Most Expect to Give More Than They Receive, Poll Finds

Good post; good job, NYT, on that interactive map. The so-called self-sufficient like their government benefits and aid a lot; what they don't like at all is for anybody other than them, or their tribe/race, to get any help at all. It's an odd dynamic, and it's irrational.

Here in my little town there was a fuss about paying more for the education of the kids. I don't have any kids, yet know that it's in my self-interest to help educate the town's children, as that lifts the entire community, myself included. I was more willing to pay more than some parents with kids. Go figure.

We benefit from our government in ways that are non-personal. I'm willing to pay for that. Government, of itself, is not evil or bad; indeed, we need government to manage our common interests and assets. We need good government, which means, universally, a democratically elected government which acts in the public interest.

Bad government also exists. That would be a tyrannical government which acts in the interests of those in power, and those they serve. These sorts of governments are more common than the good sort of government in the world. The USA is quickly becoming a nation with a bad, corrupt government, a non-democratic government, and a government which acts, not in the public interest, but in the interests of those who corrupt it, along with those in power inside the government.

It's ironic that those all in favor of bad government - our corrupt and corrupters - bemoan government as bad or evil; I'll meet this group half-way and say the government they want is bad and evil. The government I want is not.