One of the most widely-advertised but falsest claims in American politics is that the modern Republican Party stands for "small government."
In the distant past, leading Republicans were sharp critics of statism. And, even today, a few marginal party activists, like U.S. Representative Ron Paul, have championed limited government -- even libertarian -- policies. But this is not at all the norm for the contemporary GOP.
For example, the modern Republican Party has stood up with remarkable consistency for the post-9/11 U.S. government policies of widespread surveillance, indefinite detention without trial, torture, and extraordinary rendition. It has also supported government subsidies for religious institutions, government restrictions on immigration and free passage across international boundaries, government denial of collective bargaining rights for public sector workers, government attacks on public use of public space (for example, the violent police assaults on the Occupy movement), and government interference with women's right to abortion and doctors' right to perform it.
And this barely scratches the surface of the Republican Party's "big government" policies. The GOP has rallied fervently around government interference with the right of same-sex couples to marry, government provision of extraordinarily lengthy imprisonment for drug possession (for example, in the "war on drugs") and numerous other nonviolent offenses, government curbing of voting rights (for example, "voter suppression" laws), and government restrictions on freedom of information. Where, one wonders, is the Republican outrage at the U.S. government's crackdown on people like Bradley Manning who expose government misconduct, or on whistle-blowing operations like Wikileaks and its leading light, Julian Assange?
If the Republican Party were a zealous defender of civil liberties, as it claims to be, it would laud civil liberties organizations. But, in fact, the GOP has adopted a very hostile attitude toward them. During the 1988 presidential campaign, George H. W. Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, publicly and repeatedly ridiculed his Democratic opponent as a "card-carrying member of the ACLU."
Of course, the biggest arena of U.S. government action is the military. Here is where 57 percent of U.S. tax dollars currently go, thereby creating the most powerful national military machine in world history. A Republican Party that wanted to limit government would be eager to cut funding for this bloated giant. But the reality is that the modern GOP has consistently supported a vast U.S. military buildup. Today, its presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, assails his Democratic competitor for military weakness and champions a $2 trillion increase in U.S. military spending over the next decade.
Moreover, the Republican Party is an avid proponent of the most violent, abusive, and intrusive kind of government action -- war. In recent decades, as U.S. military intervention or outright war raged in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and other nations, the GOP was a leading source of flag-waving jingoism, as it is today in the U.S. government's confrontation with Iran. This is not a prescription for creating limited government. As the journalist Randolph Bourne remarked in the midst of U.S. government mobilization for World War I: "War is the health of the State."
Yes, admittedly, there is plenty of GOP support for small government when it comes to cutting taxes on the wealthy, limiting regulation of big business, gutting environmental regulations, weakening legal protections for workers and racial minorities, and slashing government funding for public education, public health, and social welfare services. But there is a common denominator to this kind of small government action. It is all designed to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyone else. Thus, the Republican Party opposes government alleviation of hunger through the distribution of food stamps, but supports government subsidies to corporations.
Just take a look at the platform that will emerge from the GOP national convention. There will be plenty of rhetoric about freedom and limited government. But the party's actual policies will reflect a very different agenda.
For those people who can see beyond the deluge of slick campaign advertisements, it should be clear enough that the Republican Party's claim to support "small government" is a fraud. That claim is only an attractive mask, designed to disguise a party of privilege.
Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is "Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual" (University of Tennessee Press).
Liberals who love big government are now rationalizing open borders in the name of "small government"? Lots of fair points but *true* liberals and progressives should be champions of not just government restrictions on immigration but LOWER immigration. Trouble is, the issue has become racialized and most cannot seem to think past that.
Since the GOP was subverted by the neocon party, all effort has been put into building up this complex, with the culmination of their agenda being to turn our country into a "corporate gulag" where ordinary people have no rights at all, and where big corporations and big finance reap the rewards of the people's misery. We see this in Ryan's plan, where all government agencies except the military, police and judicial will be cut, and the three that remain will have a lot of power to control the discontented masses.
While allowing groups like the teabags and Christian conservatives to help them get elected, all of that will change once they grasp power and control of our government. As long as their voter base is content with idealistic "scraps" thrown to them, there won't be any problems, but insurrection over worker's wages and higher taxes will not be tolerated, and there will be plenty of police and military to stomp out any uprisings.
When the rights of the old, poor and sick are taken away, and workers lose their wage and employment protections, it will be quite easy for the neocons to take people's civil, and even voting rights away...just another small step toward making heaven on earth for the wealthy, and hell for the rest of us.