I also never claimed that subsidies were a component of the free market nor did I claim any politicians think so. I believe that's an actual straw man :)
The term for what you're doing is called weak man. It's finding some idiot or hypocrite in the world who is actually advancing the weak position so you can claim it isn't a straw man, and then knocking that down instead of addressing the stronger version being advanced by someone else.
> I also never claimed that subsidies were a component of the free market nor did I claim any politicians think so. I believe that's an actual straw man :)
That's an argument. If "free market" means what anybody who says they're for free markets says they want, that would imply that "free market" means oil subsidies. Which is clearly absurd, ergo so was your claim.
That doesn't really work when my argument is that it's the colloquial usage--not just a handful of "idiots".
> If "free market" means what anybody who says they're for free markets says they want, that would imply that "free market" means oil subsidies.
That's an absurd reduction, but that is how language works. This clearly isn't a productive conversation. Have a good evening.
There is a party which is anti-regulation because its constituents are business owners who incur the cost of it. But they incur the cost of both inefficient wasteful regulation and any legitimate pricing of externalities, so they oppose both. One is free markets and the other one isn't.
Just because politicians representing oil producers support both "free markets" and subsidies for oil companies doesn't mean subsidies for oil companies are a component of free markets. It just means that politicians are hypocrites.