Where Did The Small Government Conservatives Go?

4 Responses to Where Did The Small Government Conservatives Go?

1. Gruntled American says:

   8/18/2006 at 8:03 pm

   Limited Government conservatives have been pushed aside by social conservatives. That’s what happened. “Moral” issues have become sacrosanct, and government a tool to achieve those ends at any cost.

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2. Michael Hampton says:

   8/18/2006 at 8:09 pm

   The Republican Revolution happened.

   See also this Cato Institute book forum: Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government.

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3. Vynce says:

   8/18/2006 at 10:34 pm

   as a 30-year old liberaltarian(tm), raised mostly in Kentucky by mostly hippies, with formative years in the reaganera, I have to say that this “transformation” is more a chang eof PoV as far as I can tell. when i forst heard someone refer to Republicans as the party of Small Governement, it took me a long time to get my head around it. I can see where it comes from, now, but i don’t think claling one or the other “big” or “small government” is really that meaningful.

   Generally, the Democrats (it always seemed to me) want government support of individuals bigger, and regulation of corporations bigger. the Republicans want support for corporations bigger, an regulation of individuals bigger. It has always seemed to me that the guys who wanted to reduce the governement to a size that could be drowned in a bathtub weren’t counting the jails and military, let alone their own paychecks and pork. And the guys who were accused of being abotu Big Government were accuse dof that not for governing, but for supporting the less fortunate.

   But the overall size of the government is all about the levels of bureaucracy. The paperwork required to have a card on file for every american is big government when it’s to assure that every american has access to their rights, but it’s jsut the cost of the war on terror when it’s to keep tabs on where they’re traveling or who they’re working for, according to the republicans, but whatever; either way its a lot of paper, and that means a lot of paper pushers. FOIA just means it takes more people to decide when to say “no” to a request.

   (ever tried to go through the process to receive federal disability? little hint, if you did it yourself you may well not qualify. the paperwork, the traveling around, the phone calls and hold times… it’s like having a job.

   Actually, it’s worse. I have a job, and I’m glad I do, because I’d never manage to keep up with my share of the beaurocracy.)

   So smaller governement? sure. i’m all for it. but let’s see if we can do it without reducing the services we provide to individuals, or loosening the wet-napkin grip we have on corporations. calling republicans smaller government, when they’ve always, as far as i can remember, been the ones who wanted to have laws about who i could marry? or what i could eat, drink, and otherwise cram into my body? or say or write or draw? Not so much.

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4. F. G. Fitzer says:

   8/19/2006 at 1:20 pm

   They went to Liliputia, where the government really is small.

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