Black_Wing: "If it were a party of Marx/Engles vs. Smith/Richardo....yea that would be true."

Smith was a plagiarist, and hardly the father of capitalism; but Ricardo was on to something with comparative costs.

"I believe myself to be a very strict Market force type of guy.  I also know there are some areas where Govt. is needed."

It is unfortunate, then, that you can argue the efficiency of the market in areas like healthcare or Wal-Mart*, but totally fail to realize how the market could be as equally efficient in providing infrastructure, security, defense, or any of the "useful" government services most people take for granted. It's a very curious double standard, actually, if you can accept that the government mismanages healthcare, but not have any conception that, perhaps, the same mismanagement occurs across the board. The same arguments of a lack of competition and internalized transaction costs that you levy against socialized medicine could be equally applied to /anything/ the government monopolizes.

* Wal-Mart is controversial, but not for the reasons liberals would have you believe.