“Small Goverment” is “conservative” BS
Let’s talk about the first of the Big Four “conservative beliefs” that are pure turd sandwiches—the right-wing devotion to “Small Government.”
In my last two posts, I said that “conservatism” has always been BS—a long con that exists solely to provide pseudo-intellectual cover for some terrible human vices.
“Small Government” used to be one of the first things that “conservatives” called a foundational principle. (Trumpists, of course, don't even mention it any more, having been freed up to express their raw racist nationalism without suffering any social consequences. But this series is about how even pre-Trump "conservatism" was BS.)
Now you only have to think for a moment about the term itself to see that it is completely unsuited to be a “foundational principle.”
Principles need to be minimally relative to provide a firm footing for other ideas.
But “Small Government” is a completely relative term. It only makes sense in combination with “Big Government.” You can’t even begin to get a handle on it until you grasp that it only exists as pushback against “Big Government."
But what does "Big Government" mean?
Here is where we start to get close to what “conservatives” are thinking. “Big Government” for “conservatives” is any ruling authority that tells them they have to do anything they don’t want to do.
So the essence of “Small Government” is a human vice—recalcitrant resistance to authority.
This has always been at the very core of “conservatism.” It is no accident that William F. Buckley’s first editorial in the National Review spoke about “stand[ing] athwart history, yelling Stop.” History, for “conservatives,” is a long series of government impingements on “personal liberty.”
This was not peculiar to modern “conservatism.” If you read the Antifederalist Papers that were written to oppose passage of the Constitution, you will find the same resistance to effective government. The history of the vice of recalcitrance is very old indeed.
How do we know that “Small Government” is a BS “principle.” There are many ways to tell but one of them is the “watch what they do, not what they say” technique.
“Conservatives” stand for “Small Government” as long as they are being told by authorities to do something they do not want to do. But they drop that support instantly when they get power of others.
Just look at Virginia’s new Republican governor Glenn Youngkin. While he was campaigning as a moderate, suburban “conservative,” he was all about trimming “Big Government” in his state.
But the instant he became governor, he started pulling all the “Big Government” levers to force people to do what he and his rabid Trumpist base want: no mask mandates even though it will harm the health of the state; make abortion as difficult as possible even though it will harm the health of Virginia’s women; fire anyone they can who seems to them to have promoted “liberal” policies in the previous Democratic administration, works to loosen further any few gun laws that remain in the state.
So “what they do” is perfect evidence that “Small Government” is a BS principle for “conservatives.” If they have power, they are more than willing to ditch “Small Government” to get their way.
And that brings us to the fundamental reason why “Small Government” exists as a fake “principle.”
It aligns with the vice of recalcitrance, as we have already said. “Conservatives” love it because it symbolizes their adolescent rage at having to do anything they don’t want to do.
But the way they abuse power when they get it goes to the real source of adolescent recalcitrance: the insatiable, rapacious demand for power.
This is a much more demonic vice than recalcitrance. It is the vice of Satan himself, who prefers, as Milton said, “to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
And “conservatives” are really all about power. They want it without restraint for themselves. And they don’t hesitate to restrain or harm anyone else who wants something that they don’t want.
So despite the fact that repetition has turned "Small Government" into an innocuous-sounding notion, it really has always been political cover for the worst of human vices—the worship of power.
Trump brought the “conservative” madness for power out in the open. But it was always there under the cover of “Small Government.”
So Decent America should never fall for the “conservative” BS of “Small Government.” When we hear it, we should translate it immediately into what it really means—tyranny.