Willravel

Mobilization time isn't the only measure in play during an emergency, though, and I'm sure you're aware that FEMA and the Red Cross do not full identical roles. FEMA is tasked with preparedness, for example, which (under decent leadership) could have prevented Katrina's breaching of the levees. The Red Cross was only reactionary. I'm not aware of a charitable foundation which is a part of disaster prevention. FEMA can order evacuations. The Red Cross cannot. Don't get me wrong, I adore the Red Cross and I've donate to them in the past because of the amazing work they've done, they just don't have all the same measures at their disposal as FEMA, thus making FEMA necessary.

And it should be said that FEMA's failure after Katrina illustrated that there aren't private alternatives waiting in the wings to do a better job than the government during disasters. Sure, many charitable organizations were present, but Katrina was still a disaster and the damage to property and lives could have been avoided.
What you're not apparently factoring in is the fact you already benefit from Social Security and would continue to do so even if you opted out. Or do you think that senior citizens don't contribute to your business? Their financial security, partially from their Social Security check, at least in some way contributes to your financial well being and to the economy on the whole. An impoverished or dead senior citizen doesn't put money into the economy. It makes me sick to have to put it in such callous terms, but if you really want to frame this as just being about financial independence and freedom, I'll have to meet you in that frame.

You misunderstood what I was saying about private military. They can probably get a job done just fine once you've paid their exorbitant fees (Blackwater costs something substantially more than the equivalent military costs might be for the same services, iirc), but private militaries are not subject to the UCMJ, which has caused big problems (most recently in Iraq). The market doesn't seem to be able to produce a private military that follows the rules (not to mention that the market can't produce an army as big as the government), so the government has to do it. If Blackwater were able to get the job done, they wouldn't have been kicked out of Iraq by the Iraqi government.
Now that there's a market for it, yes, but nearly every advance in rocketry over the past century is due to government funding. Those wouldn't have happened without government.
Do you mean production of aircraft or airlines?
Like rocketry, I think this demonstrates my point. Once the market was shown, by government, that there was a market for this service, they jumped on it. Before then, when there wasn't a perceived market, the government had to be responsible or it would not have been done.
Same thing.
OH. I didn't realize you were agreeing there. Those aren't the only examples, though. I'll choose something that's 100% government and that should never be handed over to the market: Governance is really the most obvious example of government being necessary. Would you agree that Americans should be able to opt out of being governed by the Federal and/or State governments? Surly an option to leave the republic but remain on American soil and adopt a legal status as "anarchist" is silly. I still think the military, the entire military, is another good example. The US should never have a 100% private military because of control. Imagine if the US Army had to answer to a board of directors and stockholders instead of congress and the American people. Yikes.

You're not asking to be opted out of paying for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast guard, right? Or the National Guard?
I think New Man's post illustrates that a private system is unlikely to be as dependable because the individual investor (the holder of the money that would have otherwise gone to Social Security) can't be relied upon to responsibly save for him or herself. And again, before the New Deal, the poverty rate among the elderly was astounding. Why, when the option was 100% free market, was there such a failure? How can you look at that and then turn around and say the market can work in this function?
Why? Mostly because precedent has demonstrated that a lot of people can't be trusted to save for their retirement. Without Social Security, a lot of people would starve. Sure, one way to look at it is "let them starve", but it's too big a problem and does so much damage to allow that.

Let's say we privatize Social Security. Aside from stubborn people like me that continue to pay in simply on principle, most people would opt out. As people that opt out reach retirement age we're back at 1920s and 1930s levels of poverty for people over 65, because that's what precedence tells us will happen (this is kinda my whole point). You (Cynth) will probably be okay because you wanted to win this debate so bad you saved just to spite me. Still, the effect of so many people being impoverished would devastate the country. Only about 12% of our population is living below the poverty line now and even that has serious effects on the economy, imagine if that ballooned to 18-20% (which isn't hard to imagine if precedence is any indication). 1/4 people being impoverished would likely mean further class separation, and would cause great economic instability. We'd go right back to where we were before Social Security.