People are hypocrites. Hypocrites who complain about not having enough firetrucks, enough teachers, or patches for their potholes, but won't pass a tax override anyway.

Yeah, I love my get-out-of-debt radio guru, but he goes on the occasional conservative rant. This time it was national health care and how we shouldn't trust the government to do anything efficiently. His one exception? The military! Yeah, if the war in Iraq has taught us anything, it's how efficient our government is.

Another value of libraries is that they give people who cannot otherwise afford it access to the internet!

Well if those people cannot afford the internet access, then clearly they're not real Americans. They're probably welfare leeches too. And I imagine most of them are brown, or foreigners, or brown foreigners, anyway. The rest are gay.

t /suddenly bitter

His one exception? The military!

So efficient they hired private companies like Blackwater.

Yeah, the last time I wanted to use a computer at the branch library I go to, it was the middle of a weekday, and it was going to be a two hour wait for a 15-minute slot -- and a longer wait for a longer slot.

And awesomely, the NYPL is open 6 days a week now (again). Which is sweet.

how we shouldn't trust the government to do anything efficiently.

Then why is it that Medicare spends about 1/3rd per patient what the average private insurance company does?

Free wifi at the library rocks.

Eta: and my current local library has the wonderful quiet reading area in front of a working fireplace. I'm gonna come back and visit in on grey days even after I move, I think.

So efficient they hired private companies like Blackwater.

Who are even more efficient as they operate with no oversight whatsoever. Plus they can cut costs by sending out their employees into hostile areas without all that fancy "protection" that real soldiers have to have.

I'm not a librarian (I plan to be one) but I use the library all the time. Due to property tax issues the library system here had to make a bunch of cuts and are short staffers because of hiring freezes, but the library has all kinds of programs for all ages. There's a knitting group, they have (or at least had) free computer classes, there are all kinds of programs for teenagers -- including an anime club. There are book clubs for teens and adults. They have something called the "Traveling Book Club" where if there's a group of you who want to do a book club you can sign up and check out the books for a certain amount of time with some materials to help your book club.

They have book readings, poetry slams, after school tutoring, all kinds of groups and use the meeting rooms there. You can get help on your taxes, with genealogy.

The branch libraries are so that people who live in various areas don't have to drive very far to get to the main library. Some don't have meeting rooms, but they are gathering places for people. Kids hang out at the library, get access to computers they might not have otherwise.

If you want to complain about the library after you've been there, that's fine, but don't start putting down something you don't know anyhting about.

That as a conservative/libertarian you might think the military is one thing the government should be involved in--that I get. It the actually thinking they are currently efficient at it that cracks me up!

but don't start putting down something you don't know anyhting about.

Hey, this is a fine and longstanding American tradition!