He shoots, he scores

Paulie, in comments at Independent Political Report:

Historically, right and left wing are determined by goals. Right wing goals are the maintenance of existing social and economic privilege, traditional social and religious values, and existing social and economic hierarchies. They also frequently include degrees of cultural, social and national chauvinism. Left wing goals are to level the playing field for the underdogs, break down barriers of privilege, and in general the opposite of the right wing goals as outlined above.

Libertarianism is a philosophy of acceptable means. Radical libertarians believe in completely outlawing initiation of force, while moderate libertarians seek to minimize initiation of force while maintaining that a functional society is impossible without some initiation of force.

Big government is the opposing philosophy of means -- that is, whatever your goals are, they are best achieved by a powerful state.

So, the assumption above -- one shared by most people in America today -- is that big government is what serves to achieve leftist goals, and small government leads to rightist results. But, I believe that in fact the opposite is the case ... that big government naturally goes hand in hand with big institutions and static hierarchies in all other fields of life.