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Allowing the Office of the Attorney General wide discretion to regulate speech seems like it wouldn’t square up with “smaller government” ideals favored by a Re

Allowing the Office of the Attorney General wide discretion to regulate speech seems like it wouldn’t square up with “smaller government” ideals favored by a Republican Supreme Court, especially when the AG could be a Democrat in less than a year.

nindalf 7y ago
I think "small government" principles can be set aside when it's expedient to do so. See how small government advocates at the Federal level try their best to override state laws on marijuana legalisation - such businesses still have difficulties getting a bank account. Reagan, the arch-priest of the small government cult did it too. He bullied states into changing the minimum drinking age by withholding Federal funding.
- throwaway0a5e 7y ago
  I think you're confusing people who want small government with Republicans in general and people who just care about low taxes (or intentionally building a straw-man but I'll give you benefit of the doubt). Small government advocates do not remember Reagan fondly because of his drug policy and how he screwed the second amendment. Small government advocates haven't been a fan of federal drug policy for a very long time. I remember seeing bumper stickers with quips like "I dream of a world where men can smoke pot with their husbands" in the early 1990s.
  - non-entity 7y ago
    > I think you're confusing people who want small government with Republicans in general and people who just care about low taxes (or intentionally building a straw-man but I'll give you benefit of the doubt). That would be in-part because those two groups you mention like to advertise themselves are proponents of small government, when most often they are not. Hell I'd even wager many libertarians are less small-government than they claim and I've even heard many of them complain about too many Republican-lite types associating themselves.
  - Infinitesimus 7y ago
    Thanks for clarifying. I think your parent's point was that if you vote for a party because of perceived small government ideals, you would watch those ideals vanish when the party as a whole wants to impose certain ideals on the smaller governments. Ultimately if you delegate power and decision making enough, a few people with the consolidated power call the shots no matter how many smaller governments/powers exist. OP cited Regan as an example of that
- david_w 7y ago
  Like Obama bullied colleges into forming star-chamber hatespeech kangaroo courts using title IX which was originally supposed to be about colleges funding women's sports team in the same way they fund mens' sport teams? That kind of bullying? Taking Federal money behooves you to the Federal government so don't do it. Problem solved. If you want to get to the party / law / decision which was the original source of Big Government Tells You What To Do, it's easy to do. Every thinking conservative knows this case the way every liberal knows Roe v. Wade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn I'm going to guess you've never heard of it so tldr: Filburn was a small family farmer in the state of Ohio accused of growing too much wheat when FDR was trying to prop up wheat prices by limiting production. The government does have the Constitutional power to regulate INTER-state commerce and they claimed Filburn was engaging in illegal interstate commerce, and fined him. His farm produced 12 acres of wheat above his federal government quota and his defense was that he never intended to sell the additional wheat to anyone but to consume it himself and to use it as feed for his animals and therefore should not be considered commerce. He was still found guilty and fined. The court decision stated that had he not grown the extra wheat he would have had to purchase wheat — therefore, he was indirectly affecting interstate commerce. This decision has since been used to legitimate the federal government's imposing itself on literally EVERY activity under the sun; most lately it was seen being used to ram Obamacare down our throats Literally, this decision was the end of small government and the end of states being able to decide things for themselves. If you actually care about having a small federal government and not just, say, the ability to smoke pot, then you've got a lot of new friends on the right you don't know about. The whole idea of the United States was that we'd have 50 different laboratories of democracy and each state could do as its residents saw fit. Best practices, what