In a post at Tech Central Station (via InstaPundit), Professor Bainbridge does an excellent job of defending Ronald Reagan's small government philosophy:

Reagan was a proponent of negative rights; most notably, Reagan espoused the right to be left alone.

This right to be left alone is the most fundamental of all rights, and it is what the constitution -- with its central idea of limited government -- was designed to protect. Reagan saw correctly that the role of government had grown way out of hand, and I think he tried to do what one president could to roll it back. But that was nowhere near enough; in the years since he left office, the federal government has continued to grow in size and power, and no matter who's president, he's about as powerless to stop it as King Canute.

That's because the one thing that once stood in the way of large government -- the constitution -- has been rendered meaningless.

If you think I'm exaggerating, well, I do keep a copy lying around, and I read it occasionally when I can stand it. Enumerated powers? Ninth and Tenth Amendments?

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Show me how the Tenth Amendment isn't now just a joke and I'll stop laughing.

Anyway, what Ronald Reagan said twenty years ago was absolutely right then, and it still looks pretty good when you read it today.

It's just that it didn't happen.

Look at the numbers showing the hopelessly, constantly metastasizing federal government.

And it isn't just about money. While our freedom would be safer if they just piled up the money and burned it, unfortunately, that money goes directly into oppressive regulatory programs that strangle freedom:

Our out-of-control budget also erodes personal freedom. When government grows, as Thomas Jefferson once famously put it, "liberty yields." Dollar by trillion dollar we are voluntarily giving up our liberties for a government that promises us, in return, a blanket of protection from cradle to coffin. Republicans are steering us in the direction of the "workers' paradise" of a European socialist welfare state. The reply from the Democrats is faster, faster.

We can't vote whether to get on or off the train; the only purpose of voting is to elect people who will set its speed to slower or faster.

Reagan couldn't stop it. Can anyone?

UPDATE: Megan McArdle offers more on positive "rights" and the tactics of Newspeak:

make revolution unthinkable by making it impossible to communicate contrary thoughts