[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by steve B

The number of things the government does where we trust them is way too large to really try to mention it all.

"We" trust the government to assure a more or less safe food supply. What's "safe" or "clean is debatable, but the odds of getting say some bad beef is much lower than it would be if it was unregulated.

"We" trust them to ensure our air is sort of clean. And compared to say 1970 its WAY better. One of the particulate regs in the 80's was fought by industry until they realized the equipment to comply made their stuff more efficient with some very interesting cost reductions.

"we" trust them to operate a fairly safe highway system

"we" trust them to ensure that airlines are safe.. (Baggage being lost and flights cancelled is much less regulated)

IS everything the government does a benefit to me? Of course not. Do they do some really bad things? Again, of course.
But overall, I'd trust them over PSA..

I hear you, 100%. The anti-regulation crowd is concerned with the "slippery slope" of authoritarianism, but deregulation is a slippery slope as well. Distrust of government is not only justified, I think it is healthy to an extent. The nice thing about it though is that, as opposed to the private sector, accountability (at least in theory) is more possible. For a purely hypothetical example, a wealthy person who spends their life conning people out of their money in business might get away with it if they have good enough lawyers, but they could run into trouble if they do this as a prominent member of the government.