>If you take your line of reasoning to its natural conclusion, you end up in a society without any personal freedom or choice.

Your entire argument hinges on slippery slope fallacy. Implementation of a thing in a restricted doesn't necessarily lead to an unrestricted implementation of it.

Nobody is saying "you are too stupid to decide fire safety for yourself." We are saying "it is cheaper (more efficient) to have specialists decide fire safety guidelines and implement them universally, than it is to guarantee equal knowledge of fire safety for all citizens."

Because, a free market isn't free if it's unfair. Your libertarian argument requires perfect fairness, or it's immoral. And obviously, perfect fairness in a free market system is... a high barrier to cross.

So, regulation. Efficient, fair. Flawed, but not broken, and not nearly as exploitable as "the free market."

By the way - what happened before the fire safety regulations? People died, horribly, tragically. If you believe they deserved to die because they didn't educate themselves on fire safety, your expectations are far too high. Do you know how planes, electricity, your car, roads, clean water, sewer treatment, food safety (at the source, not cooking), radiological and chemical safety systems work? Do you know how to use a tomahawk missile to enforce your sovereign borders? No? Maybe you don't deserve the protections they offer then.