[JediJones]

That’s all the writer’s interpretation. The fact is no one is proposing truly and radically cutting government agencies except for Ron Paul. I agree with the basic notion that government needs to be bigger than it was when the country was founded because of how much more complex our country and the world has become. But it absolutely needs to be run better.

I don’t agree with the “send everything back to the states” thinking. I think too many conservatives think that’s the be-all, end-all of conservatism, but it’s an easy thing to say and unlikely to work out in practice. Modern technology has intertwined all of us nationally to a much greater degree. So many things one state can do affect the rest of us in a direct way. We are a much more powerful player on the international stage when we are the UNITED, not divided states. We cannot function with 50 hugely different sets of rules. Some of the states like California have gone so far off the rails that they ought to be reigned in by the rest of us. States are a great place for experimentation, but once we find policies that work, there ought to be a national movement to get them adopted nationwide.

Whether you believe in radically cutting federal government or not, there is going to be some government left and we need it to be run in an exceptional, not just competent matter. That is where many of those ideas that are discussed in your article will be a clear benefit to us.

[BluesDuke]

The fact is no one is proposing truly and radically cutting government agencies except for Ron Paul.

More's the pity, because Paul is the candidate whose would-be foreign policy is giving a terrible name to small government advocacy.

I agree with the basic notion that government needs to be bigger than it was when the country was founded because of how much more complex our country and the world has become. But it absolutely needs to be run better.

And I agree with Mr. James Bovard (in "feeling your pain": The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years): "The majority of government agencies can neither be reinvented nor reformed. If Americans want good government, hundreds of failed government programs must be abolished and legions of laws that turn government into a public nuisance must be repealed. All other 'reforms' will merely prolong the abuse of the American people."

I don’t agree with the “send everything back to the states” thinking. I think too many conservatives think that’s the be-all, end-all of conservatism, but it’s an easy thing to say and unlikely to work out in practice.

There are some things the states cannot do and the federal government can do. Over two centuries' experience plus the Constitution are clear enough about those. I would not expect the states to take up national defence, but why should I expect or insist upon the federal government's tentacles in every damn last facet of American life? And has it gone unnoticed that most of the reason for the "complexity" of contemporary American life is the metastasis of government?

We are a much more powerful player on the international stage when we are the UNITED, not divided states. We cannot function with 50 hugely different sets of rules.

Then simply have done with it. Call for abolishing the states and their governments; suggest the appropriate singular monicker for the vast, newly-consecrated being; and, compose and submit that Constitutional amendment that will negate Article Four, Sections 1 and 4 and repeal the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

Some of the states like California have gone so far off the rails that they ought to be reigned in by the rest of us.

Wouldn't that be just as untenable, to say nothing of grotesque, as was once the precept that the rest of us ought to heed the influence of California, or some such other "off the rails" state? There's no known law that says as California goes so go the rest of us (and thank God for it!); who on earth are we elsewhere to decide when California---a state which stands clearly to implode under its own tandem weight of legislative and populist excess---should be "reined in?" California's own extraterrestrial excess will rein it in soon enough, and drastically so, and the only question then will be whether there will be enough Californians left to resurrect the state from its own ash.

States are a great place for experimentation, but once we find policies that work, there ought to be a national movement to get them adopted nationwide.

When those polices that "work" are found, they tend to spread rather organically. Put the federal fingers onto those pulses and risk the solution becoming somewhat worse than the problem, if only because no two states are entirely alike and the specifics of one policy that "works" in one state will not necessarily apply in like or strict letter in another state.

Whether you believe in radically cutting federal government or not, there is going to be some government left and we need it to be run in an exceptional, not just competent matter.

This is what I believe in:

I believe in freedom.

I believe in individual rights and sovereignty.

I believe in a properly-construed government, a government whose sole legitimate business, other than protecting and defending us from enemies actual or provably iminent from abroad and predators at home (real predators, if you please, not mere vicemongers), is to stay the hell out of your business, my business, every citizen's business, until or unless one citizen would obstruct or abrogate another citizen's equivalent rights; as opposed to the improperly-consecrated State whose business seems to be sticking its fingers into every citizen's business whether it is competent or Constitutionally sanctioned to do so.

To run a properly-construed government would be exceptional, indeed. Indeed, it would be the exception to almost a century's rule.