The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

Last Thursday, the Pew
Research Center for the People & the Press reported on a survey that finds that a majority of the public says that the federal
government threatens their personal rights and freedoms. Pew found that
53% think that the federal government threatens their own personal rights and
freedoms while 43% disagree. The telephone survey was conducted between Jan.
9-13 among 1,502 adults and has a 95% confidence limit.

From the survey:

The belief that the
federal government is a threat grew by 6 percentage points, increasing from 47%
to 53% since Pew conducted the survey in 2010. In earlier surveys between 1995
and 2003, (see below) the majority of those surveyed rejected the idea that the
government threatened people’s rights and freedoms.

The increased view that the
federal government threatens personal rights and freedoms was driven by conservative
Republicans. Currently, 76% of
conservative Republicans say that the federal government threatens their
personal rights and freedoms and 54% describe the government as a “major”
threat, this is up by
14%, from 62%
of conservative Republicans saying
the
government was a threat to their freedom 3 years ago. Today, 54% of Republicans
are in the “major threat” category vs. 47% in 2010 and they represent by far
the highest percentage with this view in any ideological group surveyed.

By comparison, there
was little change in opinions among Democrats; 38% say the government poses a
threat to personal rights and freedoms, up from 34%, while 16% view government as a
major threat.

Among
moderate and liberal Republicans surveyed by Pew, 57% view the federal
government as a threat to personal rights and freedoms and 32% say it is a
major threat.

Their
opinions, like those among Democrats and independents, are little changed from
March 2010.

62% of gun-owning
households see the government as a threat, compared with 45% of those without
guns; the belief that the government
is a “major threat” is unchanged in both groups since 2010, despite the debate
about increased gun control. The view that the government is a threat
has increased in both gun-owning and non-owning homes in the last three years,
however.

So,
why has this happened?

Pew went deeper into
the forces driving us crazy:  Their
survey finds continuing widespread distrust in government. Only 26% trust the
government in Washington to do the right thing just about always or most of the
time; 73% say they can trust the government only some of the time or volunteer
that they can never trust the government. 

Only 20% of Americans
say they are basically content with the federal government; another 58% say
they are frustrated while 19% say they are angry.

This reflects a long
term decline in America’s trust in government. View Pew’s timeline at Public Trust in Government: 1958-2013.

Pew didn’t report on the corrosive,
cumulative efforts by some in the media to undermine trust in government. They didn’t define “freedom”. Some think Obamacare is a government
threat to freedom, others might think it is the Patriot Act. You might think
it’s Citizen’s United, another may say it is intrusive gun regulations.

Although three
out of four may think the government is a threat, most will not agree on precisely
what constitutes the threat. The daily rant by Fox News, Rush, Beck and Hannity;
warning us that government is stomping on our rights and taking away our
freedoms helps explain why conservative Republicans mistrust our government.

Here are the top 10 threats
to our freedoms according to the
Wrongologist:

• An
  obstructionist congress

• Citizen’s United

• Our state of continuous war for the last decade

• Warrantless
  wiretapping and indefinite detentions, assassinating American citizens without
  due process

• State
  governments purposely trying to suppress voting

• The
  NDAA and the Patriot Act, Homeland Security

• Whistleblowers
  being prosecuted, banks and other financial institutions not being prosecuted

• The
  assault by states on women’s rights and sexual orientation

• The
  ubiquitous data collection on all aspects of American life by the federal
  government

• A
  mainstream media that never challenges a talking head

Your list is probably different.
None of us likes all of what the government does, nor should we.

Government
by definition is a threat to individual liberty. So are local police forces, city
councils and state governments. Wherever there is power, there is limitation of
personal freedom.

The
forfeiture of individual sovereignty is the price of admission to society. That does not mean necessarily that we
must weaken the federal government. We have a system of checks and
balances and despite what the Tea Party and Rush would have you believe, they
can and do work most of the time.

We have
the ability to decide how much our government interference we want in our
lives. This should never be a settled question. Of necessity, it must be
debated ad infinitum.

This is at the heart of American
governance.