Why Conservatives want Small Government and Liberals want Big Government

In the big government world, power is centralized in the federal government in a large bureaucracy where the power is held by a few people at the top of the government. A small government makes the power decentralized in the local communities that are affected by the decisions the power holders make. This provides accountability and oversight by the decision maker’s peers, a very secure form of government.

 That the power in the two forms of government is located in different places makes it vital to liberals and conservatives to fight for their respective form of government. It is in fact necessary for the agenda of liberals to have a big government. The people at the top tend to believe they are the smartest people and liberals are more likely to go along with that idea than are conservatives, so it makes sense to liberals to give extra power to those people at the top of the government. It is a sort of centralized information processing. With this system it gives the liberals at the top of the government the power to promote their agenda and to ignore the voice of anyone who disagrees with them. The small government would not allow this. It is obvious how a small, decentralized government would not allow a single voice so much power so as to be able to quite all voices who disagree. It is also clear how the small government would not be able to subject people to programs who do not want to participate in them, even if it is for their own good; or, their own good according to the whoever is at the top. 

That big government will necessarily lead to stifling of dissenting voices should be clear. Why else would any group try to move all the power into the hands of a few people at the top? The only reason for that type of system is to consolidate power among a few people. As this is clearly the strategy used by the democrats to hold power, it is easy to see why they fight for a centralized, big government system. The big government inevitably leads to centralization of power through the huge bureaucracy that must be built in order to sustain such a large system.

Just the same as it is necessary for liberals to have big government, it is also necessary for conservatives to have small government. Conservatives do not want the government taking responsibility or dictating what they do with their lives. Small government will, by nature, keep out. While there is a spectrum of small government to big government; there could even be a medium sized government, the bigger it gets the more intrusion there will be. Therefore, the purest form of conservative will naturally want smaller government because the conservative looks for a system of government that allows them a high degree of individual self-determination.

        
Small government leads to individual self-determination and responsibility. A small government will not have the resources to impose themselves on your life, therefore, small government leads to the individual person being able to take responsibility for their actions and outcomes.

In the end, conservatives want a small government because it allows us to have the things we want and liberals want a big government because it allows them to have the things they want.