[CamperBob]

They don't understand that government is not going anywhere, and that government can be as good as it can be bad.

No way in hell. Where, in either the future or the history books, is the saintly leader who will counterbalance a Stalin or a Mao?

[pyre]

I think the point is government that is not necessarily led by a single person. Though the president of the US is the 'leader,' he does share power with the Supreme Court and Congress. Just because everyone likes to point to the president when things go wrong doesn't mean there aren't others that share in the blame...

The current problem with the system is that: 1) the Federal government has grown too large, and 2) the US is ruled by only two political parties that are both (at their core) about the status quo and not all that different from each other.

[intended]

May I suggest that the current US political debate is virulently polarizing and unproductive?

Perhaps the issue Good Governance vs Bad Governance would be effective/useful? (as opposed to the current axis of big vs small)

As was said by Deng Xiapong "it doesn't matter if the cat is white or black.."

[pyre]

Big government has more chance for corruption because the system ends up growing ever-more complex. Parts the of the system that are useless never get culled, they just keep finding ways to retain minimal amounts of relevance, while attempting to maintain or increase their funding levels.

It's harder to have 'good government' when there are more ways for it to fail.

[intended]

Which is great and fine in a theoretical world. You guys just had your economy blow up. IT doesn't matter if its big or small. It matters if it works. Ignore size.

[pyre]

Ok, so you determine that it isn't working. Then you try to figure out how and why so that you can fix the problem and you find out that it's death by a thousand cuts.

I'm not so delusional to think that there will be some magical shrinking of the government, but you seem to be telling me that it isn't a worthy goal, which I disagree with. You can have the goal of making the government work now while at the same time trying to trim away the useless pieces.

[intended]

I have no issue with a smaller government. I just don't see how smaller or bigger government are worthy goals IN and OF themselves. It just needs to be working government.

The debate about big vs small govt. is one of many, pointless hand-wavy, ideas used to harm your debate.

Is it wrong to point out that something is being used to obfuscate discussion, polarize opinion, and detract from getting a solution?

[randallsquared]

Joe's Good Governance is Bob's Bad Governance. People fundamentally differ on what the government should do; there's no "right answer" that everyone could agree on if only they'd sit down and discuss it reasonably.

[intended]

True for debates on Governance, but it can't be completely true for specifics and tactical matters. Matter of fact its pretty much the only way you can bring intelligence, experience, vision and ability to bear. True, some things are not clear cut, at which point you can debate.

Besides, even what you said is a sensible start, yet most of America seems far from having a sensible debate about Governance. From outside, every thing that happens is twisted into some sort of attack vector for ... I don't know what.

[davidhollander]

>As was said by Deng Xiapong "it doesn't matter if the cat is white or black.."

..because "Parkinson's Law works everywhere." - Mikhail Gorbachev

[intended]

I hadn't read that quote though, thanks for pointing it out - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law

the irony is that Quote 1 - China Quote 2 - USSR

[mrgordon]

Gandhi?