True enough, Kanadyets. (And I just realized what your name actually means...shows how obvious I can be.)
Don't worry about it. It's actually Russian, and not even in the Cyrillic alphabet, so I'd say you're ahead of the curve in catching on.
And it was an unfair generalization...I was mainly referring to support of things like bans on gay marriage, or supporting Guantanamo Bay, as opposed to personally abusing someone's rights, so I guess I should say rights-abuse supporter, not rights abuser.
It's not out of the question, of course. Coming from the Canadian west, I've certainly observed more than I'd like to have. Nevertheless, there are those who can enjoy country music and still maintain a liberal perspective. Now if only they were classical liberals instead of modern liberals...but I digress.
Let me rephrase: I don't like companies that try to establish monopolies where such monopolies are not naturally occuring. Microsoft did its damndest to do so, even going so far as making Internet Explorer--one of the most insecure pieces of shit I have ever seen--an essential part of Windows that cannot be removed, for instance. And your argument, while sound on paper, does not work in practice. Monopolies do gouge customers and they do so regularly, as we can observe from monopolies established in the past.
So the way I see it, a monopoly is useless and only hurts consumers. I honestly cannot see an upside to a monopoly. With a monopoly on any sort of good you are forced to use that one variation on the good. Imagine what it would be like if we all had to use IBM manufactured computer parts, or could only drink the one flavour of soda that is Coca-Cola? Competition is very important. Certainly in many instances the products show little to no variation in terms of efficiency of usage, but oftentimes they do, so you need that variation.
I'd like some examples of this gouging actually working out in practice, if you don't mind. For the sake of logical propriety, of course. With regards to the issue of Microsoft, as you say, they
tried to establish a monopoly. We still have linux out there, and as far as IE is concerned, there is Mozilla. It's not as though taking 100% control of a market is as simple as saying the word monopoly. With regards to gouging in specific, I suppose I should not have said that they can't gouge their customers, but rather that they would be unwise to do so as it's a poor way to do business and will harm them as their customers can go elsewhere. I will grant that it becomes less of an option in inelastic markets. Mind you that's only the case when dealing with things that are scarce (oil) rather than things that are plentiful (salt). Both are examples of inelastic markets. However, to add to the example of the oil industry (hopefully soon to become very elastic...go R&D!) I don't know if it's reasonable to call it gouging when people still line up to pay for it. If you want it, you have to shell out. Pun not intended. And it's only going to get worse as supplies dwindle.
Lastly, I'm not trying to give the impression that I oppose competition. Far from it. As you say, a stale market benefits no one. Especially since you provide the Coke example and I'm a Pepsi man. I'm just saying that it's not necessarily reasonable to toss around a term like monopoly since their exceedingly rare (I say non-existent in terms of natural monopolies), and also because in so doing, you're poisoning the well. Very few people out there perceive it to be a positive thing, and when using it incorrectly you may be fallaciously effecting the opinions of your readers.
