Why do liberals pretend the free market doesn't work when everything has government involved?

[Classical Liberal (libertarian)]

Economy- The Federal Reserve was created by Congress. They set interest rates (control the price of money)

Schools- government run

Health care- government run

Social Security- government run ponzi scheme

Since we have the EPA now, shouldn't all environmental concerns be gone?

[largecrib636]

It could be the fact the leaders of the free market came to D.C. with hat in hand begging the government to bail them out.

[Marxist Fraud]

They don't understand that the free market works as long as the government stays out of it.

Trying to save failures is not what made this country great.

[StephenG]

Well look at the banks de regulation led to the GEC happy with that?

[Bflowing]

All of the above are government successes.

[Technique]

hahahaha and you think that corporations are better than government. Corporations don't care about the health or well-being of the people , they only care about profit. Look I think the government needs to be fixed inside and out....but your response just to eliminate government is just childish and foolish.

[Stephen]

you are quite wrong

[ideogenetic]

The government is only needed when markets fail. We have had many, many market failures. The growth of government is directly proportional to the failures of free-market capitalism. If capitalism actually worked to promote a "general welfare" (Constitutional language for a thriving society that benefits all) government would be absolutely minimal. Even the founding fathers, however, realized that markets are not sufficient for promoting general welfare and explicitly assigned that duty to the Legislative Branch (removing it from the forces of laissez-faire economics and placing it WITHIN THE PURVIEW of government*).

Consider these programs and the market failures they ameliorate:
Social Security- offsets low wages and the paradox of thrift
Medicaid/Medicare- created to remedy the failed private health insurance market
Antitrust Division of the DOJ- resists the monopolistic tendencies of capital
FDA- created to watch for snake-oil salesmen
FDIC- Insures bank deposits from the dangers of runs in a fractional reserve banking system
OSHA- created to protect workers from employers who treat them as easily replaceable throwaway costs of doing business
Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)- created to remedy failed Wall Street financial engineering
Unemployment Insurance- well, you get the picture...
Etc, etc, etc.

Americans tried for a generation to keep failing markets going side by side with bailout government. We should now have learned the lesson that we need to reform our economy and abandon the failed market model. Unfortunately, conservatives have come to the erroneous conclusion that the government which bailed capitalism out from under its catastrophic internal contradictions is the problem. Only total economic collapse will open their eyes to how the world has worked since the beginning of time.

The New Testament Book of Acts; Chapter 4:32-35 (NIV)
{All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.}

"He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich--both come to poverty."- Proverbs 22:16.

Those ancient ethics have been lost to the re-emergence of selfishness and greed in the modern world. The irony is the same solutions used then to correct maldistribution of wealth are used today, but only to protect the gains of the rich. The losses of the wealthy are socialized and their profits remains private. It is injustice on a scale future generations will look back on with surprise, amazement and disgust.

"As to wealth, no citizen should be rich enough to be able to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself….If, then, you wish to give stability to the State, bring the two extremes as near together as possible; tolerate neither rich people nor beggars. These two conditions, naturally inseparable, are equally fatal to the general welfare" - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "The Social Contract" (1762)

"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied... Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings." --Thomas Jefferson

[Black Order]

I'm not really sure why or that it is exclusive to liberals, except to say that it is rooted in ignorance and/or a lack of critical reasoning capabilities.

But I agree with you and have made the very same point to others.

Calling the current debacle a free market, then using it as a premise to argue against it is like calling apples oranges, then using it to make the case with something regarding bananas.

Creating a false premise by misrepresenting your opponents position, then arguing against it is commonly known as a "straw man" argument.