This is an entirely irrelevant point, true or false, unless you establish that we had a right to be anywhere near Vietnam in the first place.

Are you saying that the U.S. has the right to impose economic systems it views as favorable on other countries while simultaneously discounting the impact that being bombed into the ground has on a country's economic capacity?

We killed about three million Vietnamese -- that doesn't speak well for promoting human rights.

So why were we fighting against the communist movement? It had far more popular support.

If you consider freedom of speech to be just "someone's ideal" and something that shouldn't be fought for when there is risk involved... there are some recent Daily Show episodes that express my contempt for your fatuousness and you should watch them posthaste.

If by "soul (in the classical definition" you mean a dualistic conception of the soul you don't need science to deal with that - there are many philosophers who will poke holes in any definition of "soul" that amounts to more than a fanciful metaphor for "what the brain does," like Daniel Dennett, for example.

What makes you think that a person too lazy to play a thinking game is going to invest time and effort into playing one that requires constant attention to minute detail and precise timing?

Ah yes, the good old "government is corrupted by private interests, let's just let private interests run everything" argument. I guess we can cure disease by draining ourselves of our blood while we're at it. Have you noticed that the reason those same people are in charge is that we live in a money/greed/capitalist based system? It doesn't function worse than a system where those same people are in charge, it is that very system. When a company donates campaign contributions to a politician and in return gets bailed out, they aren't relying on their product to get money. They're getting paid by the taxpayer, and those companies cannot be voted out of office. Conversely, people in government don't have to be less greedy or more efficient than the people lobbying them - they just generally happen to have an interest in getting re-elected by their constituents. They still have that interest, even while being pressured by lobbyists. Businesses who expect the government to bail them out with taxpayer money have far less incentive to do anything to benefit their consumers - all they have to do is pander to the people those consumers elect. I'd rather have the corrupt elected middle man than a direct route to getting pounded in the ass (metaphorically speaking). Without government intervention, we'd all be working in excess of twelve hour days for less than currently stagnating and falling wages. It's a crude and imperfect system, but it's a lot better than the direct alternative. Naturally, if you're not a crackpot far-right 'libertarian,' none of this applies.