Comment Re:Solution is smaller government / reduced spendi (Score 2) 609
Sorry, but while that argument is appealing, it's bullshit because you're not specifying WHAT functions you eliminate with the meaningless statement, "reduced spending and smaller government." Where are you reducing the spending? What functions does this "smaller government" fulfill, and which functions does it not fulfill? Unless you specify exactly what to cut, this is just empty rhetoric with very little meaning - like saying, "We need to get rid of regulations" - which ones? Why? What is the cost-benefit analysis?
Moreover, it is absolutely possible to have a much smaller government that focuses all or most of its efforts on military and intelligence services - the Syrian government is an excellent example of this, focusing very little (in terms of expenditures) on actual effective social welfare functions (providing subsidized housing, etc. which it did, but very badly), but almost exclusively on maintaining a police and military state, and I'm sure the same can be said for many dictatorial regimes. Indeed, libertarian approaches often cede only military and possible intelligence services as necessary state functions, producing exactly that type of outcome.
What "reduced spending" and "smaller government" actually seem to result in is decreased social services (education, health care, etc) while leaving military and intelligence budgets intact (often beyond what the military is actually requesting, as we've seen often enough in recent years in the US, e.g. the F35 controversy). I imagine as the number of people at the bottom increase and become restless due the lack of social services, you'd find even more support from everyone else to INCREASE the domestic intelligence presence and law enforcement, rather than to reduce them.