I tend to think the government should concern itself more with addressing the inequities resulting from winning genetic and other pure lotteries and concern itself less with telling people how to live their lives.
The American people are not inclined to agree. Gallup asks how much responsibility the government has in the following areas.
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Thursday ~ October 14th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
RickRussellTX
They didn’t make any distinction between federal, state and local. I wonder how people would respond to the question, “How much responsibility should *the federal government in Washington* have over X, Y and Z?”
Thursday ~ October 14th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
br_add
Rick,
I doubt the various levels of federalism are comprehensible, let alone matter, to the majority of people.
Friday ~ October 15th, 2010 at 10:22 am
jazzbumpa
From the wording of several questions – frex nos. 1,4,5, and 6 on this list, Fedral Govt is the only sensible interpretation, IMHO.
Mentally, I defaulted to Fed instantly.
Cheers!
JzB
Thursday ~ October 14th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
jazzbumpa
Karl -
Usually, you are cogent and sensible. What is your first paragraph supposed to mean?
Are you really proposing the idea that individuals should be on their own against corporations? Government is the only entity that can make that playing field level.
Or am I just not getting it?
Cheers!
JzB
Thursday ~ October 14th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
db
Meh, its hard to know what to make of this. Those government responsibility areas could mean a lot of different things. “Protecting consumers from unsafe products” could mean prosecuting criminal frauds, providing forums for negligence claims, ex ante regulation, and probably other things that are not immediately coming to my mind. Saying that the government has responsibility for protecting consumers from unsafe products doesn’t really describe to what extent and through what mechanisms, so you don’t really know what policies people are imagining when they answer this question.
Friday ~ October 15th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Apex
I am a bit confused how the highlighted sections relate to the first paragraph statement about telling people how to live their lives.
Protecting me from unsafe products isn’t telling me how to live my life. Passing a law that says I have to wear a seatbelt for my own protection whether I want to or not is telling me how to live my life.
Having a clearing agency like the FDA which is supposed to keep unsafe drugs from coming on the market is not telling me how to live my life. It’s keeping me from being exposed to something dangerous that I do not have the expertise to evaluate on my own.
I definitely do not want the government telling me how to live my life and I would answer the two highlighted sections exactly as the public did.
Friday ~ October 15th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
beezer
Re: the low rating on income inequality. I think Cay Johnston has an article pointing out that Americans of every stripe have absolutely no clue as to the current shares of wealth. If they knew the truth, that category would be just under defense, IMO.
Sunday ~ October 17th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Ryan Vann
I thought the point of government was to appropriate wealth to create and sustain a permanent over-class. Apparently, some peasants think it is there for their advancement.