What should be the priority of Governments?

In an public radio interview recently the prime minister was asked what percentage of the population would want him to withdraw troops from Iraq. He danced around the question indicating that many people would want this. They then proceeded to ask the listening audience out the window, and the general consensus(sp) was that about 2/3 wanted troops to be removed from Iraq. The primeminister was surprised, but not because the number was so high, but because it was so low.

It provoked the thought of what the primeminsters number one priority is, what it should be, who he is representing and who he should be answerable too. In an instance like the one mentioned above where the government is aware of what the public wants, should the government carry out their wishes? After all it is those same people that chose the government to represent them at election time. Or once in government, should it carry out it's own agenda regardless of what the public would like them to do?

I think the government should take the publics wishes into far greater consideration to say the least.
The rationale that the government could be using is:

You voted us in. That was your decision. Democracy was exercised.
Now that we're in, we will do our job the way we see fit.
After all we know better than you how to do our job. We're the government. We are experienced in these matters, you're not.
We know all the facts ,you don't.
If you don't like the way we do things, you'll get your chance to vote us out at the next election.

Come election time we'll consider listening to your opinions again make a few promises, convince you how well economy is going, remind you of how many terrorist plots we claimed our intelligence agencies/federal police have foiled, and off course tell you what a disaster even considering voting in the inexperienced incompetant opposition would be.

Sadly, I agree with you point. Regardless of which party is in power, they only seemed to be concerned with their own agenda. It seems we only live in a democracy at election time. For the remainder of the time, it's a dictatorship.

Yes, it seems like a lot of the worlds so called democracies are slipping into the woeful ways of the republic. Put 'em in, and kick 'em out when you don't like what they're doin' (but only on every election year(even worse)). Not the way to go, not when lives are directly at stake with concern to the decision the government makes.

They should always take the public's view and opinion into account before making such decisions as whether or not to invade a country and the like.

The surprising thing is that we all seem to forget how unsatisfactory the governement was when election time comes around. Make a few empty promises and all is forgiven.

The priority of the opposition party should also be to act in the best interests of the people by keeping those in government accountable in my opinion. Most oppositon parties however seem to be hell bent on disagreeing with anything the government agrees with regardless of it's merit or primary beneficiaries. I saw a classic example of this on TV a few minutes ago:

The current Australian Primeminister John Howard, is pushing for the introduction of an identity card and singing it's praises at the moment to win public support. However, 20 years ago the same John Howard was in the opposition party and was absolutely opposed to the idea, slamming it as an invasion of privacy and detrimental to the community.

Amazing how a change of government can control what you support and what you oppose, isn't it?

I believe the main priority of the government should be the people's concerns! Which indeed all governments were created for (when created by the people). Unfortunately we all know this isn't how it shows itself in the end.

Health of the economy, health of its citizens, the pursuit of science should be the main concerns of the citizens, not the dealings with countries outside our jurisdiction.

That is why in part, I'm dissappointed Roosevelt opened up the United States to the world. The United States is more involved in aspects of the world than any other country and thus it's one more thing that can go wrong to cause the demise of this "once" great nation..

For a President who's bad at dancing, he sure dances around questions a lot.

I think we need to collectively prioritze everything.
Not in any peticular order:

1. Wars
2. Drugs
3. Internet Laws
4. Education
5. Children
6. Illegal Drugs
7. Censorship
8. Party Polarisation
9. Economic Poverty/"Falling of the latter"
10. Terrorism Laws
11. Gas Prices

That's all I have, anyone else want to list any?

One more thing! If you want the Goverment to change, bug your local/state/ and Federal Politicans!

Here's some links:
www.whitehouse.gov,www.firstgov.com,www.senate.gov,www.house.gov,www.findlaw.com-To study laws cases on your own, and petitions here too!- www.eff.org!!!

[edit on 7/5/2006 by cranefly]

I suppose on the alternative side of the coin, if we expect governments to act as a true representative of the community, we should hold a referendum every time a decision needs to be made. Bureaucracy at it's worst!

The priority of government.
To simultaneously exercise the consolidated power of the people and empower the individual persons to defend the whole and its interests in the broadest sense and to increase over time the prosperity available and access to it. The fed should be in charge of the military. Should educate thru voucher or otherwise the people thru taxes. to ensure ecomomic prosperity with minimal interference. Right now there priority should be security technology for safegaurding the homeland to minimize the need for foreign wars, energy policy and its associated technologies, and changing our education systems to better adapt to the emerging world economy. Also while its hard to sell I believe heavily in a space program subsidized if necessary but if private interests will step up and bring us into the space age directly aiding them in this effort might prove to be vital to our long term health.

In my opinion, the only purpose of governments is to represent a collective view of it's people. If it were practical to have every member of the population represent themselves when making a decision, governments would be redundant.