Aaron,

Given that you realise this, I'm curious why you seem to be so left wing. Wouldn't the solution be to give government as little power as possible so that there was as little unchecked power as possible in our society -i.e. a minimalist government.

Well I think you see the problem that I see.

Conservative is a label slapped on a bunch of non-conservative stuff.

Currency Supply & the National Debt:
We say that we control spending and then the country goes in more debt at a faster rate. You know it is pretty bad when defense contractors openly state "collusion is our business."

There are also a few things which should have some central control. The government does not even control it's own currency. The Federal Reserve is a private for profit corporation. If a government can't even maintain the value of its own currency then what else of value can they possibly do? How can they legislate moral values when they can't even be trusted to maintain the value of something so vital as currency? Fucking useless, IMHO.

Communications & Free Markets:
We talk about free markets, and then the government subsidizes large monopolies or oligopolies with billions of dollars, and then exercises 0 control over them. For example, billions of dollars of tax breaks and funding to telecom companies for upgrading the Internet (which the telecom companies did not even use to upgrade the Internet like they were supposed to), and then the government doesn't give a shit about net neutrality even after these corporations steal billions of dollars from the public.

That is the type of shit that pisses me off. Welfare is OK as long as it is going to people who are already rich. Give it to a macro-parasite which adds no real value to the world. Try customer support at a telecom company to see how little they care about their customers.

Keep in mind that I am a quite successful entrepreneur, and I realize that my ability to be and stay successful largely depends on not allowing some dirtbag corporations to destroy the web.

The War on Drugs:
How about the FDA subsidizing about 37% of drug research and then giving those companies long lasting patents on those drugs. Or how about making drugs illegal until there is a prescription drug with similar effects available, then prescribe it like candy. That isn't small government, nor free market. That is parental behavior mixed with more collusion.

And I have done a large number of illegal drugs (maybe a majority of them?) and yet none of them had as much of an adverse effect on my life as alcohol has. Pot is so harmless relative to alcohol that the illegal status can be described as nothing more than a joke. (Keep in mind that I rarely do illegal drugs anymore, so I am not trying to defend my current way of life, just talking from experience on that issue).

Not only do they try to arbitrarily make some chemicals illegal, but they also fund bogus research to back their position about how damaging drugs like ecstasy are. I took HUNDREDS of ecstasy pills a few years back, and I frequently get complemented on how sharp my memory is.

Legislating Morals? Small Government? Right...
And what about legislating morality. How fucked is it for congressmen to be hitting on 16 year old boys when the party stance is to turn bigotry toward homosexuality into a party platform. Again, more parental bullshit, not a free market at all.

Both Political Parties are Shit:
See the democrats try to steal votes by appealing to the poor. The republicans try to steal votes by using money from big business to market a manipulated view of the world full of shady language usage (for example, the calling the estate tax the death tax is pure bullshit, especially when it didn't even apply to over 98% of our citizens).

I will be the first to say both parties are different sides of the same coin and I think they are both shit. I would be excited if this government collapsed under its own weight of fraud and a new one which actually represented its citizens came about.

Why There Are so Many Lies:
In summary, many of the people who state they push free market ideals are absolutely afraid of them, because if free markets truly existed more and more people like me would undermine their authority and destroy their positions of power - many of which positions are based on nothing more than inherited privilege and ongoing fraud.

That is part of the reason these people are so afraid of the web. It gives people like me a voice and opportunity in the market, and that is not good for most big business interests.

Some people are better with words than I am.

Mark Foley is the GOP face of efforts to combat the use of the Internet to sexualize minors, and Rush Limbaugh is their High Moral Priest.
...
We have been barraged with laws, programs, sermons, demagoguery and all sorts of moral demonization from a political movement whose most powerful pundit is a multiple-times-divorced drug addict who flamboyantly cavorts around with a new girlfriend every few months in between Viagra-fueled jaunts to the Dominican Republic. It is a political movement whose legacy will be torture, waterboards, naked, sadomasochistic games in Iraqi dungeons (or, to Rush, "blowing off steam"), with all sorts of varied sleaze and corruption deeply engrained throughout its DNA -- all propped up by a facade of moralism and dependent upon the support of those who have been propagandized into believing that they are voting for the Party of Values and Morals.
...
It is not a coincidence that the GOP was harboring someone like Mark Foley within its highest ranks while their most powerful political officials purposely looked the other way and even actively helped to conceal what he was up to, thereby enabling him to continue. After all, even now that this conduct has been exposed, their instinct -- all the way to the highest levels -- is to excuse and defend those leaders and offer up the most disgusting defenses -- all because preservation of their political power depends on it. This is not some bizarre aberration. This is how they operate and it is what they are. And the Mark Foley scandal is making it virutally impossible for anyone to convincingly deny it any longer.

Thanks so much for the comprehensive response! I've actually bookmarked this page because you summarize so many of my thoughts so well, yet state it much better than I can.

You may be interested in this site:
www . drhurd . com
While I disagree with a lot of what he says about the war in Iraq, on most other things he's pretty good. For instance, he has a recent post there about hypocrisy that's quite good.