Do you trust the federal government (in its entirety) to do what's in your best interest?
Why or why not.
I haven't read the rest of this thread, so I don't know if this was brought up, but I voted "Other."
But while you ask a very simple and short question, the issue behind it isn't at all.
Technically, I could vote "no," but that would be disingenuous - a "no" vote would imply that I distrust the federal government because I believethey don't do what's in my best interest.
But the reason why I don't trust the federal government to do what's in my best interest is because
it is not the purpose of the federal government to do what's in my best individual interests.
Rather, it is the purpose of the federal government to legislate and execute social policies in a consensus brought about by the representatives of it's citizenry.
Those two things are very very different things. It cannot possibly do what's in the
best interests of individuals because
individuals always have interests that compete with each other.
For example, there's two people, Able and Baker, but only one cake. It is in the best interest of Able to get the whole cake, but it is also in the best interest of Baker to get the whole cake. So it is impossible for the government to resolve this issue because of the scarcity of resources of the cake.
However, what the government
can do is come to a
consensus that gives Able and Baker
the best outcome while taking both of their interests into account. So the government can choose to cut the cake in two equal pieces and give one half to Able and give the other half to Baker. While neither one gets the
best outcome for their
individual needs and wants, the government intercedes to create an outcome of compromise that is
mutually beneficial to all parties without depriving any of the parties.
That is the ultimate purpose of government - to give people a way of determining resources
peacefully in order to give
to all of it's citizenry as high of a quality of life as
realistically possible.
And if we didn't have any kind of government to determine such consensus, then it is most likely that Able and Baker would kill each other over who gets the whole cake, and neither one would benefit and the cake would just go stale and rotten and unused.