Politics

I'll admit it.  I love politics.  It has been a lot of fun to keep up with the election season.  I occasionally look at the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Richmond paper.
My own political philosophy is somewhat libertarian.  I basically want to be left alone, except by my friends, family and Church.
The marvelous thing to me is how religious this political stuff ends up being.  The words that get used are reminiscent of what we say in church and the themes are very similar.  Freedom, Choice, Equality, Human Rights etc.
My problem is that we do not seem to make much progress.  For example, we are in debt, we still abort a lot of babies, we are still at war and we have a lousy post office.
So.. most of my political choices seem to boil down to the lesser of two evils.  Which is not all that bad.  I am glad I have a choice and I am glad there is a tiny sliver of accountability in our system.
However, the Republicans, the Tea Party and the Dems cannot save me or the culture.  Now, they certainly can make things a lot worse, but in the end I believe people are basically sinful.  Government's role is to restrain evil, protect us and  leave us alone.  But, it cannot change a man or woman from the inside out.  Public policy never made someone more holy.
Only Jesus.  We should press for righteousness in our culture, but no one party has the corner on that.  Only Jesus.
Trust me, if we as Christians align ourselves with one politician or party, they will use us for their ends and discard us in the end.  Not Jesus.
Also, random question.
So, before the income tax, how much did the average American interact with or deal with the Federal Government?  It seems like you could do a lot of living back then and never really be affected by Washington at all.