowed to circumcise sons in Germany. Personally, I have read that the country with the lowest incidence of cervix cancer was Israel thus lending support to the idea that male circumcision was a good thing. However, given Europe is beset by Muslims all wanting to perform genital mutilation on daughters, I can see why they ban male circumcision in an attempt to halt the slippery slope of perceived child abuse.

Yes I would put a gun at the head of anyone wanting to perform female genital mutilation on their daughters or "honor killings".

You may say I am being coerced into not killing someone, but I would prefer people think twice before killing me or a loved one or abusing their daughters or breaking into my home.

And no I don't think not putting a proverbial gun to their head to stop them doing it is a total deterrent. There will always be outliers in any system. We hardly know what makes people serial killers, why put people on an honor system when the current system doesn't fully stop people? You may say I am being coerced, but honestly, I don't feel the states gun at my head forcing me not to do those things that are illegal in our society because, yes I admit, I do sometimes get away with parking illegally.

FEMA was hardly at its best under the rein of W, the torturer.

I used to work at a military research institute and I cannot disclose what I did there or which one. Suffice to say I learned a hell of a lot about safety, amongst other things. One chemical I learned about was used to dissolve metals. If you get this on your skin you have an extremely limited time to get this off before it works its way in and starts dissolving your bones leading to an unavoidable and horrific death.

In libertarian world, if a disaster occurs, everyone pitches in and helps survivors. Not on your fucking life. Did anyone notice how those who rushed in to help with the collapse of the world trade center on 9/11 got no help? In Libertarian world you would be helped, I suppose, not sure who by, because all these details are mysteriously unclear. But lets say San Jose, the so-called capital of silicon valley, was leveled by earthquake, would i pitch in to help survivors? Gravely depends.

Peoples homes are full of all kinds of chemicals. Even smoke detectors are radioactive, while I can't remember what kind of emitters are used in smoke detectors, if it was crushed, I definitely wouldn't want its dust lodged in my lungs. I'm not sure how CO detectors work, but even assuming CO detectors are relatively safe, I cannot say for certain. I am not an average engineer (although kindly called so by electrical & electronic engineers), I wouldn't be able to run my eyes over a structure and determine how safe it would be to move this or that, to get pinned bodies out and perhaps I have a better eye at such things than the average, i wouldn't trust it.

As for a headquarters for R&D in Silicon Valley, not on your life. Anyone building proto-test chips, is also dissolving metals and dissolving metals is at least an acid even if its not the horror chemical I described above. The chemicals they use are none the less super dangerous, but building chips is all about dissolving metals.

If I was building a private FEMA it would work with local fire agencies to know what buildings contain what chemicals. Yes average personnel could learn what all the chemical symbols mean but without the appropriate equipment that's next to useless.

FEMA, like CDC, can access information on chemicals in use, experts on rotation, equipment and procedures. Wanna leave that to a bunch of amateurs who may or may not be sober when an emergency occurs? Even if civilians are given adequate training, who are they answerable to? Can they coordinate with military or co-operate with R&D centers?

So where do you concentrate your super skilled task force if you are FEMA? Obviously you would distribute FEMA resources but control it centrally. Deploy it when an emergency occurs but most of the time emergencies aren't occurring, fortunately. Who pays for those resources to be deployed? If this was a private organization, who would be paying for these people to be on call? Who organizes a roster? Who is paid to organize where resources are?

We try to prepare by having a (government paid for) weather bureau trying to predict when a tornado might rip through a town in the mid-west, we try to prepare by (having government paid for entities) predicting when an earthquake will hit on the west coast and we monitor for hurricanes and volcanoes (also paid for by the government). But in reality we don't know when a twister is going to wreak havoc or an earthquake.

Do we want Joe Blow having information about chemicals if he is a citizens' FEMA? Who knows, he may be a Timothy McVeigh. Libertarians will probably say they'd put in all those safe guards that will end up being exactly like the system we have in place already. So what have we gained in libertarian paradise? Absolutely nothing.

If a private organization does it, who is going to pay extra for all the profit they have to make on top of what it'll cost citizens to have the service? The same security authorizing NIST, CIA, FBI, NSA, Military clearances will be able to organize FEMA and CDC clearances. For a private organization, a separate service would have to be created to give security clearances and who knows, it may end up not being as good as the govt service, except it'll cost the tax payer more because the private enterprise will have to make a profit.

Libertarians are so naive.

One of the things government gives us is a legal system which is nice because it stops us from breaking rules, because it defines what the rules are. When the rules get blurry, we have a court system to determine what the outcome should be, to evaluate evidence and make rulings.
Government should be an instrument of efficiency. Government figures out what needs to be done while the rest of us get on with our lives. When there is a problem within a collection of people, government is supposed to fix it and prepare us for the future. It is meant to defend us, but its meant to be there to help us too.
Government is meant to maintain a level of quality for food, air and water; planning to extend the energy grid, repair roads, bridges and dams; as well protect us.

Without government we will quickly resort to killing each other if we don't like their religion or behavior or for cutting them off on the road. We'll form groups for protection from other groups, and those groups will need to be organized and once those groups are organized, in terms of getting enough food, organizing shifts people to patrol the confines of group, enforce rights and standards of behavior within the groups and once we do that there will be a government.

When government is organizing schools, roads, garbage collection etc, it means I don't have to go do it myself. I can get on with my life and let government take care of the rest.

So many libertarians trot out lame things like: govt kill communities. That I totally don't believe. If anything television kills communities, because people stay home to watch TV rather than mix with neighbors or friends. I remember great communities in my favorite Borders, until they went out of business. Capitalism killed their business.

Other nonsense arguments put forward by libertarians is that government is wasteful. Compared to what? Corporations? Now that is so funny because government does NOT have to make a profit, pay shareholders, pay outrageous salaries to CEOs, advertise, compete and duplicate services all other competitors are producing.

If government is not working as it should be, it is OUR fault. Not the fault of government. Government will always exist because we need it to.