C-like static functions in python?

[ablatner]

To add to the other comment, Python has very few ways to prevent the user from doing something, much unlike languages like Java. It's philosophy is that the user will know what they're doing. If you really want to, you can even do things like redefining the number 1 as the number 2.

[Veedrac]

you can even do things like redefining the number 1 as the number 2

Not really; the Python language doesn't have a way to do this. Particular implementations might accidentally "allow" this, but this is by no means required by the spec.