You’d think the Republicans could capitalize on this sentiment:
Americans are out of sorts, and increasingly they’re unhappy with the government. According to a Pew poll released last week, more than half of Americans view government as a threat to their freedom.
And it’s not just Republicans unhappy with Obama, or gun owners afraid that the government will take their guns: 38% of Democrats, and 45% of non-gun owners, see the government as a threat.
Read the whole thing.
The problem is, Republicans are half of the government. So if I don’t like government, the trick is to take power from one half of it, and give it all to the other half?
Got it.
If you accept the theory that the legitimacy of the .gov comes from (1) the Constitution forming the bedrock of a Constitutional Republic and (2) the consent of the governed, it is kind of concerning to realize that the left and right are both happy to shred the former and don’t do much to shore up the latter.
I’ve been arguing for years that the only solution is to reduce the scale and power of the government so that it is a less lucrative prize to capture. Nobody would give a shit about spending tons of money to win elections if the .gov was strictly limited in what it could do. That view apparently makes me an evil racist domestic terrorist type though because how could a strictly limited government provide everyone with all that free stuff they need?
“reduce the scale and power of the government so that it is a less lucrative prize to capture. . .”
You (and I) have been preaching a fine ideal originally voiced by the Anti-Federalists in 1787. Their arguments at the time essentially reduced to, that the “super-government” being created (and I think that term was actually used by one writer) would become such a cherished prize that would be striven for by unscrupulous “factions” (political parties) that would place the acquisition of power and wealth for themselves ahead of the interests of the people and the nation.