New Gallup Poll: Majorities in U.S. View Gov't as Too Intrusive and Powerful

PRINCETON, NJ -- Record- or near-record-high percentages of Americans are critical of the size and scope of government, as measured by four Gallup trend questions updated in September. This sentiment stretches to 59% of Americans now believing the federal government has too much power, up eight percentage points from a year ago.

Full story and poll results:

www.gallup.com...


Appears public agitation with big brother is continuing to climb.

Not too difficult to see this trend continuing as business-as-usual carries on with the shafting of the 'little people'.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Yeah, well when a government that is supposed to be straight up with their employers (the people) lies through their teeth and proceeds to kill hundreds of thousands or millions in bogus wars, I'd say they are too powerful. Maybe not in a dictatorship under communism, but this was supposed to be a democratic republic.

The people are finally waking up, and the polls are starting to show it. Bout fricken time!

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


who needs a public opinion poll to see this? its a fact...................

big brother is watching you and if big brother doesnt like what you have to say he will end you one way or the other.


welcome to the united states of fascist amerika..........zieg heil zeig heil all hail the great and powerful and wise furher obama....................may the 4th reich last for a thousand years well that is if we dont go bankrupt or a islamic terrorist doesnt set off a nuke in washington dc...................

meh..................................

Originally posted by neo96
reply to post by DimensionalDetective

 

that is if we dont go bankrupt

From the Nazi Trillion Dollar war

Our government is pretty much completely controlled by Multi-National Corporations....this is where the people's anger should be....however it is not.

The corporate news media is focusing all the heat on the government to let corporations continue to sit in the background and do whatever the hell they want....avoiding anti-trust laws and sending jobs/money overseas....continuing to let the financial sector rob the rest of us.

This is where the uprising and anger should be focused. Unfortunately, many states are about to elect CEO's, Outsourcers, extremists, and some flat out LUNATICS all because they've been scared into it.

It's going to get WORSE. The dreaded turn to "Socialism" never actually happened....it was all a fallacy. The health care bill was a corporate cash grab....and now they want Social Security. They drool at all that money that could be dumped into Wall Street.

Too many of you have let your hate for Obama cloud your judgement and made your stances far to extreme. I don't know if this is something that will suddenly disappear should he be out of office....but I can assure you the next 2 years are going to be WORSE if Republicans win the House....hell...barely anything gets done now with all of the Corporate bought Democrats. Any bill that passes damn near always has BS in it.

reply to post by Janky Red


from the nazi multitrillion dollar entitlements programs and hello still spending money in afghanistan and iraq....

reply to post by David9176


It really does not matter WHICH side 'wins', because as you so wisely pointed to in your opening statement, ALL of these crooks are bought and paid for by mega corps. The 'differences' are nothing more than window dressing to keep the masses fighting over scraps and arguing which turd in the proverbial toilet bowl is the more aromatically tolerable one.

We are going to have to start at the very top of the ladder and take our gov back from the wrestlehold of these endlessly greedy and power-mongering elitists who control the entire electoral and media processes, if we ever want any true change and to be actually represented again.

You know, it's funny DD, I thought more about this and had a hunch that those in disagreement with this poll would be mostly democrats. Hehe, can you say "dead on the money?"

Scroll down on that report. Pretty much defines Rep/Dem values, right down the line. Interesting though still, is the independent stance on this. Almost right with the Reps.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


IMO....the Republican party is COMPLETELY bought by corporations...except for RP and quite honestly some of his stances are far too extreme. That being said, there are more good Democrats that actually try to help the poor and middle class...are against our terrible trade policies, etc.

The problem is that there just isn't enough of them...and with the Corporate media completely controlling public opinion...attacking unions whose power is nothing compared to the multi-national corps...the most powerful entities IN THE WORLD....there voice is completely drowned out.

There are many people I know that are mad at the government...but not because it's too "big" or "intrusive." They are more angry that absolutely nothing is gettting done. Unemployment is still insanely high, we are still on foreign oil, and countless other problems (the list goes on practically forever) that never get resolved....and any solution that does come to the table is so watered down and destructive that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter if someone is anti-government or not...in reality they are PRO government because the only way to fix things the way they like it is THROUGH GOVERNMENT.

Watch how "PRO GOVERNMENT" many of the conservative Obama haters will be once a Republican takes the Presidential seat.

well you can add on another percentage point
to that 59 to make it 60% cuz they forgot to
ask me in that poll question.

Big brother needs to be castrated !!!

And yet, despite being no prophet I can guarantee you that in a few weeks time we'll simply flip the coin back over and let the other Totalitarian Corporate-whores continue destroying this country.

I wonder when it will be 99%...

I wonder how long after we will still continue this farce.

Anyone who frequents the ATS forums didn't need a poll to confirm this. What are we going to do about it?

I am tired of the far right do nothing but blame democrats and when the republicans get power the far left does not but blame the republicans. The two party system has become poison to the USA imho. I believe the only that can save the country is voting the Republicans(except Dr. Ron Paul) and Democrats out(assuming we can have a fair election). The two party system with both parties working against the American people will ruin this country if it is not fixed.

reply to post by eNumbra

I wonder how long after we will still continue this farce.

For as long as voters keep getting their news from the same Corporations that are destroying the most powerful middle class in human history.....they'll take it all before people wake up.

It took a great depression to make it happen last time.....this is why the fight has been so fierce from the corporate media. They don't want people to vote in politicians who will go after corporate whores.

What is happening in the media is really to stop one thing from happening...

Another FDR.

It's working.

Originally posted by David9176
What is happening in the media is really to stop one thing from happening...

Another FDR.

It's working.

I hate to say but FDR with his supreme court packing wish and his 4 terms was pretty intrusive and powerful himself.

