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Hi pete!

Licenses:
I think that copyleft is always useful. There are basically three important copyleft-licenses: LGPL, GPL and AGPL. In most cases the GPL could be replaced with the AGPL, but unfortunately in history companies like Google could avoid copyleft by providing web-services. Sometimes even the LGPL is useful. A widely used library is even better than a widely used proprietary library. I do not think that it is a problem when Free Software is used internally in capitalistic companies. Nobody can force them to contribute, but there are even a lot of contributing companies and it helps to spread it. I say internally, because it is a problem when copyleft is avoided or Free Software is replaced by an improved proprietary version.

Economy:
We will not get more freedom when we try to stop capitalism. For things like food, machines, commodities, credits, stocks and even employees (all the thing that can not be cheaply cloned) capitalism - free markets - are simply the onliest working system. Socialism failed. Anarchism failed. And even limitations like the EU-Agrar-market fail. That does not mean that states should not control externalization of costs with taxes or should not help branches making society better.
Software and knowledge are different. They can be shared and they can help everybody, even the economy. That is not bad. We are a part of the economy. Maybe there are a lot of companies developing proprietary software, "selling" knowledge or "using" patents. That is not liberal. Patens with a long life-time are against the competition we need. And we should not forget immaterial, academical values of shared knowledge. (I think most people interested in science or programming hate redumdance)
We need a pragmatic, idealistic, social and liberal policy: You need pragmatics to reach idealistic goals. And the words "social" and "liberal" belong together, if you want to reach freedom and fairness for everybody. (fairness != equility)

War:
I do not think that it is a valid argument to say "with Free Software you can make war". Unfortunately we have not overbeared war. But between Nato-members and some other countries war is not longer possible and I do not think that these nations could be defeated from outside. Most software in these environments is secret. Such software could help us in civil environments. But we should not forget nations like China or the Arabian Emirates becoming very powerful without democracy, without socialism, without any ideals (I'm waiting for revolutions). For most less developed countries special military software should not be usable because of missing ressources. E.g. reconaissance software would not help a country without air-planes or satelittes. But back to topic: Is it a problem when Al Qaida uses Drupal? Is it a problem when the Pentagon uses gcc? Andreconaissance or target-detection software is not free. But even for this software it would not be a problem in my opinion. An army can be responsible or not. But war is still a fact. (for example in general I do not decline the war in Afghanistan, but the strategy is wrong, the Nato should focus on rebuilding to make long term advantages, the "war against terrorism" fails)
Such arguments are comparable with arguments against privacy and encryption.

Relevance of Free Software:
Free Software and Free Knowledge are two aspects of a better world of freedom, fairness and even peace (patents even imply a lot of social problems). I am a Nerd. For me these aspects are very important. But you should have mentioned that I have ideals for other aspects of policy, too. My postulates are the importance of freedom for humans and a positive idea of man. Because of that I like Rousseau and I do not like Thomas Hobbes.

The User