In a two party system, do you vote for the party that promises small government and never delivers, or the party that promises bigger government and does delive?

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dxdm 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's vastly more to politics than that. There's even more to "small" vs "big" government than that, or to who really promises and delivers what. This convenient reduction to handy little words obscures all that, to the point where it stops mapping to reality in a meaningful way. It's a fictional abstraction.

If anything, your question reduces to making one party sound incompetent or deceitful, I don't know if that's intended. (And considering that aspect of the party is another fun can full of real-life worms.)

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randallsquared 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> one party sound incompetent or deceitful

Based on the parent comment, I think it's more "one party sound incompetent and the other deceitful". There was a senator who used to say that American politics was a contest between the stupid party and the evil party.

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trimethylpurine 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> There's vastly more to politics than that.

I thought so in my teens. But now I know that I was naive. How can you be sure that you're not?

	▲	dxdm 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's stupidly obvious. Politics is about how we organize government and distribute power to solve the problems of living together as a society of individuals. "Big" vs "small" government is a particular way of interpreting one aspect of that. It's an important aspect and a useful perspective, but even if taken at face value it completely neglects other important things like the rules for making policy and their actual content. Of course, the face value of big vs small has become a mask for something else. But if you've spent the time since your teens to come to the opposite conclusion in spite of everything going on around, then I suspect there will be very little I can say to you that will make sense to you.

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anabab 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Looks like those in favor of small government should not vote - to apply evolutionary pressure instead of rewarding unacceptable behavior

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6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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Grombobulous 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The second biggest problem with this comment is that the conclusion we must take from it if we buy into your statement is that we shouldn’t bother voting.

We would not have a costly war in Iran, blockaded Strait of Hormuz, $6-7/gallon gas, or blanket import tariffs hiking up the prices of consumer staple goods if we voted for the “party that promises bigger government and does deliver.”

I would submit the idea that the latter party is consistently misrepresented and has been the only one that has delivered smaller budget deficits anytime recently.

See also: Tax Cut and Jobs Act, the Kansas Experiment.

The truth of the matter is, our elites are undertaxed at historic levels. At no point in our lifetime have the wealthy been taxed at a lower rate than they are today. There isn’t actually anything wrong with government spending outside of the endless/aimless wars (started by…). It’s the revenue side that deserves scrutiny.