see, this is precisely why i think public goods and their value break your model!

yes, we pay a lot for our military, but military ≠ security-- in fact, one could argue our immense investment in the war on terror has made our country and many others around the world LESS secure.

this is a classic example of the security dilemma-- sure, i may just be buying guns and ammo to protect myself, but if you're my neighbor and you see me buying guns and ammo, but don't have any of your own, my attempts to increase my own security directly threaten your security.

in the case of the environment, my point was not that it's an infinite resource, but instead that it's a shared public good. i don't benefit from destroying the environment, and either do you. now, SOME people do, and that's why they continue to destroy the environment. this isn't an issue of you or i not valuing the environment enough, it's instead an issue of us not being able to stop the assholes who value something else more than they value the environment, so that their harm to it is offset by their gains.

i never said these things were free, just that there are other ways of valuing them than thru private ownership :3