No War -- No Big Government

This column by Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo is exactly what many have been saying for a long time when war and big government. Anyone wishing to see the latter reduced must face up to the fact that the national security-intelligence and militarized state has to be reigned in. This was the essence of the Ron Paul Revolution. It's too bad eight years later the politics has simply not responded to this simple truth. Republican politicians, their candidates for President (including Ron Paul's own son) think you can balance the budget with massive increases in national security spending by eliminating NPR. This is what passes for policy making in the GOP.

The problem can pinpointed to the fact that too many Republican voters are either 1). Dependent upon the national security state for their livelihoods or 2). Are so fearful of life in general they've scared of their own shadows. They buy more and more guns, live in gated communities and demand overseas bombing of any potential threats.

Political patronage and opportunism plus mind-numbing fear is not a sellable platform for a political party to stand on.  Dick Cheney once famously said "the military is not a jobs program". And yet most Republican politicians (privately of course) believe the opposite. Because they know which constituencies and communities are going to take the hit economically with a downsized military-intelligence-security establishment - theirs. Add in this economic opportunism with the poisons of neoconservative ideology, Christian Zionism, basic nationalism and tie it all together with the band of fear and typical your Republican politician. It's not an accident. They perfectly represent the party as it is.

The only way to break these ties is through politics itself. If a mainstream Libertarian Party could become a political liability to the GOP, (meaning they can't win elections with LP candidates on the ballot taking five percent of the vote), it could revolutionize the American political scene. They may get their chance if Gary Johnson finds himself pitted vs. Hilary Clinton and Jeb Bush.