Why We Loathe BIG Government

One of the most frustrating issues in my political life is the apparent lack of appreciation amongst my many leftish friends for the basis of my point of view.  I'm not looking for agreement.  Just an appreciation for why I believe the things I believe.

And "because yer nuts" doesn't count.



This is not unusual for those in the libertarian and conservative corners of the political pool.

Conservatives — Originalists — speak of Big Government always: an aversion to it is deservedly the driving intellectual thesis behind conservatism. We despise Big Government, more than anything, and I can’t emphasize strongly enough that I don’t believe the left has any clue why. They have theories about guns and fear, psychological weakness, bigotry, and the like, and these are all weak arguments against Big Government, which makes them easy to dismiss and continue to be a leftist. They are not, of course, our arguments. There is a disconnect between what we say, what we mean when we protest Big Government and what we are thought to mean by our political opposition.

That article provides a...haphazard...example of the sort of thing that drives "us" nuts.  It is the nearly endless list of alphabet soup agencies with missions that overlap, intermingle, and wastefully duplicate one another.  In doing so such agencies not only consume the wealth we produce in our working lives, they tax our existence with a multiplicity of rules and regulations that make full compliance a near impossibility.

This panoply of agencies, bureaus, and commissions was built by a century of leftish effort to "improve" our nation.  It would be presumptuous to suggest that some of those organizations have not succeeded from time to time.  It would be equally presumptuous to suggest that they all succeed at that objective on a routine basis.

The question for those on the left?

Are you proud?

Because you seem to be proud. Conservatives did not want a government made of these agencies, you did, and we now have them, a hundred years of liberal lifetimes spent creating. It’s yours and we deserve to know if you are proud of this structure — not the principles behind the structure, the ideals, but the actual structure. This is the government, now, crushing and wasting us, and rational men cannot be proud of what you have done here. Are you, and do you understand us?

Does this plethora of agencies really reflect your vision of good governance?


Or have you "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance".

Might we be better served by fewer agencies with sharply defined mission and no overlap?