Apples and orange comparison, Tom, and a bit of a cheap shot. On one hand a nation's choice of economic system, on the other a nation's choice to engage in a form of oppression now deemed barbaric by the modern world.

I think America's own dismal history regarding race isn't an albatross of hypocrisy, but rather gives us the street cred of the reformed wrongdoer; part of our penance is to try and interfere in racist regimes like South Africa. It's where we can do some unequivocal good.

But as Publius points out, when it comes to economics, we can hardly complain if people judge our claims of clearly-superior economic ideology by its actual mixed results. We dangle a horn o'plenty of universal prosperity as we proselytize, yet the reality is a growing disparity between rich and poor. We spend more per capita on health care than the so-called socialist medicine states, yet our rankings for infant mortality and longevity and general quality of life range from mediocre to abysmal. Our propaganda depicts economic comfort while the reality is economic insecurity. Of course people question whether free market capitalism can deliver the goods. You only wish that makes them stupid; in fact it makes them smart consumers. They're reading the fine print and cataloging the loopholes in the warranty.

To be fair, I had to read several of your posts before I found one that I disagreed with sufficiently to push back at you. Don't let me distract you from having a mellow day. It was only the cheap-shottedness of dragging in South Africa that moved me to poke my nose in.