Somewhat hazy analogy between liberal government and computers...

Microsoft and liberal government have some of the same pitfalls. Looking at the history of Microsoft's major commercial operating system releases one notices that each has become progressively (no subtle jab intended at progressives) larger in both size (as measured in space taken up on disk) and scope (as measured by features and applications included). As any halfway-interested computer geek knows, however, this increase in size has consistently produced an increase in errors, blue-screens-of-death, and seemingly countless other annoyances.

I doubt anyone who has purchased a computer in the last three years has not heard at least a handful of negative comments surrounding Vista, and those who have been in the PC loop for longer will remember that even XP was met upon release with groans regarding its seemingly bloated size compared to previous versions of the OS. Microsoft has yet to realize that all the added good-intentioned functionality in the world isn't worth a dime if the core programming upon which it is founded is not sound. As a result, Microsoft spends loads of money trying to fix the broken product they sold to people, and in the end the fix quite often ends up not going far enough, leaving the user of the product to their own devices when something goes wrong.

I see a fairly convincing parallel when this general outline of Microsoft's history is compared against some of ideals of liberalism in the US. And before anyone sends me hate mail let me clarify that I realize that I'm painting with a broad brush here, thus the disclaimer at the top of the post about this being a hazy analogy.

The idea that government should play a larger role in the lives of American citizens is very similar to Microsoft's view that more features make for a better product. In both cases the entity providing the service keeps trying to provide more to those who use the service, but in both cases as the service becomes larger and more complicated, things start breaking down. Then as each entity realizes the errors and attempts to correct them, more costs are incurred.

Here is where the two entities cease to be analagous. Once Microsoft can no longer afford to patch the holes in their product, they must rely on the sales of their next operating system to make users forget about the mistakes of the past. Government, however, has the power to force its customers to pay more for a product they already purchased. This is roughly equivalent of Microsoft beginning to charge for necessary updates. If Microsoft were to take such a measure, their sales would disappear like Houdini. So why do we let government charge us twice?

P.S. This post was written at 1 AM and may not be entirely coherent. I welcome replies and will try to clarify anything I was hazy on.