If that’s what you want to talk about, I’ll be happy to join you in despairing over the in-practice position of both parties that it’s bad to curtail individual liberties with federal power…right up to the point that that makes one of their pet projects impracticable.

I’m not sure I agree with you on the specifics, though. You could argue that the War on Drugs is more a Republican creation, yes, though it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that the Dems were eager converts. And (you didn’t mention this) the GOP likes to get ridiculously exercised over Internet gambling.

I think abortion and SSM are harder to use to score points. There are plenty of people who genuinely believe that abortion is murder. I disagree with that position, but it does take the issue out of the framework of mere butting into people’s private lives. I wore myself out on this blog over the gay marriage issue years ago, so I’m not going to recapitulate my usual conniption fit in its entirety. Suffice it to say, one of the reasons same-sex partnerships have become so divisive is that the loudest gay advocates started in with the “If you don’t call it ‘marriage’ just like straight people’s, I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue” routine. Hard-line social cons would never have been happy with civil unions, either. I have no illusions about that. But a lot of live-and-let-live types believe that the marriage contract serves a function in heterosexual unions that doesn’t apply to homosexual unions. I have no doubt that some of them are looking for ways to intellectualize their anti-gay biases; but the rest of them have made thoughtful arguments that haven’t been answered, even to my satisfaction. And I’m gay.

I don’t subscribe to the flat view that, in practice, the GOP works nobly for liberty and the Dems work ignobly for big government. What I do believe is that the Republicans come up on the classical liberal side far more frequently than the Democrats, and that when the GOP does contribute to government hypertrophy, its members at least exhibit a proper sense of shame that some of them may even mean sincerely. That at least provides some small space to start exerting pressure.

Sure Obama wants to tell the country to give healthcare to everybody, but the fact is that the consensus in America is rapidly becoming one much more favorable to universal healthcare.

And, when it comes to 1) the right to put proven non-toxic, non-addicting drugs into my body, 2) have an abortion in the first trimester, 3) form legally binding civil unions between same-sex parterns, Republicans are perfectly willing to tell other people what to do and what not to do.

So, it isn’t a question of who wants to boss other people around. Red staters want blue staters to assume their values, and the reverse is true as well. It’s just a question of whom you happen to agree with.