Stephen Bainbridge inadvertently explains why we’re stuck with two parties of big government (although he doesn’t realize why):

The United States simply doesn’t need two parties of big government. It needs a party that stands for limited government, personal freedom in both the social and economic spheres, rule by elected officials rather than judges, the right to life, and a foreign policy premised on a hawkish realism rather than Wilsonian idealism.

Now, if that’s a platform that would attract more than 20% of the electorate, I’d be stunned. Not to mention that at least two pairs of Bainbridge’s planks are contradictory—one is just a tad more obvious than the other, mind you: the contradiction between “personal freedom in… the social… sphere” and “the right to life.”

Personally, though, I’m more entertained by the prospect of politicians who are willing to limit their own power, especially ones who know that they are more likely to be reelected if they compromise their own principles and indulge the rent-seekers in the electorate. There are maybe a half-dozen Republicans in Washington who believe in truly limited government on a good day, and they’re almost all (with the exception of Ron Paul, who has his own pathologies) on the Supreme Court.