Small Government

Some claim our country was founded on small government and yet the Constitution was created to cure the malaise of the powerless small government of the Articles of Confederation.
Conservatives have called FDR, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, even Abraham Lincoln responsible for progressive government thus bad presidents in their eyes. Most have said since Calvin Coolidge or Eisenhower the government has been bad. Some even go as far back as Lincoln decrying the decline of our government. So our government has been bad or in drastic decline for at least hundred and fifty years but they are the true patriots. Give them enough time and they will proclaim we have been going astray since Hamilton and Washington. Wait there are at least two books on this subject. Some are already there. So tell me if you go back to the first official government of our constitution and say it was bad how can you be taken serious when you proclaim you are the true and “originalist patriots?”
The hero of these small government folk is Thomas Jefferson. Of course once he had power he literally increased the size of government with the Louisiana Purchase and other executive orders. He is the man Timothy McVeigh quoted (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.) right before he bombed the Oklahoma City Building. Jefferson who was the original small government was also okay with slavery, thought the role of women was the domestic sphere and not politics, and if the Native Americans did not conform genocide might be appropriate. Strangely small government advocates have been the same who have decried the North’s efforts to limit slavery in the South, the right to have Jim Crow Laws, environmental regulations against pollution in the name of small government. While proclaiming the need for a small government they are all over expansive laws against gay folks, women, Muslims and need I continue. In fact it would not be too much of a stretch to say if someone who proclaims they are for small government are likely to be racist, homophobes, sexist, and xenophobes. Small government folks often hide behind the ‘we do not want to be taxed or regulated concepts’ but the group appears to me to support all the things I previously mentioned.
Now government does over reach and there are regulations that could go and they do not always make wise use of our money but that is a smoke and mirror to keep the eye off the dark side of those who promote small government.  How do we know this?  Ronald Regan the patron saint of small government increased the size and debt of our country during his time as President. But he did start his campaign in the Deep South where students had been murdered fighting for Civil Rights saying these southern people were his people. He did support the apartheid government in South Africa, he did not mention the word AIDS until six years into his presidency, homeless families increased during his two terms, he developed the racist term “welfare queen,” he replaced Civil Rights icon Thurgood Marshall with an ultra-conservative Justice and so on.
So in conclusion what I am saying is the next time someone starts stating their small government views for cutting the budget watch where they cut and see if it does not hurt minorities and the poor and as they always do watch where they increase the budget and how they increase the debt.Also watch what legislation they pass. Most recently small government folks tried to essentially close down the House Ethics Committee.  You see small government proponents are usually trying to hide their dark side. Now go ahead and call me a political correctness left wing nut because I would love to expose what the anti-political correctness crowd are proposing.