I don't think I need one - laws and regulations will do nicely Okay, then we agree that laws and regulations are the only tool we have to restrict free will an

I don't think I need one - laws and regulations will do nicely Okay, then we agree that laws and regulations are the only tool we have to restrict free will and thus behavior of actors in the free market? If you'll look back at my original post, all I was saying is that Capitalism (Free Market) is orthogonal to whether or not people are shitbags and if anything, you could say that the laws and regulations (the State) are put in place because the assumption is that people (and our society in the aggregate) need to be restricted from being shitbags. If anything, Capitalism is inversely related to the assumption that people are shitbags. Well, perhaps I do this particular government So basically you want to stay married to a woman even though she's horrible because somewhere out there is a different woman worth being married to? I'd rather be single for a bit and peruse govermenteharmony.com. but not the idea of effective government Once again, we're in agreement. Believe it or not, I would replace our government and culture with some Scandanavian country's tomorrow if I thought it could work. Sure, raise our taxes if there's markedly less corruption and the money is going to good use. But that isn't going to happen. Give more power to the State and they will just be validated that they've been on the right path for the past century. one of the most ubiquitous and sophisticated propaganda campaigns in human history Not sure which campaign that is, but I could guess based upon your comment about the Koch brothers. What do surveys like this say to you about who is spending the most on controlling the government and where they see the biggest bang for their bucks? Just look at the top 20 and explain to me why I should worry about minority contrarian voices in the messaging out there like the Koch brothers? https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php The Koch brothers are a red herring.