The Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) is holding its annual conference right now in Washington, D.C. and these comments by Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict caught my eye today:
I’m sure we’ll hear an awful lot about “limited government” from the mouths of CPAC politicians over the next few days. If I had a nickel every time a conservative said “limited government” and didn’t mean it, I’d be a very rich man.
Unlike libertarians, most conservatives simply don’t want small government. They want their own version of big government. Of course, they have done a pretty good job of fooling American voters for decades by repeating the phrases “limited government” and “small government” like a hypnotic chant.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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It’s interesting that conservatives only notice “big government” when it’s something their political enemies want. When conservatives want it, apparently it doesn’t count.
- If a conservative wants a trillion-dollar foreign war, that doesn’t count.
- If a conservative wants a 700-billion-dollar bank bailout, that doesn’t count.
- If a conservative wants to spend billions fighting a needless and destructive War on Drugs, that doesn’t count.
- If a conservative wants to spend billions building border fences, that doesn’t count.
- If a conservative wants to “protect” the huge, unjust, and terribly inefficient Social Security and Medicare programs, that doesn’t count.
- If a conservative wants billions in farm subsidies, that doesn’t count.
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