Michael Gerson writes in the Washington Post, “[Rand] Paul and other libertarians are not merely advocates of limited government; they are anti-government.”

I can’t speak for Rand Paul, but for the libertarians I know, this is just wrong. Libertarians are not against all government. We are precisely “advocates of limited government.” Perhaps to the man who wrote the speeches in which a Republican president advocated a trillion dollars of new spending, the largest expansion of entitlements in 40 years, federal takeovers of education and marriage, presidential power to arrest and incarcerate American citizens without access to a lawyer or a judge, and two endless “nation-building” enterprises, the distinction between “limited government” and “anti-government” is hard to see. But it is real and important.

As I wrote in these columns last month (and in 1998):

A government is a set of institutions through which we adjudicate our disputes, defend our rights, and provide for certain common needs. It derives its authority, at some level and in some way, from the consent of the governed… What we want is a limited government that attends to its necessary and proper functions… Thus libertarians are not “anti-government.” Libertarians support limited, constitutional government — limited not just in size but, of far greater importance, in the scope of its powers.

What does “anti-government” mean? We’re hearing about “anti-government” protests in Greece. But as George Will says, “Athens’ ‘anti-government mobs’ have been composed mostly of government employees going berserk about threats to their entitlements.” The anti-government protesters in Bangkok appear to be opposed to the current prime minister, protesting to bring back the former prime minister. And then there are the “anarchists” who protest government budget cuts. But none of those have anything to do with American libertarians.

Michael Gerson should withdraw his false charge and debate the role of government honestly with libertarians who believe in limited government and oppose the vast expansions of government that he provided the arguments for.