In India, we don't have any department like FDA and it works just fine. The market forces will ensure that only those companies who provide edible food survives and rest are driven out of business. Taking your own example, after Sinclair's book, didn't meat sales fell by half? Did you need FDA to see that consumers didn't eat that meat? Let's imagine that government did not create FDA after that book and meat sales continue to decline. Don't you think that meat companies would have come up with a plan to restore consumer confidence? They would change their practices, advertise the fact that they are not clean and safe. They would have asked independent journalists to visit their facility. And slowly buy surely, consumers would have come back.

Let me give you an example. FDA doesn't regulate coffee temperature. A lady gets first degree burn from McD's coffee. She sues McD and wins. McD (and all other companies who sell coffee) ensures that they set up right temperature for their coffee. FDA didn't have to do anything and still all the consumers are better off than before.

You haven't given me any public studies where it is proven that FDA disapproval saved people's lives. The page you have linked lists bunch of products but nothing else.

You have yourself outlined the biggest problem with FDA. Because FDA is made up of people like you and me and when you give them power, rest assured that the power will be misused. I would rather trust free market's invisible hand do the work for me instead of few hundred government bureaucrats of FDA. Who is responsible if people die because these government bureaucrats are too slow to approve a drug/medicine?

You copied/pasted text from ADL site about extremist groups running the schools. The point of voucher system is that as a parent of a child, you are allowed to choose a school where you send your kid and that school gets the voucher money. I am sure you are not going to send your kid to school operated by extremist group.

Explain me again why one needs to break a monopoly? You have to understand that it's not easy to become a monopoly. A corporation has to work extremely hard and satisfy their customers for a long time to become a monopoly. If a monopoly starts misusing their status and screw with their customers, soon there will be more companies trying to service the customers and it will automatically take away monopoly. For all practical purposes, Google has monopoly in Internet search. I am sure you would suggest that we should break this monopoly. What good this will do for the consumers? And yes, we oppose government monopoly because they become monopoly not by servicing customers, they become monopoly because the law grants them monopoly. Prime example: USPS vs Fedex/UPS.

You also question inequitable distribution of wealth. Let me ask you, how are you going to ensure equal distribution of wealth if government is in charge? How is government going to make sure that wealth is distributed equally? The fact is government doesn't even have wealth of its own.

Here's why I believe in libertarian philosophy. Government is about power and if you give this power to someone you better be sure that this power is not misused. The very power hungry people who are running for the government are precisely the people who should not be given power.

See this video on Greed by Milton Friedman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

My choice quote:

'Where in the world are you going to find these angels who are going to organize society for us?' :)