Majority say protecting individual rights is government’s chief role!

December 22, 2010 - A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey gave Likely U.S. Voters three options in asking what the primary purpose of a government is in an ideal world, and 59% say it’s to protect individual rights and freedom.

Twenty-four percent (24%) believe a government’s primary purpose is to ensure fairness and social justice, while 10% say it’s to manage the economy.

But nearly half (48%) of American adults see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights.

Not surprisingly, perceptions on the role of government vary dramatically along ideological lines. Eighty percent (80%) of conservatives see government’s chief role as protecting individual rights and freedom. However, a plurality (48%) of liberals put insuring fairness and social justice at the top of the list. Among moderate voters, a plurality (48%) agrees with the conservative perspective with a focus on protecting individual rights.

The widest gap as is often the case is between the Political Class (.i.e. conservatives) and Mainstream voters. Seventy percent (70%) of those in the Mainstream say the primary role of a government is to protect individual rights. Fifty-one percent (51%) of Political Class voters say insuring fairness and social justice should come first.

The latest findings perhaps help explain the anger that’s been directed at the government in recent months since just 39% of voters think the federal government currently operates within the limits established by the Constitution of the United States. A foundational principle of the United States is that the government derives its only authority from the consent of the governed, but only 23% believe the government currently has that consent.

Male voters put more emphasis on protecting individual rights as government’s primary purpose, while female voters are slightly more inclined to see that purpose as insuring fairness and social justice.

One-third (33%) of voters ages 18-to-29 see insuring fairness and social justice as government’s chief responsibility, higher than in any other age group.
Seventy-three percent (73%) of Republicans and 60% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties put protecting individual rights and freedom first. Democrats are fairly evenly divided with 45% of those in the president’s party seeing government primarily as a protetor of individual rights while 38% say insuring fairness and social justice is the primary purpose.

Voters are generally very protective of individual freedoms except in sensitive areas such as national security. Thirty-eight percent (38%), for example, believe the U.S. legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights rather than protecting national security, and just 22% take the opposite view. Thirty-two percent (32%) say the balance is about right.

One-in-three Americans (33%) say the current legal system worries too much about individual rights when it comes to public safety, while just 20% say it worries too much about public safety. Thirty-two percent (32%) believe the balance is about right.

Fifty-two percent (52%) of adults are willing to sacrifice freedom of speech to protect children from indecency on television.

In a survey released earlier this month, 27% of Americans favored a government managed economy, but 24% said the government should stay out of economic decisions altogether.