I was feeling fairly overwhelmed with the current political state of the country, and after spending considerable time in more than half the states in the continental U.S. sampling the experiences and character of the many nuances of American culture, I came to a comparison of the labels conservative and liberal.

One of the accepted differences between these ideologies is the conservative view that taxation, social contracts and networked and hierarchal systems of organized representative government are bad things.

It comes down to answering the question of just much freedom and independence a society can have before it descends into anarchy – where government is so small that people must live in locally self-sufficient enclaves without a larger entity keeping the peace.

Conservatives speak of small government but have not yet clearly identified just “how small” a government they would prefer.

Reducing government, at the level of population we currently have, with huge infrastructure and national functionality depending, in part, on the government holding it all together, is problematic.

Some think the catch-phrase “small government” is instead a call for the empowerment of individually determined priorities – something that is virtually impossible in light of all the varied interests to be represented.

Liberals espouse a position that demands government take on the responsibility of identifying and measuring both community and individual need within a larger whole, and responding energetically, with sympathy and empathy, to that need with organized action; assuming responsibility – in a very tribal way – for the whole people.

Taking on this responsibility, at the level of population we have, requires a significant contribution from the populace to act as the funding mechanism. Taxation is only acceptable if the services provided are valued, and appreciated, by the populace.

Just as the danger of too small a government is anarchy and loss of freedoms and liberties, the result of too large a government can be tyranny or gridlock, both which result in loss of freedoms and liberties.

In the end, the average liberal can’t tell you just “how large” a government is large enough and how it is to avoid waste and favoritism within the boundaries of a free market system.

Following the crooked path a step further, it seems appropriate to state that we are not now in an infant state, where we can immediately choose to create a brand new paradigm. Many of our politicians, and much of our populace, embrace a sort of mindlessly vague loyalty to nondescript sound bites that represent their platform or ideology.

Taking the conservative view first: Do you want the absolute form of social individual freedom – anarchy? If you answered no, then the next question is, “What do you want government to do for you?”

In the present modern form of western civilization, government usually provides for a common defense, a form of law, and regulation to protect its populace from goons, thugs and fanatics and snake-oil salesmen.

If we were to list the services government actually provides localities, we might come to an idea just how deeply we’re attached to federal and state dollars; what services they fund or help to fund, and what our society would look like without them.

As an example of small government, I have seen local county Web sites that inform potential immigrants to expect unpaved or potholed roads, lack of reliable police or fire service and/or long response times, lack of school bus routes, no athletics, art or music programs in education, no public libraries or pools, unmaintained parks and recreation facilities, etc.

These localities practice small government. They don’t provide services they can’t afford and are content to live with the repercussions of their choice.

The true small-government ideology of conservatism without taxes means the elimination of numerous public services and facilities and a need for localities to become locally self-sufficient; something that is unattainable without local unity and organization toward a single purpose.

At that point, if embraced by every locality, the United States ceases to be. Also at that point, the wealthy have what they want and all the rest have what they can give or take.

Depending on what we keep, We may have no Medicare, no Social Security, no unemployment, no welfare, less fire and police protection, fewer solvent public schools, no central judicial system, greater crime, ultra-expensive utility services, deteriorating infrastructure, increased vigilantism, unregulated drugs and foods, unregulated driving, no public transportation, no care for the needy, and on and on.

What we need is for conservatives to draft a laundry list of the services they consider indispensable and what services will be let go.

Remember, decreasing central authority, though bulky, incompetent and expensive, removes the cohesive glue that allows all these services to exist and be regulated in the public interest.

Conservatism, in its present form, seems to desire to be part of the greater union, but its new primary directive seems to be a narrow effort to preserve the past and profit individually without financial responsibility for the care or condition of neighbors.

I think most reasonable conservatives would agree they prefer some type of central government to coordinate services for so many millions living so immediately adjacent to one another –e specially after having exhausted much of the natural resources.

I don’t know what other form of funding state, federal and local governments have, other than taxation or permit fees, etc., but all these services require some level of public financial commitment.

The idea that all these services could be provided by private for-profit interests at an affordable level goes against the grain of our recent economic experience. Reliance on public generosity has proven unreliable.

What services should government provide? What can you live without? How small is small government?

Liberals have their own problems. Large government is, as stated above, largely inefficient, wasteful, often incompetent – even counterproductive. Regulation in a corporate economy can be stifling and it is essential that the economy be good for large government to continue. The “common good” is difficult to serve from a distance.

