Since none of us get anywhere these days espousing intelligent, workable, rational solutions to our deadly problems, and seeing as how the Randian views of the batshit crazy Right (BCR) are so much easier to pursue what with their not having to provide any sort of proof that any solution they propose has any connection whatever with what any one of us not born with a silver spoon thrust through their cerebral cortex would consider reality, not to mention that their simplistic and/or fantasy solutions are far more welcome in the Halls of Power than our own practicable and successful but unfriendly-to-the-rich ones because we would require them to cease stealing everything they can get their grubby, grasping little hands on and put some sort of limits on their greed, I figure if you can't beat em join em.

Now, given that the Corporate Right has seized on the Randian "idea" that govt has no right to tell anybody what to do as a way of justifying their claim that it doesn't have the right to tell corporations they can't kill us no matter how profitable it is, I've been looking for an issue of unwarranted govt intervention in our freedoms which the BCR has overlooked, and I think I've found one.

Traffic lights.

Think about it. If the govt has no right to, say, protect its citizens from something as serious as firearm-type mayhem by regulating the sale of those firearms and making sure career murderers, psychopaths, or sociopathic batshit crazy militias can't buy flamethrowers, armor-piercing bullets, and Uzis at the corner drug store (cf. Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, The NRA, Glenn Beck, Tom Coburn, the entire Republican contingent in the House, et al), then it certainly stands to reason it doesn't have the right to tell me that I can't go through an intersection whenever I feel like it. Clearly traffic lights are an unacceptable infringement of my basic God-given right to drive any damn where I please any damn time I please in any damn vehicle I please regardless of circumstances. This is the socialist granny-state at its most intrusive and illegitimate and it's time something was done about it.

The most obvious answer is to simply remove all the stop lights, in fact to eliminate all traffic laws period, and at first I thought that's what I would argue for. But then I realized that I had overlooked the most important part of Heroic Randianism as practiced by Randian Heroes like Jamie Dimon: Heroic Profit-taking at govt's expense. At first this stumped me - how do you make a profit from traffic lights? But then I saw the answer and it was Randian simple. I couldn't believe no one had seen it before.

Pay lights.

It would work much like highway toll booths. Every time a driver reached a stoplight it would be red and blocked by a barrier until he dropped a quarter (or a dollar, why not?) in a receptacle at which point the light would turn green and the barrier would be raised. Ingenious, no? And it has the conservative virtue of privatizing govt functions as well as the Randian beauty where only the people who use the traffic lights have to pay for them. I would offer good deals for regular users (say for $1000/month you'd get a little SpeedPass card that would let your limosine car race through all the lights you wanted) and various other incentives for my customers. Meanwhile this system would ensure that no cars ran any red lights and virtually all street accidents would end, saving us $billions$ in insurance costs. And lives, of course, though that isn't as important.

I would only need a couple $BILLION$ (less than a single B-1 bomber cost overrun) from the govt for setup costs and my outrageous salary as CEO (a mere $100Mil or so a year) and that would be paid back to the govt within 2 or 3 decades. Probably. If my yearly raise doesn't cut into the profits too much.

I think this is win-win for everybody. Especially me. And that's the right spirit for the times, don'cha think?