Big Government

Something conservatives like to whine about is that the government is too big and needs to be made smaller.

Personally, I don't really care about how big the government is, not as a terminal value. The government should be as big as it needs to be to do the things it needs to do. It should be big enough to defend its citizens from invading countries. It should be big enough to protect its citizens from criminals. It should be big enough to provide a minimum standard of living to all its citizens. Etc.

It doesn't matter if it's small or big as long as it does those things. It strikes me as quite odd that there are people who do treat the size of the government as a terminal value. That necessary government services should be reduced or eliminated just so the government would be smaller. Although, it seems very few proponents of smaller government support cutting funding to the military...