There is a general and accepted belief in America today that government is good, as well as necessary. Further, that the bigger government, and the more distant from its people, the better it will perform for the people who need it so much. America, however, began with people, in their own families and communities, who were self-governing and self-reliant than is deemed proper today.
All sides in the campaigns of 2008 promise greater government "goodness" at the highest and largest levels, increasing the benefits it will provide. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, tried to warn Americans, that, "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."

Traditional conservatives still identify with Jefferson, and continue to harp on the notion that the least government is best. They are reflecting back on the reasons why America has been the most prosperous nation in the world, because of individual freedom without a labor-union mentality. Look at how well big government performed in New Orleans following Katrina. They displayed the expected bumbling of a bloated bureaucracy filled with those who could decide nothing beyond the shuffling of their paperwork, rules, and regulations.

Compare their results with those of citizens in such disasters as the Chicago, San Francisco and Virginia City fires over a century ago. Citizens banded together and rebuilt their cities quickly. The winter fire of 1875, which destroyed half of Virginia City, Nevada, gave us an example of how people stood on their own and reacted responsibly, with no help from government at any level. In two months, in snowstorms and high winds over a mile above sea level, the city was rebuilt better than it existed before the fire.

The problem with those who lived there, was they did not know they could have waited for a few years, freezing, starving, with little more than the hope some large bureaucracy would finally come to their aid and rebuild their city for them, like New Orleans.
They did not realize government was so good, so they did it on their own.