The survey says....

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best. – Thomas Sowell

In almost all matters, the real question should be: why are we letting government handle this? – Harry Browne

I normally don't do surveys. My thinking is if the person writing the survey is smart enough to write a meaningful survey, he already knows the answers. Today, I get in the mail, a solicitation masquerading as a survey. It was from The National Republican Senatorial Committee, and it was called the Senate Majority Leader's Survey.

Don't ask me how I got on their mailing list. I have never been a member of their party, or even much of a sympathizer. But I did fill out this survey.

Here's an example question: "Should the United States increase spending to protect its borders and coastlines?" There was no checkbox for the real answer, which is "The United States gets enough money to protect our borders. It is the only constitutional duty the federal government is responsible for, and there ought to already be enough money in the budget to manage this one thing." Hard to cover that in a yes or no scenario. Put me down as undecided.

Here's another: "Should the United States accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces no matter what the cost? No matter what the cost? I wonder what kind of answer they were going for there. Surely a "No" answer tells them very little. The whole reason for the "survey", of course is in the last section, the one where you get to fill out your Visa, MasterCard, ar AmEx number.

Gonna send it in, anyway (no postage necessary, and no contribution made). They've got my response. I doubt they'll care about the answers. They did not even get the questions right.