While we agree in principle here…..it isn't, in my opinion, the size of government, itself, that encapsulates the problem. It's the built-in incentive created with big campaign donations.

I don't care how small, or as you say, limited, the federal government is, without the elimination of the pay-to-play incentive, elected officials will never do the will of the people.

Appreciate the comment.

Bubba…..yep, you're right in principle also. Problem is, as I see it, it's not so much the candidates, it's the campaign finance system, itself, that actually causes elected officials to compromise their principles. Not all of them, but quite a few.

Whether it was your intention or not, you have aired perhaps the greatest argument of all for a limited federal government, as the U.S. Constitution intended. Without that, with a centralized all-powerful government, the direction Obama (and Bush) are taking us, we are bleeping screwed.

These principles of mine that you sneer at – individual liberty, free markets, limited government, low taxes, etc., do not arise from nothing. They arise from everything. They are the only way out of this mess. Everything else leaves us peons completely at the mercy of the powerful, hoping that we can be lucky enough to elect a dictator who will be benevolent. We might as well have a monarchy if we are going to abandon our founding principles, and we most definitely are abandoning them at an alarming rate.