I upvoted you, but I think I disagree largely with the sentiment you expressed. As one of those wacky libertarians, I'd like to defend (what I think is) the de

I upvoted you, but I think I disagree largely with the sentiment you expressed. As one of those wacky libertarians, I'd like to defend (what I think is) the default liberty-oriented position. Disclaimer, the following is a series of value judgements, and not necessarily steeped in fact. The argument isn't necessarily one based on 'more' vs. 'less' government, but 'Constitutionally prescribed' government size. The Constitution speaks of a small federal government, whose purpose it is to defend the rights of individuals from potentially abusive state governments. The Constitution places a higher value on individual liberty than efficiency of government. We see this reflected in separation of powers, an adversarial Congress, limited terms of office, etc., etc. For many, we see the Constitution as the central governing document of our nation. We don't see it as perfect, in any sense, and we will readily admit to its flaws and faults. Some of us (self included) will even concede that we aren't adept enough at examining social policy to be able to say assertively that a Nordic model of government wouldn't be objectively "better" at granting citizens the liberties they desire. What we can say, fairly definitively, is that we can't have a Nordic model of government with the Constitution as it exists. That isn't necessarily horrible, or untenable. We can get there from here. We can ratify, amend, and hell, even rewrite the Constution, using Constitutionally prescribed measures. There are, as I stated, many faults with the Constitution, but this is where it excels. Where public sentiment changes broadly enough that there is a clear consensus, it should be easy to ratify the Constitution to get us where we need to be. Where we don't have a clear consensus, it should be very hard -- and indeed it is. The faults we see with the existing government are generally the faults we see where they have deviated from adhering to the Constitution. The Constitution prescribes transparency in law-making, and to that end, we have a generally open Congress, whereupon we can interact with our legislators and make our opinions known. However, to circumvent that, the president has recently been exercising "Executive Order", and/or delegation to agencies, who have lawmaking authority, but without the same degree of transparency has. If the FDA decides that they want to impose a regulation, for example, they can do so without the passage of a law, despite the fact that the regulation may have _de_ _facto_ authority as a law. Similarly, executive order bypasses this process. That isn't to suggest it is inherently evil, as we've seen it used for both good and ill, and with varying effectiveness. Regardless, it circumvents (IMO) Constitutionally prescribed law-making procedures. I think that most people, left, right, center or fringe, that the bill of rights, generally, should be treated as sacrosanct, especially where those provisions relate to the first amendment, religious exercise, etc.. People disagree on others, and that's fine -- where there's a clear consensus, it should be easy for the second amendment to be repealed. There isn't, so it hasn't been, so the government has taken half-measures (again, IMO) in an attempt to side-step the bill of rights in lieu of ratification, to appease their political base. The other, major flaw, is that people's beliefs are fungible. They believe that freedom of speech is sacrosanct, and would point to the first amendment as evidence of that, but so often, they would turn around and suggest that the second amendment is outdated, or relegate its provisions to 'muskets', without similarly acknowledging that first amendments should then not be applicable to digital media, telephones, or whatever other implements did not exist in the late 1700s. As pertaining to capitalism, our stance is that true capitalism hasn't ever really been tried -- almost as certainly as we've had capitalism, we've just as readily had crony capitalism. In tech, we can readily speak to the abusive power of patents, and we all know for how long they've stifled innovation, been used to discourage new competitors and free market competition. Why we aren't all able to agree that most regulations imposed by government are done to similar effect is always slightly baffling to me, because they absolutely are. An early entrant to a new market is often able to transfer some of their economic might into political sway, making it harder and harder for new entrants to take either from them, widening the income disparity as well as the ability to narrow it using the free market. That isn't to suggest that we shouldn't all act more communally -- we absolutely should, and it should be encouraged at every step, though never forced. I recently co-established a 501c3 charity to help mitigate the out-of-pocket spending that our teachers often undergo so that they can ensure their children have supplies. They're already underpaid, more often than not, and on average, they spend, out of pocket, up to $2000 a year on supplies that aren't being provided by parents or the school systems. In researching this, I've found what seems to be common advice that "the government is required to provide supplies, so you shouldn't buy any of them," and while that's said, I'm able to see both sides of this argument -- if the government is taxing us, and that taxes goes towards the foundation and operation of schools, then we've already paid our part, and weren't given much of a say in the matter. Contrarily though, I'd want to encourage more voluntaryism in ensuring that teachers aren't operating at a loss in order to educate our children; we should free them from as many burdens as we're able to enable them to be more effective at educating, which is their job, not procurement. So, what's the answer? Clearly, we should be more communally minded, but many feel that since that communality has been mandated, and that their contributions to society have already been forcibly taken, that they are contributing, whether they like it or not. Probably, the answer is somewhere in the middle, and I don't claim to know where it is. I agree that we don't currently have it, and our politicians (on both sides) pandering to their political bases isn't actually making us any progress. I don't know that necessarily a reversion to a smaller government gets us there either, nor do I know that a Nordic model does -- both have worked in isolated instances, but I haven't seen anything convincing that either would work well for us, here, with the people that we have. So, to the libertarian, what we're left with, generally speaking, is the Constitution... the rule book for how the nation is supposed to run, and it isn't being followed, and things are poopy. If we want to change the rules, the Constitution lets us, but instead, politicians on all sides are just cheating instead, and that clearly isn't working.