fingerNOZ wrote: "how is Keynesian economics repackaged 1700 economics? What are you referring to? nd what technocratic absurdities?"
Wasn't specifically referring to Keynesianism, though Keynes was influenced by the monetary crank, Silvio Gesell. More along the lines of the Labor Theory of Value, protectionist ideas such as "buy local", profit is theft, etc. As for technocratic absurdities, well, Saint-Simon would have been enamored with our massive beauracracy.
"The fact that conservatives have also grown government should be evidence enough that small government is impossible."
How does this show it's impossibility? Is government's size or rate of growth a constant value defined by the Laws of Nature?
On the last day of 2012, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen inadvertently clarified two huge matters regarding the left.
The first was the ignorance about conservatives and conservatism that permeates the left. The second was the primary reason decent people identify with the left: the effective caricaturing and demonizing of the right. Were it not for caricature and demonization, most otherwise intelligent and decent people would not be on the left.
This is what Cohen wrote in his column, "Republicans Adrift:"
"It is conservatism that is both intellectually exhausted and nearly indefensible. It is the movement of the ideologically ossified,...
Actually there is such a relationship - it has to do the amount of energy required to control increasing complexity and interdependence. You can have a smaller government if you reduce the number, variety, speed of delivery of goods ad services exchanged. Most people want and need a complex varied society and the infrastructure needed to deliver it. I think there are still a few places in the US where you can escape some of this. You may meet me there, but I will be vacationing not working.
The bottom line is that with respect to the size of government both the left and the right have pragmatically responded the realities of the modern world -almost accidentally and certainly incrementally enacting similar policies. Currently we have little problem because the republicans painted themselves in a corner and are using the rhetoric of the right to almost try to escape the consequences for wanting their cake an eat it two, They should have cut the govt when it would not have been noticed but didn't.