I feel obligated to respond since you put so much time into your response. However, I'm not going to follow this thread further so I'll resist the urge to get

I feel obligated to respond since you put so much time into your response. However, I'm not going to follow this thread further so I'll resist the urge to get in the last word. I think our debate can be summed up as follows: I believe that government has a role in fixing/preventing systemic problems, preventing private entities from engaging in harmful social behavior when the market is inadequate to do so, and performing socially important functions that the market does not incentivize. I certainly don't think the government should tackle every conceivable problem - we have a democracy to decide. In practice, I think the costs of the fix is high enough in many cases that it is preferable to live with the problem. (However, this is a practical observation rather than a determination based on principle.) I think you would say that the government has no authority to meddle in those issues and must rely on coercion to do so, always gets things wrong when it does, the purported benefits of regulation can be achieved by voluntary agreements between private entities, and that "important functions that the market does not incentivize" is an inherent contradiction.