I just wanted to chime in and say that I'm thoroughly enjoying this conversation even if I'm not contributing

To that end, I'll put in some of my feelings about government, some more related to this conversation than others:

-I don't know how you can consider banks "stealing" money by using it for investments- it's not like people don't realized this is what the bank is going to do when they make a deposit. Short of the government prohibiting this practice, it isn't going away, and why would the government step in and tell people what they can't do like that? The "warehouse" type bank will have to charge customers to hold their money- I think most people will be willing to allow the banks to use their money in order to gain interest and not be charged for the warehousing.

-While creating wealth and free market tend to be closely aligned, they are not in lock step. There ARE professions that can generate money without creating wealth. Professional gamblers (to pick a profession close toe hime), for instance. A gambler does not add anything to society except for providing people the entertainment value of losing money to him; he merely redistributes the medium of exchange to be in his favor (assuming he is good at it). Just because self interested people tend to create wealth does NOT mean that EVERYTHING that a person might to do out of self interest will benefit the common good.

-People tend to be motivated by self interest, which is why harnessing that tendency can benefit the whole of society. That doesn't, however, mean unfettered free market leads to the best possible society. Rather, it seems better to me to promote self interest competition where it benefits society and enacting restrictions where it is harmful. The problem, of course, is that there is a ton of disagreement over what is beneficial and what is harmful.

-I personally falter when it comes to certain policies that intellectually make sense to me for the betterment of society, but end up harming individuals in order to serve the greater good. It's quite easy to talk about things at a high level, but if I had to be the one to deliver the bad news to someone that they cannot get what they need because of a greater good policy, I don't know that I could do it- and if I support those policies but would be unwilling to enact them myself, I feel like that makes me a coward and is my problem with a lot of conservative politics (I'm not a liberal- but I don't really think I'm conservative politically anymore either).

-I DO think the government is too big and spends too much money on stuff it ought not to (and I'd bet a lot of people would agree); the problem is that we don't agree on what areas to cut.

-Health care in its current state is broken. As someone who has a wife with a disability that requires thousands of dollars worth of medications per year, I can't believe how ridiculous the system is. I don't like the government getting involved, but something's got to give.