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I’ve already ranted about the pathetic state of American mobile telephony. Even with the even-cheaper iPhone and the ability to hack it to networks other than AT&T (hint: you shouldn’t have to hack your products), the “free market forces” in which Republicans seem to have more faith than in Jesus have made us the butt of many a European technology joke.

To solve our health care crisis, all of the Republican presidential candidates (and just about all of ‘em in Congress) put even more blind faith in the same market forces that give us sucky, crippled, service- and choice-limited cellphones to provide the services that basically decide whether we live or die.

Sorry, but I’m not at all hopeful. Republicans like to point to instances of incompetence in their effort to make government look like the worst thing since jock itch. But in the free market, the fundamental operating principle is the law of the jungle, and instead of incompetence, you just as often have instances of outright malice. It should be no surprise: the fundamental purpose of a private business is to make gobs of money for its officers and shareholders, not to give a crap about whether we survive cancer or keep our teeth in our head.

Here’s another wonderful free market example that I couldn’t fit into a debate question: Each month outside of winter (when I use my gas furnace for heating), I use about $9 worth of gas for cooking. I wish I could have an electric stove, but my old building can’t handle the 220V requirements; as a renter, I have very little choice in whether I can avoid using gas as a utility at all. In our awesome Atlanta gas market that was de-regulated several years ago, you no longer buy gas directly from Atlanta Gas Light, you buy it from middle-man marketers like Gas South. On top of my $9 worth of gas, I pay a couple bucks in taxes, which I am happy to pay in the hope that it provides some poor underpaid schmuck who prevents things from blowing up. I also pay almost $25 in fees to Gas South and AGL.

Yes, I pay about $37 a month for $9 worth of gas. Considering how much I actually cook, I’m paying about $2 per meal for gas — or more accurately, to keep my goddamn pilot lights burning in the furnace on the roof and in my hot-ass kitchen (for which I am thus paying even more in electricity for air conditioning, although the curtains I hung in the kitchen doorway help a bit). This is what deregulation brought me. God forbid AGL and the service providers amortize those $25 a month of fees into the per-cubic-foot cost of gas, so the real estate developing jackholes in their McMansions might pay for the maintenance of gas lines and administration of services commensurate with their lifestyles. Why should the utilities do that? They don’t have to. I am stuck in their market, and I have almost no choice but to pay. As long as they’re making money for their shareholders, they don’t give a rat crap about my broke ass.

But anyway, I haven’t got the energy for an extended, well-researched rant. Instead, I just asked the Republican candidates what their brilliant plan is for the next CNN-YouTube debate. Here’s hoping YouTube gives me bonus points for being one of its loyal political footage providers.