No, I don't love the PATRIOT ACT...I think we'd be much better off without it. So as a result, my personal view is that we need less PATRIOT ACT, not less "government". Large generalities never quite did it for me, because the world is a lot more interesting than what you can fit on the back bumper of your car. Yes, there are things the government does that I don't like, there are times when I think it goes too far. There are also times when I like what the government does, and I think it doesn't take certain ideas far enough. So the only reasonable approach I can see is to tackle the issues as they come, not trying to come up with some broad brush with which to paint the entire system.
Personally, I think the whole "small government" vs "big government" debate misses the point, just like every debate does when it focuses on "large generality #1" vs "large generality #2". You can't draw some arbitrary line for the appropriate size of the government without making the implicit argument that everything the government does is equally good or equally bad, and that everything should be limited in equal measure because it's all really the same. Since I don't think that argument is defensible or realistic, I have a problem with ANY philosophy that prescribes an appropriate size for government.
