"Liberty" is such an abstract and loaded word that it's really not productive to debate how much "liberty" we want, or who's got a good track record on "liberty." Absent any context or clarification, it's little more than a rah-rah buzzword to rile up constituents for or against something you don't like. We all want it in the abstract, but without specifying where to draw the boxes around your liberty to swing your fist and my liberty to live without having my face punched, we're really not getting anywhere.

You did a very thorough job earlier in the thread explaining what liberty means to you, and that is interesting from an academic standpoint, but you're not really explaining the concrete steps within our existing political system to get from where we are now to where you want to be. Republicans might not have a good track record on "liberty" in general, but they've certainly slashed federal regulation at every opportunity, so they're the team that comes closest to your stated free market economic ideals -- irrespective of the fact that those ideals originate from property rights.

Much to my chagrin (and I reckon yours), we have a two party system, so those are the only practical choices we have on economic issues. Individuals within those parties may have different views or interpretations, but when push comes to shove, they either favor "more" or "less" regulation, so simply saying that the Republicans didn't do well protecting "liberty" doesn't begin to address my point that the health-care bill is centrist, and, frankly, was considered the "conservative, free market" approach a couple of decades ago. But now it's suddenly a massive encroachment upon our liberties? It can't be both based on who puts it forth or what the political environment is when they do it, and that's all I was trying to say by comparing it to the Republican plan.

Obviously, I'm not thrilled that the end result of the sausage-making looks like what Republicans wanted 15 years ago, but it's a start. What would be your libertarian alternative for dealing with the exploding health-care costs?