Why do right-wingers bother?

[tpfkaw]

The reason is, to paraphrase Buckley, to stand athwart history yelling "stop!"

(And yes, of course government always grows.  Even "extreme budget cutter" Margaret Thatcher increased inflation-adjusted non-military spending).

Also, the mindset of leftists on this matter isn't in quite the same sort of terms we libertarians/"small government" types think - their real issue is in what people say.  Essentially their primary goal isn't so much political/legal as to get everyone to agree with them.  This is why they get apoplectic at Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or whatever, why they will bemoan the loss of past "moderate" Republicans - or liberal Democrats - even if said moderate Republicans or liberal Democrats governed to the right of their modern counterparts by objective measures (they dislike the shift in rhetoric and are mostly indifferent to policy).  It's also why Marokai was unwilling to discuss shifts in actual first-world countries' policies (almost invariably leftward except on some tariffs) in your discussion and why he kept coming back to the rhetorical shifts of leftist parties since the collapse of Marxism.

[tpfkaw]

This thread basically confirms my point (leftists ignore changes in policy - almost entirely, with extremely rare and generally-temporary exceptions that only partially reverse earlier leftist policies, in their favor - and go nuts over changes in opinion, which is more variable).