Comment by Teever

But theres a balance to be struck there — keep the government too small and weak and it is susceptible to corruptive forces from domestic and foreign enemies alike.

So imho it isn’t enough to simply keep government ‘small’ —it is also important to keep it the size proportionate to other potential threats.

It’s also important to keep in mind that size is but one dimension and is only being used as a proxy for power which is the ultimate factor that matters — a government of one person with control of WMDs can be much more of a threat than a large government without WMDs.