A Conservative Slippery Slope Argument Against Big Government

It does not take more than a cursory examimation of conservative thought to see that conservatives are often unaware of the hypocrisies that they embrace.  This hypocrisy extends to the manner in which conservatives argue about the very core tenets of their political ideologies, as the example of their arguments about big government demonstrates.  As with other issues, conservatives are inconsistent in their selective use of slippery slopes.

Although they sometimes have other reasons for doing so, conservatives often oppose "big government" out of fear, with their arguments largely reducing to slippery slope fallacies--ironically exactly what they rightly oppose about the liberal stance on gun control.  They desperately warn of tyrannies that they expect to come about if a large government is solidified.  Their ultimate conclusion that big government is erroneous might be legitimate (there would be no logical or theological/moral basis for "big" government even if the Bible didn't prescribe a much smaller governmental framework), but the arguments used to "reach" that conclusion are usually asinine.

If big government itself is without basis, as is the case, then that fact alone refutes all attempts to justify it.  There is no need to bring up tyrannical outcomes that might not even happen at all.  The issue of political values aside, there is no way to argue for big government apart from non sequiturs, circular reasoning, or appeals to emotion.  It is quite rare to find a conservative who actually points this out in casual political conversation, but this is a sound way to deconstruct liberal arguments for big government with ease.

There is another conservative argument against big government that has genuine validity, but the relationship between this argument and the one based in fear of imagined tyranny is often unexplored.  Having a large government is not only gratuitous and a violation of the state's limited political duties, but it is also a great way to drastically over-complicate political affairs.  This is not itself a slippery slope argument, as inefficiency is genuinely more likely to happen due to a large government than one that has no unnecessary parts, whereas tyranny has no inherent connection with a government of any particular size; the moral character of rulers or politicians determines if a state is unjust.  The former might be acknowledged by conservatives, but they have yet to admit the latter.

There is an even deeper flaw with the conservative position on governmental size, of course.  Conservatives might tend to use illegitimate arguments against large governments, but the fact that they condemn big government from the framework of conservatism highlights a more foundational hypocrisy.  If conservatives truly cared about consistency in opposing big government, they would not even be conservatives to begin with!  They would be libertarians instead.  Libertarianism alone is inconsistent with all unnecessary or unjust laws, as conservatism by definition involves a reliance on traditions of some sort, and tradition often entails ideas or laws that are both unecessary and unjust.