I was going to let that comment go on the other thread, but all right.

The Republican program is to free business from regulation, taxes, litigation, and resistance from labor, and to ensure that the benefits of commerce and industry be primarily directed to those who own the means of production and control the institutions of trade and finance.

The Republican program is to reduce an ever-increasing burden of government controls and taxes that has wrecked economies across the world. Nobody has ever proposed removing all regulations, or all taxes. Straw man.

A major part of this program is to make the population totally dependent on them, without any alternatives, for income, and for all the necessities of life and the means to improve it, including health care, education, the safety net, and all social welfare.

Wow. I had to go over that more than once.

When you all read that sentence, how many people—besides ER—had “Republican” be the first party that popped into their head?

A major strategy in this effort is to portray the true creators of wealth, the workers whose hands and minds convert the world’s resources into goods and services, as a surly lot of lazy and untrustworthy louts who must be disciplined and guided to a useful life by an enlightened and dedicated management class, a business government elite who, of course, always knows best.

All I had to change was one word to make it true.

At the same time, those functions of government which directly benefit the interests of property and trade, such as the police, laws, courts, and military are to be provided with all the resources they require, at public expense. In addition, all governmental, social and cultural institutions must be privatized and commodified so that they become strictly commercial transactions, subject solely to their exploitation and profit.

“Public expense?” Where exactly is that "public" money coming from? Any actual tally of government services used by, say Microsoft, would be utterly dwarfed by the wealth pumped back into the local, state, and federal treasuries. This is not an opinion, this is math.

As with regulation, nobody has ever proposed turning over all government functions to the private sector. Some of them, yes. We did quite well in this country, in my own lifetime, with government that was considerably smaller, and had a lot fewer regulatory agencies.

The choice is not just between “bigger government” and “no government.” It never has been.

Apparently ER believes the greatest threat to human liberty in our time is unrestrained private enterprise. I submit it’s unrestrained state power. Which one of us does historical evidence bear out?