And her post before this one was about a record convention!

One of my favorite bloggers, the always-worth-reading Amanda Marcotte, has explicated the difference between "small government conservatives" and "big government liberals" in a way that I haven't seen before and that seems to me to be kind of brilliantly observed:

"I think it all goes right back to my suggestion of what conservatives mean when they say they’re for 'small' government and liberals are for 'big' government—those adjectives describe the size of the number of people that count as worthy of government attention, protection, and assistance in their view.

"If you think the number of people who matter to the government should be big and in fact should encompass all Americans, then when one person oppresses another, you think that is a matter of government attention and the rights of women, racial minorities, and gay people actually count. If you think the number of people who count is limited to rich straight white men, then racist, sexist, classist oppression is a matter of “personal” morality, and how you treat the Untermenschen is between you and your view of Jeebus."

Stupid Blogger doesn't let you easily embed links in the Safari browser so, here you go:

http://pandagon.net/2006/10/30/who-counts/