The successes generally don't register. The "didn't have a disaster" scenario doesn't tend too get much attention... let alone statistical victories like, "decreased rate of cervical cancer". Hell, unemployment going down decreases mortality rates...

My point was that it's not a persuasive argument. Even if you made a laundry list of failures, you have no baseline to compare against.

A simple baseline would be competency.

I would compare the Twin towers falling to them not falling, for example.

Can we not point to some kind of success this country's made, in unambiguous terms? Have we eradicated any diseases? Some sort of government action that has a clear cause and effect? Statistics are too prone to manipulation and classification mismatching. For example, you don't count as unemployed in the US stats unless you're actively looking for work. Someone who's given up the search is not counted. Methodology counts immensely for statistics, and those choices will change the numbers.

We could counter the shooting angle with the number of mass shootings stopped. That's something we can work with. I've only seen one in recent memory and I'm not sure if it was this year or last year.

> I would compare the Twin towers falling to them not falling, for example.

That's effectively saying that no amount of failure is acceptable.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a country that has the world's best military and technology to actually make productive use of it and protect the people who pay ~30% of their income to under threat of violence. The least that could be offered is actual protection from enemies; foreign and domestic.

Is it inconceivable that despite the government providing protection from enemies, foreign and domestic, that we still don't live in a risk free society?

> A simple baseline would be competency.

You mean some arbitrary assumption about competency and the threats the populace faces.

Yes, government invariably could do a better job of protecting people, and the US government in particular could do a better job of protecting people. However, even with the US government, if you were to systematically dismantle it, there'd be FAR more deaths.

Take your example of mass shootings, do you really think there'd be fewer if there were no regulations, no police, no public emergency response systems, no import restrictions, no safety restrictions, no military, etc.?