actually works, would become an empirical matter proved by practice. Where is that spirit now ? We were that, really, until FDR. People forget but the 1920s-50s were the heydey of Communism in America, with a real, active Communist Party and the intelligesia of the day, our global media and academic elites today, all about centralized government and even one world government. I never say anything without proof, so here's the nation's own Walter Cronkite, sad-eyed, mustachioed deliverer of the news about President Kennedy, confessing all upon retirement: from: https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/one-world-government-walter-cronkite-im-glad-to-sit-at-the-right-hand-of-satan/ https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/one-world-government-wal... https://youtu.be/AopkvtAnxuU https://youtu.be/AopkvtAnxuU https://youtu.be/e0kggfMOuNw https://youtu.be/e0kggfMOuNw You can read about Alger Hiss and assistant secretary to FDR's tressury Harry White and the literally 100s of other outright Soviet communist spies in our government at all levels and in all stattes- historically and indisputably confirmed in 1998 with the decryption of the Venona documents- here: https://www.amazon.com/Venona-Decoding-Espionage-America-Communism-ebook/dp/B001PTHYCM https://www.amazon.com/Venona-Decoding-Espionage-America-Com... So yeah, Big Government controlling what we eat, say, read, think, know.... that's not really a conservative thang...more like a leftist-liberal totalitarian thing, sort of, you know, like the ChiComs, who, heh, can now add a few million more names to the list of people their Communist government has murdered of the past 100 years... The irony here is all my wonderful enemies here on HN who like to downvote my well- documented, publicly-reasoned posts because they're "right wing" actually, they and I share the exact same perspective and values, it's just they have been brainwashed by the orangemanbad media to think we don't and "people like me" are somehow "the problem with America" . Go for it. Hit that down arrow. Just know, I never do that to anyone merely because I disagree with them. God forbid the American people should look at each other and realize they have EVERYTHING in common.
mywittyname 7y ago
Small Government is a euphemism for a system that looks the other way while Powerful People rob us blind, either through poorly thought out government contracts, or lax enforcement of laws protecting the financial interest of the public. People rarely use the Small Government argument to combat items like excessive military expenses. It's always to do with taxes, privatizing (profitable) government functions, or criticizing consumer protection laws.
- david_w 7y ago
  I respect that you believe that and you can meaningfully connect the rhetoric of small government to specious criticism of consumer protections laws. Just realize that to a significant part of the thinking public, it's NOT about that. It's about the government controlling everything from the size of your soda to your toilet seat size to the way your kids are educated to how you get your healthcare. A significant part of the public does NOT believe if it's a good idea, and there are bad consequences to someone not following the good idea, it therefore ought to be a law. It's not cynical on their part at all. Just trying to share with you the perspective of these people.
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    >It's about the government controlling everything from the size of your soda to your toilet seat size to the way your kids are educated to how you get your healthcare. I see these things as falling under "consumer protection laws." There are lots of areas where the free market creates perverse incentives and society has created regulations in order to address these issues. We have food regulations because companies used to lie about the food they were selling, we have building codes because companies were constructing unsafe buildings, we have education regulation because schools were failing to provide a base-line education, and we are pushing for healthcare regulations because the private sector has fucked healthcare industry so badly that most of us feel that we should nuke it from orbit. You might not agree with my take, but I assure you that we are talking about the same thing. You may not think the public agrees with these things, but regulations like this didn't appear out of thin air and private companies certainly didn't put them in place. What happened was the public got tired of dealing with these problems and elected politicians who did something about it.

