What Do You Want???

Five little speckled frogs, 

Sitting on a speckled log,

Eating the most delicious bugs- Yum! Yum!

One jumped into the pool

Where it was nice and cool.

Now there are four speckled frogs- Glub, glub.

For reasons including the picture and song above, I do not get around to posting as often as I used to or as often as I would like.  However, rest assured, I am still here and still have opinions!  

While watching and reading over some news a couple weeks ago, I started to think on the far reaching arms of the government.  It seems (at least to me;  hold your throwing tomatoes until the end) that the government is very involved in much of our lives.  I can't even keep up with all the ways the federal and state government seem to pop up in everything.  Then I started to think and wonder: what are the actual responsibilities of the government?  What is legit for the government to oversee and which affairs are ours to run as individuals?  More importantly to my views and opinions as far as politics and government go, what do I expect from my government (or rephrased, what, in my opinion, should the government of the United States of America be responsible for doing)?  

It was a hard question because it seems like everything that came to my mind was accompanied by uncertainty that it truly belonged in the governments hands.  So, I widened my polling from me to pretty much everyone with who I came in contact.  I got several similar answers:

1. The top response I received was protection or a military.  That makes sense.  
2. The second most common answer was to talk about reforming some piece of what we already have, for example how a bill gets passed.  While it made for some interesting conversation, it had little to do with what the responsibilities of the government actually should be/are.
3. The third most common answer was a lack of one, be it because of little interest, time constraints, or confusion.

Here's my conclusion:  It seems these days that we are all a little grumpy with the government.  We'd all like to imagine we'd do a better job and make it to dinner on time each night.  However, how can we do it better make a difference in our government if we are uncertain of our own expectations for it?  I think we could all benefit a bit from thinking about our expectations in concise points.  Here are five I have been working on:

1. Protection (both foreign and domestic)
2. Banks/ Money printing
3. Education (as a springboard more than a militant governance)  
4. Emergency aid for disasters
5. Creating and maintaining roads

Now, these are only five;  I'm sure there are important ones I've not taken into consideration.  This list does serve as a starting ground for my wants.  It has also helped me to realize for what I actually don't think the government should be responsible.  

What do think?  What do you want of your government?