> people who legitimately want small government, and aren't merely using libertarian precepts as cover for an authoritarian agenda.
AKA useful idiots. The fundamental debate between big versus small government is deceptive. What we really need is effective and efficient government (roughly in that order, in my opinion). Sometimes that is big, sometimes that is small.
I agree on the "effective and efficient" point. I'd say the deception mainly arises out of ignoring that corporations have formed de facto government. That's the fundamental contradiction that causes the banner of "individual liberty" be transmuted into "corporate liberty", still ultimately denying freedom to individuals.
So I do not agree with the "useful idiots" blanket characterization. It seems needlessly divisive, when what people who've become myopically focused on the nominal government need is to see the larger picture whereby corporations that capture markets, collude, and create externalities also independently destroy individual liberty. Not solely by regulatory capture, or otherwise enabled by the nominal government, but rather entirely on their own due to the fact that markets are not entirely efficient (P != NP).
AKA useful idiots. The fundamental debate between big versus small government is deceptive. What we really need is effective and efficient government (roughly in that order, in my opinion). Sometimes that is big, sometimes that is small.