If you could see how the government can enforce basic laws that protect individual rights, public health and the basic functioning of the marketplace without codifying a particular group's morality then you wouldn't have made that false dichotomy.
There is no such thing as a moral vacuum.
When society abandons morality, then yes there is. American society has not yet abandoned morality.
Either the government will embrace a morality with its foundations in Christian ethical thought, or it will find something else.
And if the government gets big enough that it must look for a philosophy to rationalize itself then that is the fault of the people, not the government. The people are to blame for the size of the government and its role in society.
Besides that, I have no idea how Christians empowered the government to "kick hippy a$$."
Sure you do, it's called the War on Drugs. The WoD has done more than any other government program to give the government arbitrary power to use deadly force and seize property. Drug use is not particularly moral, but neither are the government powers needed to enforce it. The War on Drugs was started because of a social conservative revulsion to 60s and 70s drug use. It was the battle of the church ladies against the long haired hippies. In the end, everyone in America is worse off.
The circumstances of our founders' times are not so different from todays' that we need big government. Government closer to the size of the early 19th century in America than what we have today would work better. All we need are police that can tackle violent and white collar crime, courts, military and intelligence agencies that can protect us by taking the fight overseas. We don't need welfare, Socialist Security, Title 9, etc. We don't need 2 tons of pro-union and corporate regulation.
90% of what the government does is a waste of tax payers' money. You're worried that not having "traditional values" (whoever thoses are) shoved down every citizen's throat will lead to chaos and rampant crime? Get rid of the gun laws. As Robert Heinlein quipped, "an armed society is a polite society."