nindalf 7y ago

I think "small government" principles can be set aside when it's expedient to do so. See how small government advocates at the Federal level try their best to override state laws on marijuana legalisation - such businesses still have difficulties getting a bank account. Reagan, the arch-priest of the small government cult did it too. He bullied states into changing the minimum drinking age by withholding Federal funding.

throwaway0a5e 7y ago
I think you're confusing people who want small government with Republicans in general and people who just care about low taxes (or intentionally building a straw-man but I'll give you benefit of the doubt). Small government advocates do not remember Reagan fondly because of his drug policy and how he screwed the second amendment. Small government advocates haven't been a fan of federal drug policy for a very long time. I remember seeing bumper stickers with quips like "I dream of a world where men can smoke pot with their husbands" in the early 1990s.
- non-entity 7y ago
  > I think you're confusing people who want small government with Republicans in general and people who just care about low taxes (or intentionally building a straw-man but I'll give you benefit of the doubt). That would be in-part because those two groups you mention like to advertise themselves are proponents of small government, when most often they are not. Hell I'd even wager many libertarians are less small-government than they claim and I've even heard many of them complain about too many Republican-lite types associating themselves.
- Infinitesimus 7y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. I think your parent's point was that if you vote for a party because of perceived small government ideals, you would watch those ideals vanish when the party as a whole wants to impose certain ideals on the smaller governments. Ultimately if you delegate power and decision making enough, a few people with the consolidated power call the shots no matter how many smaller governments/powers exist. OP cited Regan as an example of that
david_w 7y ago
Like Obama bullied colleges into forming star-chamber hatespeech kangaroo courts using title IX which was originally supposed to be about colleges funding women's sports team in the same way they fund mens' sport teams? That kind of bullying? Taking Federal money behooves you to the Federal government so don't do it. Problem solved. If you want to get to the party / law / decision which was the original source of Big Government Tells You What To Do, it's easy to do. Every thinking conservative knows this case the way every liberal knows Roe v. Wade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn I'm going to guess you've never heard of it so tldr: Filburn was a small family farmer in the state of Ohio accused of growing too much wheat when FDR was trying to prop up wheat prices by limiting production. The government does have the Constitutional power to regulate INTER-state commerce and they claimed Filburn was engaging in illegal interstate commerce, and fined him. His farm produced 12 acres of wheat above his federal government quota and his defense was that he never intended to sell the additional wheat to anyone but to consume it himself and to use it as feed for his animals and therefore should not be considered commerce. He was still found guilty and fined. The court decision stated that had he not grown the extra wheat he would have had to purchase wheat — therefore, he was indirectly affecting interstate commerce. This decision has since been used to legitimate the federal government's imposing itself on literally EVERY activity under the sun; most lately it was seen being used to ram Obamacare down our throats Literally, this decision was the end of small government and the end of states being able to decide things for themselves. If you actually care about having a small federal government and not just, say, the ability to smoke pot, then you've got a lot of new friends on the right you don't know about. The whole idea of the United States was that we'd have 50 different laboratories of democracy and each state could do as its residents saw fit. Best practices, what actually works, would become an empirical matter proved by practice. Where is that spirit now ? We were that, really, until FDR. People forget but the 1920s-50s were the heydey of Communism in America, with a real, active Communist Party and the intelligesia of the day, our global media and academic elites today, all about centralized government and even one world government. I never say anything without proof, so here's the nation's own Walter Cronkite, sad-eyed, mustachioed deliverer of the news about President Kennedy, confessing all upon retirement: from: https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/one-world-government-walter-cronkite-im-glad-to-sit-at-the-right-hand-of-satan/ https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/one-world-government-wal... https://youtu.be/AopkvtAnxuU https://youtu.be/AopkvtAnxuU https://youtu.be/e0kggfMOuNw https://youtu.be/e0kggfMOuNw You can read about Alger Hiss and assistant secretary to FDR's tressury Harry White and the literally 100s of other outright Soviet communist spies in our government at all levels and in all stattes- historically and indisputably confirmed in 1998 with the decryption of the Venona documents- here: https://www.amazon.com/Venona-Decoding-Espionage-America-Communism-ebook/dp/B001PTHYCM https://www.amazon.com/Venona-Decoding-Espionage-America-Com... So yeah, Big Government controlling what we eat, say, read, think, know.... that's not really a conservative thang...more like a leftist-liberal totalitarian thing, sort of, you know, like the ChiComs, who, heh, can now add a few million more names to the list of people their Communist government has murdered of the past 100 years... The irony here is all my wonderful enemies here on HN who like to downvote my well- documented, publicly-reasoned posts because they're "right wing" actually, they and I share the exact same perspective and values, it's just they have been brainwashed by the orangemanbad media to think we don't and "people like me" are somehow "the problem with America" . Go for it. Hit that down arrow. Just know, I never do that to anyone merely because I disagree with them. God forbid the American people should look at each other and realize they have EVERYTHING in common.

mywittyname 7y ago

Small Government is a euphemism for a system that looks the other way while Powerful People rob us blind, either through poorly thought out government contracts, or lax enforcement of laws protecting the financial interest of the public. People rarely use the Small Government argument to combat items like excessive military expenses. It's always to do with taxes, privatizing (profitable) government functions, or criticizing consumer protection laws.

david_w 7y ago
I respect that you believe that and you can meaningfully connect the rhetoric of small government to specious criticism of consumer protections laws. Just realize that to a significant part of the thinking public, it's NOT about that. It's about the government controlling everything from the size of your soda to your toilet seat size to the way your kids are educated to how you get your healthcare. A significant part of the public does NOT believe if it's a good idea, and there are bad consequences to someone not following the good idea, it therefore ought to be a law. It's not cynical on their part at all. Just trying to share with you the perspective of these people.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  >It's about the government controlling everything from the size of your soda to your toilet seat size to the way your kids are educated to how you get your healthcare. I see these things as falling under "consumer protection laws." There are lots of areas where the free market creates perverse incentives and society has created regulations in order to address these issues. We have food regulations because companies used to lie about the food they were selling, we have building codes because companies were constructing unsafe buildings, we have education regulation because schools were failing to provide a base-line education, and we are pushing for healthcare regulations because the private sector has fucked healthcare industry so badly that most of us feel that we should nuke it from orbit. You might not agree with my take, but I assure you that we are talking about the same thing. You may not think the public agrees with these things, but regulations like this didn't appear out of thin air and private companies certainly didn't put them in place. What happened was the public got tired of dealing with these problems and elected politicians who did something about it.