[Walts Ice Pick]

Thank you. You're absolutely right. It's amazing how so many "conservatives" call for less spending, but also believe in more jails, more courts, more laws, more Medicare, more Social Security, more foreign aid and more nation building.

If we want small government and low taxes, we can't have all those things. Why is that so hard for people to understand?

[Persevero]

You needn’t lump in the social conservative position of keeping drug abuse illegal with the social liberal position of more Medicare, more Social Security, more foreign aid and more spending.

Many of us, myself included, favor drug abuse laws but are not at all interested in socialistic welfare systems.

[Mr. Jeeves]

If we want small government and low taxes, we can't have all those things. Why is that so hard for people to understand?

Small government is going to require a return to an earlier culture where crime problems were largely solved by the citizens - sometimes with permanent results. Republicans don't seem to want that any more than Democrats do.