The Meaning of Small Government

Ah, a quiet house. A perfect opportunity to have a drink (or two) and actually get through an entire Sunday paper. Woot!

As a Libertarian, I'm always psyched when it's written/talked about in mainstream media. Today's dose was in the LA Time Current (opinion) section. The author is quick to distinguish between the rise (theoretically) of libertarian ideas vs. the fall (theoretically) of the Libertarian party. I thought he was making bread out of crumbs. Reagan is held up as a relative paragon of libertarianism, but his federal spending was the highest (by any economic measure) of any administration. The writer talks about the rise of anti-big government regarding Iraq, but, face it, we've rolled over to Bush's Big Brother government.

The other interesting article was about the LA Catholic Worker soup kitchen that, get this, doesn't register with the IRS to have tax exempt status. Why? They don't want to worry about the government's strings. So, if you give money or stuff to them it's because you believe in their mission not because you can lower your taxes. You may not believe in their politics (there are seriously against the war in Iraq), but you gotta admire their libertarian stance on how they run their affairs. Besides, how can you not a like a group whose newsletter is The Agitator?