Thanks for all the effort you put into your post. I’ll have to take time to digest it all! A quick read puts the country going off track with Wilson and then Roosevelt, eras of war and economic depression. Perhaps the ‘eras’ the country passes through are even more of a driver than the personalities of the times. A bigger central government becomes the problem solver of last resort.
Maybe ultimately ‘we can’t go back’ because of the recurrent happenings of war and economic difficulties. It seems so in Western civilization countries. Perhaps today’s breed of conservatives know how to break or dilute the results of war and economic troubles. Just reducing the size of government absent the reasons for big government, may be just wishing thinking. Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.
You don’t have to go back, you just have to pass amendments to the things that need to be changed. There is not much I can think of that needs to be amended to allow the federal government to do things I want it to do. FDR’s era added nothing that we need to keep. LBJ’s era added nothing that we need to keep. Nixon, with his EPA, Carter with his Dept. of Education, and Clinton and Obama, added nothing that we need to keep. Limited government is still enough to maintain America as a superpower. Restoring prosperity makes us even stronger, as a matter of fact. If you can point to anything that we need to keep, please do so. I will let you know what I think. The times didn’t demand socialism, the times overcame the failure of socialism.