This is a really well thought out point of view, and one I totally agree with. I don't consider myself a "capital L" Libertarian, but I do tend toward Jeffersonian Democrat or classical liberal.

However, I agree with you that the markets can not be allowed to run unconstrained. "Market fundamentalism" is a bad thing -- market participants will not care for the market mechanism itself. This has been demonstrated repeatedly. The goverment needs to protect the market mechanism from unfair behaviors of market participants through regulation. George Soros convinced me of this in his fantastic book "Open Society".

The goverment also needs to protect the minorities. That includes minorities like gamblers, homos, cigarette smokers, and dope fiends.

What we currently have in the US is about as far away from classical liberalism as you can get. The US is one of the most heavily regulated and policed societies in the world. This is not an opinion. My opinion is that people should be more upset about it than they are.

Even the original poster of this thread has said about the internet gambling ban (the whole reason for the thread), "I can accept it."

Sigh. If you don't have an ideological foundation, it is impossible to draw the line. When people say that the US is the "best there is", I think what they mean is that classical liberal philosophy, on which the US society was based, is the best philosophical foundation to build society. Why do we keep getting farther and farther away from it? Its the money, of course. Special interests rule the country, not voters.