"Radical"

My brother recently preached a message about being "radical". Such a revealing message about truly believing what the Bible says as a true Christian. I would hate to try and compare the importance of that message to a political analogy and therefore I will not. But it got me to thinking about the fact that many people would call me a radical as well due to my political views.

Historically speaking George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and the many other founders are discussed and talked about as American Heroes. Founders of our nation that aside from slavery are some of the greatest men the word has ever known. King George called George Washington the Greatest man ever when he did not elevate himself up to dictator after the American Revolution.

These men and myself and many that think like me, believe in the idea of Federalism. The idea that local governments and states should make most of the governing decisions in our lives. They were not pro-democracy as some have suggested. In fact Madison feared Democracy and power to people who could not possible have the knowledge at hand to vote on every issue. They also hated the idea of a strong central government though as well. But they all believed in the formation of a "federalist" type government in which the Central "national" government had very little power outlined in the Constitution. While all other powers would be left to the states and local governments.

Yet today I'm considered a "radical" along with many other men in the world who still view "federalism" as the ideal form of a government system. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to name two men who favor this. Is it really radical to believe the way that those great founding fathers of ours believed? Is it really radical to believe that the federal government is inefficient in nature and that it should not do things that are not in the constitution such as Social Security, Welfare, Medicare, Regulations on business, marriage issues, education, and the hundreds of other issues that it gets involved with.

If these men are great for starting this wonderful nation. We conservative libertarians can't be too "radical". Right?