Side comment

oursin drew my attention to an article in the Guardian in which there is the following quote, "The party that claims to be all about small government does seem peculiarly interested in our private lives." (It's near the bottom).

Which chimed with me - I've never been able to understand why people who claim to be "right wing and/or libertarian" claim to be in favour of small government, but then are so concerned about other people's personal lives and tastes.

There is on UK television - I don't know about US TV - a sort of 'poverty porn' where the lives of benefit claimants, the disabled and others are held up for comment and ridicule by programme makers and the public. One sees, if one follows the Twitter feed for these programmes people making the most dreadful, cruel, judgmental comments about the people on the programme. It's very much the situation Owen Jones describes in his book, Chavs, the Demonization of the Working Class. People particularly scorned is anyone who has the temerity to be fat and disabled or otherwise a claimant. It seems that if you're a benefit claimant you must look starved in order to 'count'.

Being in favour of small government seems to be at odds with a desire to police the appearance and behaviour of other (mostly poor) people. You can't have both. You can have small government, or you you can push fat, sick or disabled people into taking up treatments they may not want (as David Cameron has announced the Tory party want to do if they're elected). You can't have both. Putting effort into making people do something requires civil servants at the sharp end, dealing with the public.