drumgurl: “It’s possible that my perception of Republicans was wrong when I was a teen. But doesn’t it seem like things have gotten worse since 2000? Or did Republicans just spew small government rhetoric because Clinton was in charge? If so, I guess I fell for it.”

Well, I definitely remember a shift but I think it was probably earlier: certain members of the Republican leadership (e.g. Gingrich, Dole) were never anything other than opportunists, and the ideological foot soldiers’ focus seemed to shift heavily from any kind of principled opposition to big government to pure Clinton hatred somewhere around 1996 or 1997. (The Dole presidential campaign, for example, put about as much of an emphasis on smaller government as a convention of education bureaucrats.) By 2000 W. had made it pretty clear that support for the welfare state would be a key part of the electoral strategy and after 9/11/2001, rabid support for the State pretty clearly became the defining feature of the American Right.

On the other hand, it’s worth wondering how seriously committed Republicans ever were to smaller government, even back around 1994. I mean, yes, they asked for lower taxes, less federal welfare, and less federal control over education. But I remember that other big rallying cries included the push to expand State power in (1) cracking down on immigration, (2) harsher criminal approaches to victimless “crimes” such as drug use and homelessness, and (3) prohibiting abortion wherever possible. So there were small government elements involved but it also seems like there were substantial elements of the movement calling for a harsher, bigger police state when it could be directed against social “undesirables.” (I suspect because the Republican upswing in 1994 had little to do with small-government principles and a lot to do with the politics of white male rage: that is, substituting stick-based statism for carrot-based statism.)

Eric: “By the way Red, George H.W. Bush is what is typically referred to as a paleo-conservative (i.e. pre-Reagan, pre the original neo-cons).”

Well, no, he’s not. H. W. was a dyed-in-the-wool, realist / internationalist, establishment conservative, committed to some mild rollbacks of the welfare state and regulation along with a mildly pro-trade economic policy and a belligerent foreign policy allegedly based on realpolitik rather than ideological crusades. He’s much more like, say, Bill Buckley (who, like H. W., is widely despised by paleos) or Henry Kissinger. Paleoconservatives—such as Pat Buchanan, and the folks at The American Conservative—are often opposed to international free trade agreements, and sharply opposed to foreign interventions. (They call themselves “paleos” not just because they oppose the “neos,” but also because they think they hark back to the Old Right of the 1930s and 1940s, which opposed the U.S.’s entry into World War II; they also, as it happens, had their first major political break over establishment conservatism when Buchanan led a vocal opposition against H. W.’s war on Iraq.) So H.W. is properly neither a paleo (who are isolationists) nor a neo (who are idealist internationalists); he was just a jerk for his own reasons.

Robert: “My point is this: government is a convenient tool—used by various groups—to suppress ‘the enemy’, while promulgating ‘our’ agenda. I say a pox on all their houses. The state ought to be neutral…or non-existent.”

Since there is no such thing as a neutral government (any state requires coercively diverting resources from voluntary agreements at some point or another), this seems to entail (by a disjunctive syllogism) that the state ought to be non-existent. I don’t have a problem with that, but I wonder if you’re willing to draw the conclusion also. If not, you may want to reconsider the premises.

drumgurl: “I had to attend college my first year on the sly just to avoid severe beatings (or at least get them less often).”

Stephen: “I was born in a town of 5,000 people in farming country in Illinois. As you grow older, I think that you will find that your parents truly cared for you.”

By giving her severe beatings and trying to stop her from attending college?

Stephen: “Please take my advice, honey.”

She’s not your “honey.” Do you address male bloggers you’ve never met as “sweetcakes?”

Stephen: “My parents were a lot like yours and they were great people.”

You have absolutely no clue what her parents were like. Judging from the statements in this thread, in fact, it seems like there may be good reason to believe you’re positively mistaken about what they were like.

You condescending twit.