Conor Friedersdorf makes a vital discovery -- Matthew Yglesias is not ideologically committed to the expansion of government:
The desired end of Matthew Yglesias isn't to grow the American state. On some issues, he sees a bigger state as a necessary means to an end he desires (like using subsidies to increase the percentage of Americans covered by some form of health insurance), and on other issues he favors taking power away from the state. It is useful to understand these distinctions, even if you think, as I do, that the federal government should be much smaller than Mr. Yglesias would have it.
I don't mean to rag on Conor, who I think is doing something important here, I just think the idea that conservatives don't understand that liberals aren't ideologically committed to the expansion of government the way conservatives are ideologically committed to the shrinking of government is indicative of the fact that conservative conversations about liberals take place in an alternate reality. Liberals believe that government has a responsibility to help people, especially those at the margins, cope with the exigencies of the free market, but that doesn't mean we're going to support a local height requirement in Washington, D.C., that artificially inflates the price of living space because it prevents the construction of housing with greater density. The means and outcome of policy matters, rather than the size of the role government ultimately plays. Yglesias is hardly unique in that sense.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I believe that conservatives don't really understand the difference. After all, the only people who consistently advocate for small government in all circumstances are libertarians, while conservatives are perfectly happy to expand government for their own purposes. Like liberals, conservatives make value judgments about where government is needed and where it's an unwarranted intrusion; they just do so while making rhetorical commitments to limiting the size of government, which is how you end up with the Bush administration. It's just easier to hate someone, and hate them more intensely, if you convince yourself they're a subversive communist who wants to end your way of life and take away your freedom.
