capitalism versus government

Much of what passes for public debate these days is tiresome rhetoric about socialism, taxes, government takeovers, etc., as though the goal of the current government is to destroy capitalism and install stalinist control of American life. The linchpin is reliance on Reagan's dictum, "The Government is not the solution, it's the problem". Couple that with tax cuts and you have the entire Republican party program (with some anti-abortion and anti-gay spice for the neanderthals, who like their politics hot and nasty). They count on the reality that most of the U.S. population really considers itself to be living far better than they expected (the joys of living on debt) and thus consider themselves part of the producing class sought to be destroyed by evil, stalinist taxes; that, and the American creed that the promotion of self-interest is a virtue above all others. The result is what's happening now : government's attempts to solve problems are being assailed as attacks on "liberty" and "freedom" [presumably, the freedom to go into more debt aping the lifestyles of the real beneficiaries of our system, the top 1% whose tax cuts amount to real money]. What they don't recognize, and nobody's saying, is that government only comes into a problem when the money-making apparatus can't or won't address the problem, in most cases because its own excesses created the messes that government must address because no one else will. Our society gives almost unchecked rein to capitalism, but people here don't see it that way. Rather, all they see is government seeking to fix problems which must be fixed if we are to continue to function as a free wealthy country, and rather than seeing such as the cavalry coming in at the last minute to save us, government is seen as a threat to the continued hoggery to which our society has become accustomed. Freedom to be greedy. Freedom to ignore the poor. Freedom to bully immigrants. The land of the free, indeed.