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Let me put this very starkly.

Real economic freedom means that people who make bad choices, or who may have disabilities, or may have bad luck, might possibly end up starving in an alley. Women and children too. Not their fault, sure – but if you own responsibility for your own situation, and if things don’t go your way (for any reason) then you are on your own.

Now, churches and benevolent societies have done great things in the past, and could do great things in the future. But if all the economic parasites in this country of 300 million people had to suddenly depend on either themselves or on the kindness of strangers, then there would be a lot of suffering.

I see two choices:

1) Put a gun to some folks’ heads, forcibly extract their money, and redistribute that wealth.
2) Allow children to starve in the street.

I’m open to other alternatives. But outside of science fiction novels, I really don’t see anyone giving serious thought to other solutions.

if all the economic parasites in this country of 300 million people had to suddenly depend on either themselves or on the kindness of strangers, then there would be a lot of suffering.

A lot of people who are currently economic parasites are being so out of an economically rational decision. "I won't be better off if I work and support myself." They very well COULD support themselves, but make the rational choice not to.

In other words, I don't think it would be as bad as you think. Those who are choosing dependence will experience some incentives (hunger) to support themselves, and those who are truly incapable of doing so can turn to the churches. The first group may also turn to the churches, but with limited resources, the churches would soon weed out the truly needy from the truly lazy.

“1) Put a gun to some folks’ heads, forcibly extract their money, and redistribute that wealth.
2) Allow children to starve in the street.”

The need to make this choice is greatly reduced by not outlawing functional poverty, and by removing inhibitions on creating wealth. As is now, legislation is needlessly forcing us to this choice too soon.

I see two choices:

I see a third option, and that's a combo of your #'s 1 and 2.

To writ: I think that we're rapidly approaching the point where there are not enough producers from which government may extract money - either at metaphorical or physical gunpoint. They'll either run out of money, or run out of means to create wealth.

Or, they'll just leave. Something that Liberals don't understand is that people with wealth, or even just with some smarts, are not limited to staying in their neighborhoods and taking their lumps. They can leave the city, state, country...pretty much at will (for now).

Take my case, for example. The city in which I live was sticking me up for an (IMHO) inordinate amount of taxes every year. It frosted me to no end, to watch crime increase, while the police force was cut, and simultaneously the city spent 10's of millions on new museums for the politically correct and massive swimming pools (voted in, mostly by people who DIDN'T pay property taxes....). So, I left for a place that was more rural, with lower taxes, less crime, better schools, etc etc etc. Easy Peasy, a no-brainer decision.

At any rate, once that tipping point is reached, then children *will* starve in the street. Not by choice, but because there's nothing left and no means to obtain more. The cupboard, quite literally, will be bare.

I'm hoping that the current political cabal comes to its senses before that point it reached. I'm not optimistic. I also think that the slide will take a couple of generations, but once that "tipping point" is reached, then its a point of no return.

YMMV. Just my $0.02