Top of the morning

In the wake of the all the lunacy of the CPAC conference in Washington, Glenn Greenwald at Salon puts all the talk by Republicans about “small government”  into perspective. The entire post is well worth your time. Here are two highlights.

This is what Republicans always do.  When in power, they massively expand the power of the state in every realm.  Deficit spending and the national debt skyrocket.  The National Security State is bloated beyond description through wars and occupations, while no limits are tolerated on the Surveillance State. Then, when out of power, they suddenly pretend to re-discover their small government principles.

The very idea that a political party dominated by neocons, warmongers, surveillance fetishists, and privacy-hating social conservatives will be a party of “limited government” is absurd on its face.  There literally is no myth more transparent than the Republican Party’s claim to believe in restrained government power.