Governmental impositions on our "freedoms" are easy to spot and complain about, but less obvious are the myriad tyrannies quietly forced on us by corporations, enshrouded in an illusion that we can "choose" whether or not we want to do business with them. Monopolies and monopolistic behavior in banking, communications, agriculture, and just about every industry that we can name has resulted in injustices (termed "market failure" in "mainstream" economic parlance). People seem to believe that "bad" corporations that do evil things like dump waste or force farmers to throw away harvested seed will just go away because people won't do business with them anymore, but that's just not the case. Powerful corporations, rather than playing by the rules, influence government and change the rules by which the country operates—the problem, then, is not that government exists, it's that it's not strong enough to fend off these forces. Without government, corporations would have no check on their profit-seeking behavior and would feel free to impose the externalities of their actions on the general public (destruction of public resources like land, air, and water are just obvious examples of this). Socialism isn't about controlling individuals, even though some seem hell-bent on portraying it that way—it's about the democratic control of corporations, and democratic control of the commons—things we are all forced to share, like roadways. We could talk all day about whether free markets actually exist, and whether they work—but I will just say that personally, based on the evidence that I have seen, the idea that perfect markets exist provides a dangerous illusion of public choice that obscures the very real costs that rampant non-market forces incur on a public.

Not sure why you guys were discussing drugs, but many socialists, myself included, are completely for the legalization of all sorts of drugs, so long as users don't try to drive while under the influence.

Oh--I just saw your example about health care. I'm not going to say that you're wrong, but that I disagree about how you see the issue. You seem to see Obama's health care reform as government taking away our right to choose our health care options.

I see the issue as profit-driven health insurance corporations not providing people with a choice to begin with—these companies don't care about our health. They make tons of money finding excuses to deny people coverage even if they've paid for insurance. They outright deny coverage to people who have health conditions. How much choice does an individual have to "choose" their health care right now? Usually, people get insurance through their employers. Otherwise, they can purchase it on their own. That's not going to change under the new health care plan. I suppose the difference would be for the uninsured—people who "chose" not to buy health insurance would now be "forced" to. Sure, this seems like an imposition.

Those people who chose not to buy health insurance—what did they do when they inevitably got sick? They could do nothing, or they could go to emergency rooms, where the government would have to cover their bill. Isn't that socialism? What's the other option—changing the law so that hospitals have to turn people away who can't pay, letting them die in the street outside? Better to pay for an ounce of prevention than a pound of cure, and subsidize those that truly can't pay.