Free Market = Anything Goes

Let us all stop pretending that the government somehow stifles the free market.

The government is a legitimate actor in the free market, its existence and actions in no way hinder the market. By the very definition of "free market", any actor can set any rules it wants, and any method of enforcing those rules is legitimate because "free market."

We vote for politicians at the ballot box, we vote for corporations at the cash register, we clearly like having both as market players. Both ARE market players. The market is perfectly free.

The government coerces us with laws and prisons, Amazon coerces with prices and products. Stick versus carrot, and the two are interchangeable. Someone who is homeless may commit a crime in order to secure three hots and a cot in prison. Prison is, under this circumstance, not a punishment but an enticement, a government handout. Similarly, someone who wants a product but can't afford it views the lack of that product as a punishment. The unaffordable Amazon product becomes a stick to beat others with, "If you can't afford to buy/rent a dwelling and you live on the streets, then you are scum and we will shun you. Welcome to prison." Substitute any product for "dwelling" and you get the same result. Your inability to possess whatever the current "socially acceptable" fashion item may be, whether house, iPhone or Air Jordans, becomes an excuse to socially relegate you to irrelevance.

Government, Amazon, Facebook, Google - is there really any difference between them?

Sure, the government has soldiers and cops, but the corporations feed the soldier-cops, clothe them and arm them, governments and corporations lobby each other for money and perqs, and the top executives in both are absolutely interchangeable cogs, as the frequent migration between government and private office shows. Corporate lobbyists write the laws that the legislators pass. The government's job is to implement corporate policies.

Just as different departments within the same company may compete for company resources, so different corporations within the same country/continent compete for resources under government control. The corporate drones always complain about their department heads being idiots - articles about the government somehow being an illegitimate market actor because it is "stupid" sound no different.

I don't see why anyone considers government nefarious and corporations nifty.
The only difference between the two is the spelling.
The revolving door between them is fully operational.

IF this is a democracy AND government does nothing but rob us, THEN it is because we as a nation WANT that product. We like being robbed.

The fact that you, as an individual, don't particularly like being robbed is really your problem, not the market's problem, nor does your dislike of that product provide any demonstration that the government is not a legitimate market actor.

Federal law is written by corporations.
What part of that sentence is hard to understand?

As soon as you admit that federal law is written by corporations, you admit that government is a creature of the very corporations you claim make up the free market. Which means government is as much a joint corporate product as an Echo Dot, all the parts manufactured by different companies, but the whole melded together and sold as a product to the American public.

Government is part and parcel of the free market, government waste and insanity is the foundation of the free market. It is simply the central, necessary actor that free market corporations created and maintained so as to keep their own business models going. Complaints about government "distorting" the free market are self-refuting and literally insane. Government can no more distort the free market than any other business entity can distort the free market.

It's a free market.
Anything goes.