Yes sir, I agree with you. However the question remains, what is the least intrusive government that would satisfy that role?

Are we better off if the government is remote from the people involved in a situation, or are we better off if the government is close and intimate with the people involved?

I would suggest that with our Federal government usurping every single nit picking detail of regimenting our lives, we are up shit creek without a paddle and they are trying to take the canoe away from us.

That being said, government plays a very neccessary role in creating laws, enforcing laws and defending laws that protect rights. This is a very different role from legislating action, particularily the kind that favors one group over another.

I say that this is an intuitiion because I do not have any empircal knowledge of these complex processes and their results. Maybe the complexity is itself the argument againts legislated action as aposed to protection.

If I may add to this "That paves the way for the next policy, and the next"; Inevitably the "next" is a tweaking (variation) of what just failed. This tweaking is supposedly the magic that will fix it but since it is still based upon what failed, it too is doomed to fail. Or, the politicians create a new policy while not canceling the failed policy, either way we live with the failure like an Albatross hung around our collective necks.

The curious thing is that the politicians can see the failure, though reluctant to admit it, they know that their tweaking is extremely unlikely to do anything but keep the public at bay for awhile; yet it never occurs to them or the public that has hopes in the policy that perhaps a little honest thought would show that the policy should never have been enacted in the first place. Therefore, the only real cure is to cancel the policy and every offshoot of it completely. That they will never do.

"A real tax burden of $5.2 trillion to pay for a $1.65 trillion benefit seems a bit excessive, even by Washington standards. Perhaps one of the presidential candidates should do the voters the courtesy of at least telling them the truth, and asking them if they really want quite so much government at such a high price. Then again, maybe the voters already sense the truth, and perhaps that is why they are so furious."

That final paragraph of the linked article is exactly why I have withdrawn my voluntary particiapation in any tax scheme I can avoid. If I don't give it to them, they can't squander it.

I am doing my part for freedom.

Isn't that a bit redundant?