It's Christmas Eve, and I'm enjoying my coffee and feel rather disinclined to get into a political argument, so I'll just toss a few thoughts around without intending to respond (I'll chat via email tho'). I agree that increasing power should be treated with great scepticism (But it isn't, honestly. And that's a shame).

Point: Police power is inherently a use of force on the citizenry. The Army is the same, loooosely.

Point: Taxing, coining, patenting are all applications of force.

Point: The 5th amendment clearly lines out uses of force.

Point: The 5th amendment also includes a key phrase, "due process of law", indicating that the government is limited. The 3rd amedment supports this as well, requiring a limitation on quartering in time of war via law.

Point: Law & regulations, period, are the application of the government's use of force to ensure a smooth governing (See Hobbes for a work known in the late 1700s).

Conclusion: The US founders designed the government to have power (Unverified statement based on recollections - but split in such a way that each arm of government was naturally incented to limit the power of the other arms).

Nit: The US is a republic, not a democracy. It's regrettable that a district can't recall its representative wholly on its own. Perhaps that would restrain certain foolishness in the system...

Happy Holidays.