What Exactly Is Big/Large Government? – Part II

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Thanks for joining for part two of this topic.  In the last post I’ve made, I pointed out the key differences between the phrase “Big Government” and “Large Government,” mainly because the two are used interchangeably but they can be mutually exclusive items.  Let’s go into some detail as to how both of them affect our daily lives.

With “Big Government,” there is usually a negative impact on freedoms.  There is heavy opposition on people’s personal lives and freedoms (speech, et. al.) as well as dictating the lives and affairs of others.  You will commonly see these types of government with theocracies (integration of church/religion and the State).  If you need to further understand how bad this can affect others, please look at the following:  Saudi Arabia (today), countries that institute Sharia Law (today), Holy Roman Empire (past); the previous items are just a few examples of “Big Government” in action.  We can agree that it isn’t especially pleasant.

With “Large Government,” you tend to be affected more by taxes.  Now we’re not going to argue about taxes on this topic (we’ll save that for another discussion) but it mainly comes down to willingness to have specific services as well as employ the people necessary to provide such services.  This is also a topic that will be saved for another time (especially for the Austrians and Anarcho-Capitalists, since they only want to argue about money and the “free market,” I’ll address that audience another time).  The amount of monies required based on the amount of services and individuals to perform such services can rise/fall, definitely impacting your own personal pay (given the way current first world nations operate).

As I’ve highlighted above, the two items (they are mutually exclusive items, by the way) can impact your own day-to-day life in ways that at very minimum are to be questioned.  However, a concerned, well-informed citizen would always keep their eyes opened on such items.  My next post on this item would highlight why such items can be very dangerous to the people out there and why we should always keep our eyes peeled open and vigilant.

– “Classic Liberal”

Word Associations & Definitions – Part I

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Recently in the United States, we’ve managed to severely pervert certain words to have a definition no where remote close to its actual definition, or distort the meaning to something completely opposite as a scare tactic to the general populace.  Unfortunately for many of the citizen in here, they have fell for such tactics and associate such words/phrases with mean whatever their friends, the media, politicians and anyone else who wants to manipulate viewpoints.  Let’s examine some word associations and definitions, I am going to supply four words:

• Liber
• Liberalis
• Liberty
• Liberal
• Libertarian

If we carefully examine the word structure, the last four on the list all share the same, exact root word, “liber.”  Liber of course, has a double origin.  It was the name of a Roman God, known as “The Free One” and also has origins in Latin, meaning “to free.”  Now let’s re-examine the list once again:

• Liber
• Liberalis
• Liberty
• Liberal
• Libertarian

Common basic facts and civics will point out that all the words on the list all point to the same meaning.  A “liberal” in your proper definition sense is someone who advocates as much freedom as possible, with a very heavy emphasis on individual freedom.  This doctrine was established in the 18^th century in Europe and then, the fledgling United States.  It is where we I have my handle as “Classic Liberal” as well; I strongly promote as much individual freedom as possible (this is where society consistent uses Government to legislate their way of life, resulting in Big Government).

Over recent times, the word liberal has been adjusted to mean completely the opposite of what it is.  I hate using the “No True Scotsman” argument as it is very weak; however since we have a lot of individuals who use the “true conservative” statement, we can use the “true liberal” statement.  A person who is an actual “Libertarian” will not support legislation at the state-level (we call those individuals anti-federalists).  Legislation of any personal/civil issues at any level of government is not endorsing freedom; that is where individuals like Ron Paul (a fake Libertarian) fail (let the States decide).

The term “Libertarian” was first used in the 19^th century in France by a man whose economic ideas were more “collectivist” in nature.  His emphasis on the term and ideology (the gentleman’s name is Joseph DeJacque if you want to look it up, I’ll bring him up on a future post) was directly related to Classic Liberalism (defined earlier).

The second part of “Word Associations & Definitions” in a future post will cover more details about “liber” as well as how it relates to today’s politics (United States, Civics 101, Foreign Policy & World Viewpoints).

– “Classic Liberal”