Conservatives went out with sword fighting and knickers. Liberals is a joke too. They are both in the same league with evil, everyone has their own perception of what constitutes the working description.
Sure I believe in a "small, non-invasive, Constitutional, system". Small enough that it doesn't fuck with me, but big enough to keep you from annoying me. Thanks to the current state of affairs, don't expect low taxes for the next,....oh, say millennium.
The states allowed the Federal Government to become omnipotent when they sold their soul for handouts. There were enough states getting more out than they put in, to form a voting bloc that kept the ball rolling to a point where the states can't bitch about anything, without the threat of bankruptcy by losing the Federal teat.
Then of course, the military-industrial monster, Ike warned us about, snatched the Federal Government away from us, so you can label yourself anything you want... it doesn't matter. When you ask people which programs they want cut, in order to shrink the Fed, they choose everything they don't benefit from.