What the media IS really trying to stop is people focusing anger on the IRS and the Federal Reserve. Without these two institutions, the government would be forced to shrink and would not have the resources to invade people's lives.

reply to post by wutone

I hate to say but FDR with his supreme court packing wish and his 4 terms was pretty intrusive and powerful himself.

I agree with the Supreme court thing....the 4 terms however there was nothing wrong with. There was no law and he was Democratically voted in all 4 times.

That wasn't the point I was making about FDR though. FDR was considered a traitor to his "class." He was HATED amongst the wealthy even though he was an "elitist" himself. He really set the groundwork for most of the social programs we have today.

I

Now, only if Americans would care enough to do something about it. I have no doubts that a good percentage of Americans feel as if government is corrupt and over-stepping their bounds, however it seems as if government is extremely successful at distracting this group of people and dazzling them with things that are relatively unimportant.

As I have said many times before, the Tea Party movement was so successful in the beginning because of their goal and message. They became popular through grass-roots means too, even when the media and establishment were slandering the movement. This means that Americans were awake, at least to the extent of which government got out of control. Then, many were distracted with Obama, thinking he was bringing change or they became distracted with the hijacking of the movement that redirected the movement back to the left-right politics that has been so effective at towing the status quo line.

So, I think the goal now should be refocusing Americans back to what matters most, our way of life and getting back to the principals that made this country great, instead of the small and relatively unimportant issues that grab our emotions, as the government doesn't address those anyway. They are simply a tactic to cast illusion over our socio-political arena.

Anyway, S&F!

--airspoon

The trouble with being anti-government is that it makes you against the whole structure of our society. It makes you in favor of anarchy or revolution.

It takes government to build your roads and schools and educate your children for free and pay firefighters to save your house from burning down and enforce law and order (although I could argue that the police are often more the problem than the solution). Many people shout about bringing down "big government" but then have no problem with their Social Security checks. They feel "Hey, I paid into it all these years and I have a right to get it back" and they are right. But they have no problem with taking away this social safety net from the next generation.

The political and social far right have been in power for all but two years out of the last 30 (I do not count Clinton as a liberal). The people elect someone with a slightly more liberal agenda (although he is severely constrained by the Congress and the same corporate interests as the others) and all of a sudden there is this hue and cry that they want a bloody battle in the streets. I've no doubt if somebody like Bush was elected again there wouldn't be all this uproar, even though the president would be no different from all the others. The far right would be very docile again.

No, what they mostly mean by "big government" is anything that intrudes on their right to bear arms or any social program that benefits the poor.

BTW: I have no problem with revolution as a concept, but it's important to consider who might win. If there was a revolution there would probably be many factions with many different agendas and that could result in a military dictatorship or some other government much worse than the one we have now. I personally could not fight to establish a theocracy, for example. It could end up with something like what happened to the Russian revolution in 1917.

reply to post by Sestias

It takes government to build your roads and schools and educate your children for free and pay firefighters to save your house from burning down and enforce law and order (although I could argue that the police are often more the problem than the solution).

First of all, our children aren't educated for free. Well, they are for someone doesn't have to pay local taxes, but that surely doesn't mean free, as someone is forced to pay. Furthemore, many people see it as indoctrination, as opposed to education but then again, many people don't know the difference anyway.

Moving along, it doesn't take government to do anything of those things, rather it takes business and the over-all market. The process would also be a lot more efficient if only a free market could prevail, instead of favoritism shown by government.

Anarchy has gotten a bad wrap over the years and people generally liken it to Somaolia or a chaotic environment. Anarcho-Capitalism would probably make things much less chaotic than the system of government we have today. It would be the market, thus the consumer, thus ultimately the people who set policy and infrastructure, instead of a government that is prone to corruption, as we all know too well.

With that being said, I don't think most people have a problem with the very idea of government, rather they have a problem with what this government has become. We have now gotten to a point where we have delegated the power of choice over to the government. That is essentially saying that the government knows how to live your life better than you do. This is bad for a whole host of reasons, to include the fact that government officials would make a buck off of your misfortune in a heart beat. Tell me, would you really allow a businessman to dictate the choices for you, especially when you don't know this person?

We are all adults and not one single person was born with more authority than any other. Nobody came out of their mother's womb with a higher rank than anyone else, so why on Earth would someone think that their choice are better than mine, especially for the choices that don't really directly affect anyone else? We all are naturally endowed by our creater (whether it be a he, she or it) with liberty and that liberty should extend all the way up until it impedes the liberty of someone else. Therefore, it should be of no concern to anyone else what I choose to do with my life, so long as it doesn;t impede the liberties or rights of anyone else.

Government has come to a point where they are making our decisions for us and these policy setters who represent the government will always make those decisions for you in a manner that benefits themselves and their friends first, whether intentional or not. I don't know why anyone would think that it is a good idea to allow some stranger to make choices for them and that is basically what's happening with this government, just as it did with every other tyrannical governments through out history (even non-tyrannical governments).

If government simply stuck to their initial charter of administering government and protecting the people from outside as well as inside enemies, then we wouldn't have a problem, though it has somehow morphed into forcing protection on us all, even from ourselves. What it doesn't do however, is protect us from itself, and that is one of the greatest dangers.

A government should never, ever initiate force against anyone, anywhere and for whatever reason. The initiation of force breaks natural law. Now, I'm not saying that government shouldn't be able to respond to force with force, only that they shouldn't ever initiate it and I'm not just talking about physical force.

The government should serve the people, not the people serving the government and this is where the major disconnect comes from, IMO.


--airspoon

The only solution is a complete eradication of the current cartel and a fresh start from scratch.

That is the only way our nation will ever thrive in the future.

reply to post by BigTimeCheater


Im all for it....hell I'll take it a step further....Bigtimecheater 2012!