Capitalism; Good for What Ails Ya, or Useful When Convenient?

In general I consider my viewpoints to be largely in line with the Libertarian ideology of a hands-off government and free market that regulates itself through the miracle of supply and demand. In this regard, I find common ground with most republicans who term themselves as fiscal conservatives (in theory). However, I cannot help but notice that the same people that tout a free market as being the be-all end-all are the first people that are rushing to bail out big corporations when they fuck up and make a poor investment or have shoddy business practices.

Of course, I'm referring to the FED's involvement in the latest debacle with the recent collapse (might as well call a spade a spade) of Bear-Stearns. This is nothing new either. There is a long string of corporate welfare that has existed out of "necessity". Well, this leaves me to question to basic hypocrisy of embracing a system as the best system on earth, but when it is abused and inevitably reaches a breaking point, cutting all ties from that system and selectively providing socialist handouts of billions of dollars to major companies and the individuals that own and operate those companies. I will not bore you, the reader, with example after example of corporate welfare that exists in this country, but you don't have to look too far to witness this phenomenon. (for those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about see: airline companies and farmers)

More and more in this country I am struggling to find any consistency. I cannot find any in the political rhetoric that is espoused as though it is news in just about every media publication. I cannot find any in the standards to which we hold our political figures (see: Spitzer/Cheney prostitute debacles). I cannot find any consistency in the basic rights guaranteed in our constitution. We seem to forget that those rights are constantly under attack. Not (just) by Islamic extremists or maniacal elected officials, but from all sides. The greatest tragedy is that we are doing this to ourselves, and without something monumental happening to turn the tide, we WILL (mark my words) erode ourselves into the next Russia (see: economy not worth a shit, loss of freedoms, paranoid and aggressive foreign policy and largely irrelevant on the world stage)