>In correspondence with the famous socialist, Upton Sinclair, who had evidently plied him with the old well-tested bromide on the supposed efficiency of government post offices, fire departments, public health services, etc., HL Mencken, instead of hastily retreating and compromising, as most conservatives do when faced with similar challenges, riposted: > >“Your questions are easy. The government brings my magazine to you only unwillingly. It tried to ruin my business, [The American Mercury] and failed only by an inch. It charges too much for postal orders, and loses too many of them. A corporation of idiot Chinamen could do the thing better. Its machine for putting out fires is intolerably expensive and inefficient. It seldom, in fact, actually puts out a fire; they burn out…. The Army had nothing to do with the discovery of the cause of yellow fever. Its bureaucrats persecuted the men who did the work. They could have done it much more quickly if they had been outside the Army. It took years of effort to induce the government to fight mosquitoes, and it does the work very badly today.” (Mencken. Letters, p. 295) https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/the-joyous-libertarian/