Hope and change
Over half (53%) of Americans now believe the federal government is more of a threat to individual rights than a protector.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 33% of Adults believe the government is more of a protector of those rights. Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
August 9th, 2011 at 10:24 am
I’m a lot more than half convinced.
August 9th, 2011 at 10:37 am
33% believe the Feds protect their rights? Wow, there are a ton of useful idiots in this country.
August 9th, 2011 at 10:46 am
Sure Mike, the federal government protects their most fundamental freedom, freedom from work.
From this most fundamental freedom flow the other freedoms, like the freedom to vote without showing ID, or the freedom from quality education.
August 9th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Um… who ELSE is a threat to our rights? No one else has the power to infringe on my rights. So, at ALL times the fed’l gov’t is a threat to our rights.
WE are the protectors of our rights, not the gov’t.
August 9th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
“WE are the protectors of our rights, not the gov’t.”
Absolutely right.
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone.
The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”
– Thomas Jefferson
August 9th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Well, at least people are starting to wake up. Hope the numbers keep growing.
August 9th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
@mike w; The 33% all work for the government, and in their eyes, the 53% are all terrorists who want to “destroy the country”. Well, if their definition of “the country” is the socialist part of it, then yes– we do want to destroy socialism (at least I do, and totally).
We can joke about this, but I’m serious. Socialists are extremely dangerous. Look at their track record, for shit’s sake– mass destruction.
August 9th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Lyle, I worked for the federal government! I was a Firefighter. And your comment about how we ALL view those who view the fedgov as a threat to individual rights as ‘all terrorists who want to “destroy the country” you’re full of male bovine excrement! This may surprise you but not all fedgov employees are homeland security thugs or lazy leeches. We prize our freedoms as much as any good Americans do. And we do earn the chinzy pay the the feds toss our way.
You really should keep your flytrap shut because, on this subject anyway, you certainly dont know what you’re talking about.
August 9th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
@Huck, I doubt Lyle was trying to attack you since most Americans adore firefighters and most of the police given the challenges of your jobs. However, most of the time these jobs are state level, and not federal level, so you got rolled in with the useless bureaucrats that most Americans detest. Yes, they are mostly useless. I will join him on that assessment. I bet if the EPA, DOE, DOT, and many other departments disappeared tomorrow we would be happier people.
Many of us do see the federal government as a threat to our freedoms due to either its incompetance (e.g. spending our money like a drunkard in a whore house) or by abuses of power such as the TSA, BATFE, the IRS and so on.
I think that the take home message is that the larger the government, the smaller the individual and we are liberty-loving (and also responsible) citizens so that we would prefer to be left alone and not molested or robbed by Uncle Sam.
August 9th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Braden, Lyle DID attack me and all of my former co-workers and the majority of fedgov employees when he lumped us all as being socialists.
If we were socialists, does anyone think that we’d be WORKING? And for a assinine and ungrateful boss (fedgov) to boot? Not one of us ever took a handout or expected anything that we didnt earn.
I’m just ticked about myself and all of the other good folks who work for Uncle Sam being labeled as the kind of people that we universally despise.
August 9th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
How many of those same people in the 55% would raise a shatstorm if their pet project was cut?
August 9th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
The poll that is really telling:
New Low: 17% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2011/new_low_17_say_u_s_government_has_consent_of_the_governed
August 9th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Sorry Huck, but that’s just the way it is. Retiring at 50 with full pensions and (probably), disability? Crunch the numbers and it would be cheaper- by far, for most municipalities to pay off property owners at 100% of the appraised value and dissolve the Fire Departments. Don’t cry on the citizens shoulders.
August 9th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
Sorry, Huck, but that’s just the way it is. You’re trying to argue with experts! here. They’ve got your number, you goldbricker. Thanks for nothing, chump.
August 10th, 2011 at 10:43 am
If anyone thinks the drug war, the IRS tax code, open borders, BATFE, Education, HUD, ethanol, Energy, EPA, borrowing .44 cents of every buck you spend and sending SWAT teams after raw milk producers is with the consent of THIS particular peasant….you would be wrong.
August 10th, 2011 at 11:10 am
@Huck: Are you one of the 33%? If not then a plain reading of what Lyle said would not include you.
That aside, any ideas on exactly which of the very few things the Federal government is authorized to do would require them to hire a “Firefighter”?