Conservatives
“If everyone would stop being so stupid and be more like us, everything would be much better. As it is, we better use the government to dictate the way things should be.”
Modern day American Liberals
“People at large are stupid, greedy, and sometimes even evil. The government is the only way to protect them from themselves and us from them.”
Libertarians
“People are indeed stupid and greedy to varying amounts. There are even evil people in this world. This is why we need to limit what governments can do so that people can’t use their position to do bad things. With any luck, people interested in power and influence will be less attracted to government positions when there is less power to be wielded.”
IMO, it is attitude number two that leads to attitude number one. Power corrupts. I keep hoping that people will eventually realize that no matter how evil someone is, they can only do massive amounts of harm with the government’s blessing. Wait… am I slipping into attitude #1…?