A-ah! Damn!

What he said.

The closest thing to a utopia our earth has ever seen, the United States, was specifically designed to not be a utopia, by men who repeatedly predicted its imminent collapse. The United States was designed to prove the maxim, "Freedom is not utopia. It is only infinitely better than all other alternatives ever attempted."

Sadly, we've gotten away from that since then. Sweden was probably a freer country that the US between 1974 and 1984.

Dude, I'm waiting for the starting gun, but if you get Bastiat first, I will concede to the faster runner. But I'd say that you are vastly better qualified to handle either Rand or Mises than I am.

I've said that my goal is to combine Objectivism, Libertarianism, Austrianism and Lutheranism into a coherent philophy. The above link is to a post that goes a long way toward that coal by combining the teachings of Ayn Rand, Bastiat and Ludwig von Mises in a debate against a couple of strong-minded religious conservatives, pressing a point I'm trying to make myself: that Nature and God aren't enemies. The problem only arises because of, what I like to call Erkkila's dictum: Wise people die and ignorant people are born. Or, as Tom Sowell put it, "Every generation is an invasion of little barbarians, who must be civilized, before it's too late."

Another quote from Tom's dispute with Someguy:

There are two modes of action: vertrational and zweckrational. [I don't know if it helps, but I'd quick-translate the former as "value-rational", and the latter as "goal-rational".] The former is action toward a goal which is rationally derived. The latter is action toward a goal which is not rationally derived, yet the action chosen is. The Holocaust is an example of zweckrational behavior: there is no rational justification for the slaughter of an entire race- yet, the means by which the national socialists persued this goal was the most rational method of action. They desired to kill millions, and the most rational method was industrialized murder- they did not decide to start singing drinking songs. It is this rational approach to an irrational goal which has produced most of the modern criticisms of the national socialists as led by reason- and it is such neglect of the origins of their goals that lead to false discord among people who would otherwise stand on common ground. Look to the tiers of goals they chose: they sought prosperity by extermination, everlasting peace in murder. They chose cattle trains and death camps as the means to extermination as the means to prosperity and peace. The chain itself is irrational, yet the portion that is frequently observed- the adoption of the most rational means toward their irrational and hateful subservient goal of annihilation, is assumed to have been also behind their ulterior goal.