I think you're wrong here. With drugs, police go after production to combat possession (and use), which is what they ultimately want to reduce. With child pornography, police go after use and possession to combat production.

> No, humanity can do these things because they are great to do.

And humanity can also build giant pyramids because they are great to do. Or we can build ghost towns. Or give every home in the Himalayas a high-speed DSL internet connection. But we don't, because we have limited resources. And that's the point of the free market. In a free market, things are done because they meet people's needs, not because bureaucrat decides to implement his childlike imagination. And it doesn't look like people are interested enough in a base on Mars to pay for one.

It's a question of practicality. Yes, we could rewrite the constitution right now, but if we were to do that it would be an opportunity for the government and associated powerful interests to take some of our last standing bulwarks against tyranny and neuter them with a "this is subject to reasonable limits as justified by the public good in a free and democratic society" clause. If the people actually had the level of control that would allow a reasonable constitution with guaranteed rights and freedoms for the 21st century to be implemented, I think more people would be fine with it. But we don't, so it's best to stick to what we have.

But people continue to voluntarily watch them, and I'm pretty sure we all agreed that actions speak louder than words.

What does "conservative" even mean? Sometimes it means "not radical", sometimes it means "frugal government", sometimes it's "military adventurist". Same with "liberal" - it seems like the terms are set up to mean whatever people want them to mean.

> Then why don't we treat them as such? Why do we give them bailouts, lobbying jobs, and cabinet positions instead?

Does any sane person advocate more bailouts, lobbying and revolving door cabinet positions? Because I haven't heard any

> Seems much safer

He who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety...

You can prevent people from doing a lot of bad in two ways. First, you can prevent people from doing a lot period. Second, though, you can prevent people from doing bad no matter what the scale. Liberty is not about doing whatever you want without consequences, it's about doing whatever you want that does not infringe on the rights of others. Some rich people will do good (eg. by setting up charities), others will act neutrally (eg. by leaving their money as inheritance to children who waste it all and contribute nothing themselves), but those that use their money to do harm are criminals no matter what political system you subscribe to.

Because flip-flopping in practice tends to be motivated by what's popular, not new knowledge.

> Since corporations only exist due to special protections granted to them by the government, many (most?) libertarians (myself included) do not consider them to be actors in, nor an accurate representation of, a true free market.

I don't think it's quite that simple. In an unhampered free market it is possible that people will voluntarily choose to organize themselves into groups that function according to similar rules as those that what we now call "corporations" do now. There will be no limited liability (with regard to lawsuits; limited liability with regard to debts can still exist as part of the loan contract, so conservatives' fears that without limited liability there will be no business at all are quite unfounded), so people will be punished for fraud and environmental damage more, and things will be better in that regard, but the format of the large business as a whole could still exist. And there's nothing wrong with that - it's never as simple as "rich people are evil"; look at the so-called "robber baron" era of the 19th century - some rich people got their way through powerful friends and corruption and government-assisted cartelization, while others played fairly on the market and used their fortunes to set up institutions that continue to serve the public good even now (see: Nobel prizes, American non-profit universities, etc). It's exactly the same way even now.

The problem lies in the implementation. It's easy to prefer more democratic ownership of the means of production, but how do you make that happen? If you, as a socialist-leaning individual, work to implement it by shopping more at family-owned and cooperative stores, using open source software, working for yourself, a small business or a cooperative, and by encouraging your friends to do the same, that's one thing. But if you're a socialist politician, or socialist voter, then that means that you support the sort of government that causes more democratic ownership of MOP, and the majority of people here seem to think that an activist, centralized, powerful federal government big enough to push down the banks and corporations is the best way to do that, and that's why so many people see socialism = big government. What other government policy could socialist politicians and voters advocate?