Unfortunately the alternative is a government that thinks for you. Most people who believe in laissez-faire economics are very free thinkers. The fact that you suggest they are not just shows how myopic you are. Liberty and individual thought are the cornerstones for a free republic; government control and status quo are not.
On a side note: If you live the rest of your life worrying about stuff like this you will die a sad and lonely person. There are drugs you can take for paranoia and depression.
I already addressed that sad and lonely stuff of yours earlier, please refer to the appropriate post.
I don't think the only alternative is a government that thinks for you, however if the government is truly acting with the consent and intention to benefit ALL of it's constituents, then so be it. I am not accusing you of defending our present administration, but we certainly have moved more towards the government you fear than at any other time in our country's history. Most free-thinkers I know would not tolerate societies that incorporate an economic model of 'it sure sucks to be you...oh well at least I am good." Myopia, or at least insensitivity, would be to suggest things are just fine the way they are, or that status quo you mention.
We seem to constantly be inundated with rhetoric that would tell us it is one stark choice or another, no in-between or better alternative. Take healthcare for example. We can either continue to pay the highest healthcare expenses in the world (and get the poorest care) or we could socialize it and then be faced with waiting months for life-saving operations and be faced with doctors who don't care because they can't own 6 car garage homes. It is as though the army system is the only way to socialize healthcare with all of it's problems and pitfalls.
Believe it or not, the system doesn't have to be one or the other and there are plenty of examples around the world where people get extraordinary healthcare, don't get shuttled to 'poor' hospitals due to a lack of coverage, and have doctors that genuinely care about them (those doctors do well financially also). Not that our media, controlled by big business, would ever let you know that.
As for the paranoia and depression; well if you think that NAFTA, Open Skies, and other initiatives that have devalued the middle class and denuded the organized labor movement in this country and further concentrated wealth is just my paranoia, okey-dokey. Perhaps like John McCain and Phil Gramm you think that our economic depression we are in is mentally induced by a bunch of whiners, not by Wall Street profiteers who have virtually everyone in our Federal, State, and even local governments on their payroll.
Note where the president-elect wants to shuttle 350 billion..... time to payoff those that got him in office.
As I said earlier, everyone in our government in on the payroll of big business. Call that paranoia if you wish. It sure as hell is depressing.
