I never gave a definition of limited government or of unlimited government, nor did I advocate for either limited government or unlimited government
I simply said that some people *cough* Republicans* cough* throw around the terms like "small government," and pretend to?) advocate for limiting government while meaning something different by it than we might assume they mean. And even the Libertarian party line is anti-choice.
Do you disagree with me about any of that? If not, I don't think we have any disagreement about anything so far because that is all I've posted so far. Maybe the rest of this post will lead to a disagreement, though. If it does, I cannot help it. It's historical fact, with only the tiniest bit of my jaundiced interpretation of historical fact.
Limited government means that the government has only such power as we the people loan it for such purposes as we deem appropriate rather than we the people having only as much power as the government would allow us.
Yes, I understand that the US Constitution was supposed to work that way as to the federal government. The Supreme Court pretty much did away with that idea after FDR threatened to increase its size until his nominees were in the majority. IMO, he pretty much had to do something because the country was going down the tubes and the SCOTUS was not letting him do a thing he thought he needed to do to save it. The climax was the SCOTUS holding that government could regulate a man growing veg, literally in his own back yard, to feed his own family because his actions were affecting interstate commerce. (As I am sure you know, when the government tried to argue for upholding ACA, they tried to use the commerce clause as a rationale, but, as in FDR's day originally, the conservative Justices weren't buying it and Roberts relied instead on the Constitution's grant to the feds of a taxing power.)
I am not so sure about state government. Remember, the colonists took their state laws from the statutes in England in effect during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, aka the daughter of King Henry VIII. It was not understood that those laws limited state government. The whole reason for the Magna Carta of 1215 C.E., on which the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution was based, was that the monarchy's powers were so incredibly unlimited.
But, as to the federal government, I agree that the original intent was to limit its powers, though perhaps not to the powers granted directly by the people. At that time, it was state legislatures who could ratify the Constitution and elect Senators, the Senate being the more powerful house. And the Framers made the Senate the more powerful house because the Framers feared the "rabble," as shown in the notes of the their secret meetings. So, legislators got to vote on the content of the federal consitution and for senators and electors got to vote for President and the people directly got to vote only for the weaker house of Congress--and only about 6% of the people at that.
How things sorted out at the state level was left up to the states, so we could say that the people were ruling their state legisloators, at least in theory. However, at that time, the colonies were coming off Governors appointed by the crown and, even in states, voting certainly was not for everyone. So, I am not sure that was even the theory at the level of relatively new states.
Should it be all the people "lending" powers to local, state and federal governments? I would like to say yes, but it's always been the plutocrats and I think it still is, no matter how many of us get to vote now.
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