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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 o

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.

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.