From a comment on the Tea Party policies

[fpb]

95% of American so-called conservative policy is nonsense. If you want to cut public expenditure, legislation and what are known as "cuts" are the bluntest and most damaging of blunt instruments. The very fact that Republicans talk about cutting federal departments as the measure of saving shows that they have not begun to understand the problem.

Comments

[ravenclaw_eric]

Believe me, I know from "blunt and unthinking hostility to government." Trust me on this---I know people whose attitude toward the government, any government, makes the Tea Party look like so many North Koreans praising the Great, Dear and whichever-one-they've-got-now leaders.

A lot of hostility comes from bad experiences with government. Were I, for example, a medical marijuana patient whose supply was constantly being interrupted, in open defiance of the clear will of the people of my state expressed at the polls, by the Feds, I would be ill-disposed to the Federal government, to say the very least. Multiply that by myriads of other examples and what you see as blunt and unthinking hostility is, at least, explicable. (Being much closer to the phenomeon, myself, my view is much more nuanced. Kind of like Italian or British domestic politics...I'm sure that your view of them is much more in-depth than mine, simply because you're a lot closer to them.

The Department of Education is one oft-cited example of a department that should be abolished; among other things, I can find no Constitutional justification for its existence. One reason why we Americans so revere our Constitution is that it serves the same purpose as protective circles do when conjuring demons---keeps a very dangerous entity in its place. Allowing the precedent of letting the government act extra-Constitutionally is very dangerous.

Another problem comes when a program or idea that was originally well-meant turns out catastrophically wrong, but still has enough of a constituency to make even touching it dangerous. Cases in point include Social Security (which was originally never meant as the main support of elderly citizens, and was intended to be for only the last few years of life, but was not modified as life-expectancy rose), Prohibition (by the late 1920s it was generally acknowledged to be an utter failure, but too many people had a large emotional investment in appearing virtuous by publicly supporting it; it took the shock of the Depression to end it for good) and affirmative action (which was honestly not meant as a quota system but became one almost the minute it was enacted, and has increased workplace hostility for those groups favored by it).

Government, as I've said, has a legitimate place; whether I like it or not humans are a social species. However, government action should be a last resort, not a first, and should always be confined to the lowest levels possible. If, for example, I have a problem with my city government, I can go downtown and talk to them directly; for state-level problems it's an hour and a half to the state capital, but Washington DC's a major expedition for me, and I'm less likely to be listened to the higher up I have to go.