Wherever the central government and its policies affect the freedom of a community to develop self-sufficiency, it has overstepped its bounds.

At the point where the populace is unwilling or unable to fund the multitude of special interests that result from having millions of citizens with individual needs and crisis, gridlock results and people are even less willing to contribute to the public coffer even to fund services previously considered indispensable.

The problem, for liberals and conservatives alike, is that we have allowed the Horatio Alger myth to become pervasive among our people.

Much of the younger populace, having been convinced by the entertainment media that “having it all” is a right and not the result of sacrifice and effort, are now too impatient and self-involved to sacrifice the services they have become accustomed to – or to contribute a greater portion of their income to fund the services they have expect.

A large portion of the elderly population, divided into the well-to-do and those dependent on government services for survival, are now faced with giving up a greater share of their hard earned wealth – or with suffering the loss of services they have come to depend on.

The variance in opinions regarding what is an indispensable government service reflect a cross-section of the economic, social, political and spiritual values and views and is a chasm of infinite disagreement.

How will we fund (immediately) the services we want to keep should federal or state sources cease? We have already begun to face these hard decisions in the recent economic crisis and have yet to come to common agreement about the priority of services we desire.

I think it would be an interesting research project to see: 1) What is the actual money brought into Lake County from federal and state grants, projects and programs, and how much of our economy and infrastructure is supported through government funding, activities, offices, etc.; 2) survey 50 local voters respectively from the Democrat, Republican, Green, Independent, Libertarian and Tea Party on their top 20 indispensable services to be provided by organized local government; 3) survey, from those same voters what percentage of their income they would voluntarily contribute to provide these shared services within the community.

It seems to me that would give us a pretty good idea of what we need and what people would be willing to pay. I fear that the answer would not be what we would prefer.

The distance between those who profess a real desire for the entire populace to share equity in the resources of the nation, including defining what responsibilities each neighbor has for the welfare of the next, is at the heart of this debate.

If you don’t feel a responsibility to share your individual economy in insuring that all people have shelter, food, water, utilities, medical service, police protection or education then your choice is indeed simple – I take mine, you take yours.

For those who profess a desire to assume that responsibility, the problem is thornier. Services offered can only be determined by the percentages of our individual wealth that we are willing to contribute to a central treasury to see that those services, protections, safeguards and benefits are administered,

protected, dispersed and utilized as equitably and efficiently as possible.

Whatever we are unwilling to fund through our own contributions must fall by the wayside. We cannot provide resources for all our population at the current level of consumption indefinitely. We cannot all be millionaires. We must come to agreement on what basic levels of services and benefits we can live with, and/or whether society can survive in a fractured and self-centered environment that decides it is not responsible for the basic necessities of its people.

Finally, when you take a position, remember that as the 3 percent of the earth’s population that uses 97 percent of the earths resources, we will come to a point where we cannot continue our standard of living without commitment to infrastructure redevelopment, higher standards of educational preparation, and commitment to green and energy efficient technologies.

Also remember that the 3 percent of our wealthiest citizens that hold 97 percent of the nation’s wealth have little or no real interest or stake in these decisions and the outcome. These “world” citizens will just pick up their marbles and go to another home if the standard of living retreats to an unacceptable level, leaving the rest behind to fight (literally) over the corpse of the American landscape and our direction as we struggle to cope with the loss of the dream we were told was our birthright.

As a postscript to this essay, we have just experienced a relatively local disaster that bodes ill for our national future. The real picture doesn’t get the visibility it deserves.

In the Bay Area, a 24-foot section of 30-inch natural gas pipe blew out of the ground, killing residents and leveling an entire neighborhood. This is not an isolated event; almost 2,000 of these types of “accidents” occur each year.

Add to that the “other” infrastructure failures occurring at an ever-increasing rate, and we’re in for a rocky road.

Replacing that infrastructure has been left to the private companies that own them, with predictable results. They are now 50 years old and crumbling. Can we afford to replace them by down-sizing government? I doubt it.

Neither will Americans see greater taxation as a solution. Only a huge government (gulp) stimulus could achieve the desired results in time. With the current political environment, a stimulus seems unlikely. So our infrastructure will continue to crumble as we tune our fiddles for the coming winter.

Now that I seem to have traveled the circle of my articles over the last 15 years, I’ll bring this to an end.

James BlueWolf lives in Nice, Calif.