Leviathan on the Right: How Big-government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution

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Cato Institute, 2007 - Political Science - 321 pages
Despite an ostensibly conservative Republican president and republican control of Congress, government is bigger and more intrusive than ever. That is not by accident; it is the conscious aim of a new brand of conservatism that seeks, not to reduce the size of government, but to use big government for conservative ends. This book shows how the Bush administration, Congress, and large parts of the Republican Party and the conservative movement have abandoned traditional conservative ideals and embraced the idea of big government.

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Page 210 - Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
Page 13 - The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
Page 189 - In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad.
Page 234 - We can preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we can sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.
Page 19 - That principle is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection ; that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others.
Page 182 - The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
Page 196 - An elective despotism was not the government we fought for ; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
Page 187 - This broad commerce clause does not operate so as to render the nation powerless to defend itself against economic forces that Congress decrees inimical or destructive of the national economy.
Page 256 - Department official timely, complete and accurate compliance reports at such times, and in such form and containing such information, as the responsible Department official may determine to be necessary to enable him to ascertain whether the recipient has complied or Is complying with this part.
Page 255 - Court held in connection with public bond financing of church-related higher education facilities that "aid normally may be thought to have a primary effect of advancing religion when it flows to an institution in which religion is so pervasive that a substantial portion of its functions are subsumed in the religious mission or when it funds a specifically religious activity in an otherwise substantially secular setting".