Who are the "others" who get 50% of your money? If it's me on SS and Medicare, thanks. Our military thanks you as well. Why do you think all the developed countries in the world have programs similar to what exists in the US, only more generous ones? Slackers are the price we pay for preventing hunger, just as overly expensive military equipment is the price we pay for having a defense department. That calls for reform ran than abolition of either the welfare state or the military, trying to keep fraud at a minimum. But I am more, not less free because the government pays part of my considerable medical bills with Medicare, and gives me a tax break so that I can itemize the costs of my supplemental insurance. We are part of a society, from socius in Latin, meaning comrade, friend or ally. We took a left turn around Teddy Roosevelt's time, and for better or worse haven't looked back. Just look at GOP efforts to get rid of Obamacare: their rhetoric is *replace*, not just repeal.
We might be better in Ayn Rand's quasi-fascist world, but I suspect she will be looked on as someone who did the impossible, overreacting to Lenin and Stalin.
