As far as what you say Republicans want:

1) Social Security is stable and fiscally sound; again, it is only out of money because we borrowed from it for two decades with people telling us it would bankrupt the system. If I could go back in time to 2000 and put the trillion dollar surplus in Al Gores "lockbox" I would, but then, I would have done it then, had I the power.

2) I am fine with choices, but not speculating with retirement income any more than necessary. I have no more problem with people choosing how SOME of their Social Security payments are invested now than I did when Gore suggested "universal savings accounts" in 2000, but, as then, only as a SUPPLEMENT to a minimum baseline of retirement benefits. In 2000 many people probably preferred a nice chunky tech stock, or maybe Enron, to the Social Securitys paltry GUARANTEED benefits, but I doubt that remains true. "Put Social Security into the stock market" was a novel and popular idea during the tech bubble and booming Clinton economy, but less so in the ten years since both ended; apparently the GOP missed the memo. That is the problem with the idea: Stock market success depends on buying and selling at the right time, if we could "choose" when we turn 65 or get our leg chopped off by a combine, most people would "never." That we cannot has nothing to with intrusive wasteful government.

3) Mother Nature bred dependency on social security insurance; anyone who has a problem with that should take it up with God, or Adam.

4) Social Security does not punish success; that is why we do not means test it. If anything, it rewards success by capping the withholding contribution.

So, yeah, I am fine with supplementing minimum Social Security benefits with optional investments of the beneficiaries choosing, just do not remove the baseline, nor the requirement that employers share the burden with employees (in fact, I think it a bit unfair that the 2011 withholding cap has been reduced for employees but NOT employers; sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, in my book.)

Regarding your presentation of privatization, the "shareholders" of the Social Security trust fund are the US public, which already picks a "CEO" every four years to run it with the assistance of a 535 member "board." They, of course, appoint someone to head the SSA that is responsible to them and thereby the public, but I fail to see how saying, "the Social Security Administration is no longer an arm of the government, but a wholly private institution whose CEO and board are selected by the President and Congress as the elected representatives of the share holding public," makes it private. If you are talking about giving the responsibility to an existing private institution you are talking about adding Social Security to their existing (profit making) priorities, with no more accountability than the prospect of losing the federal contract if they mismanage the trust fund. No, thanks.

Privatization in general does not have the best track record (have you priced a "22 cent" stamp lately?) In the case of trash collection, that might not be the best example to use with me: You may recall me mentioning the town where my mom lives finally taking her suggestion to contract with one of the two private trash collection companies residents had been using. Unfortunately, rather than having them submit competing low bids for the resultant monopoly and thereby lowering individual prices as well as increasing the companies overall revenue, they instead charged the company a fee for the privilege of that monopoly, which was then passed along to the residents and INCREASED their trash collection costs. Again I say, no, thanks.