Uttering words that are near heresy here at the Great Orange Satan! However, the idea of limited government is actually something that I think both Kossaks and Tea Partiers share. The difference (apart from the obviously racist motives of some in the Tea Party) is that the part of government which has become most overbearing and authoritarian is precisely the segment which they are least skeptical about.
I am referring, of course, to the National Security Industrial Complex. This includes, but is not limited to, the bloated Pentagon. Also included are defense contractors, the entire Homeland Security Department, the NSA, and collaborating local police units.
As recently as the 1970s, overreach on the part of these actors resulted in push back from America's political elites, e.g. the Church commission investigations. Now there seems to be a casual acceptance that everything regarding national security is no longer bound by the traditional understandings in the US about limited government.
When you read the biographies or autobiographies of major military figures of the Second World War, you find a reverence for the ideals of democracy and a firm commitment to civilian command of the military. Since the military and related institutions have drunk deep from the cup of imperialism the past fifty years, the idea that a mere civilian government might try to limit the military or hold it accountable for criminal violations of human rights is greeted with contempt.
Even more disturbing is the extent to which political elites are now complicit with the imperialist mission. Although Barack Obama started his political career with a highly visible dissent from the drive towards war with Iraq, he now embraces "targeted killings." I hated this idea when the Isrealis developed it twenty years ago to undermine the Intifada and I hate it now. Any tactic that gets adopted internationally sends us further down the slippery slope to using it domestically. I am pretty sure Barack Obama won't send a drone after me. If the next President after Barack is Rick Santorum, I'm not so sure. I am after all a liberal, multi-culturalist, agnostic, i.e. the enemy.
I also wonder at the lack of self-confidence in America's elites these days. Surely some of them realize that the "secret sauce" of American exceptionalism is the rule of law. That the US has strived (not always successfully) for impartial justice is one of the great attractions our society has throughout the world.
Of course, some of this may be traced to the radical increase in inequality in US society. As Paul Krugman has noted, the current generation of plutocrats are really thin-skinned about anything which seems to threaten their privileged position, and any political positions to the left of Mitch McConnell seem to qualify as "socialist."