[Urbane Guerrilla]

You clearly do not wish to engage on the philosophical front -- on what a government should be doing -- when you can retreat into legalisms, which are weak philosophically. This is really a discussion on the philosophy of government -- and you are up against a small-government, liberty-minded sort of chap. Now then, dare you demonstrate how much the opposite you are?

Actually, you demonstrate that very thing, at length, in every political thread you post in. Makes me wonder why you would place such value upon subadulthood, that you would argue for it so fiercely, even while occasionally disclaiming either fierceness or argument. But no -- that you are motivated in the direction of aggrandizing the state is beyond merely evident; it is dominant.

And there is neither Constitutional mandate nor any especially sensible reason to magnify the public debt, or the public sector -- as I was at pains to point out.