I have a (funny? interesting? boring?) anecdote related to this. I like the local talk show in the afternoon because the host is well-tuned to our local issues and he is one of the most even-handed people around. Always makes for a good conversation.

Anyway, it's a generally conservative station so most of the callers lean that direction. So a lady called in Monday afternoon with a gripe about an icy intersection. Typical local stuff from a small area. She said that several cars had slid and bumped the curb, and one even hit hard enough that it damaged the suspension or steering and needed a tow. So she called the police to let them know that it was a hazardous spot and asked that they let the city know. She said this was about 4 pm. Nothing happened all evening with regard to the city coming to lay down some ice melt or sand, so she called her city board member and complained to him. He responded with, "What am I supposed to do about it at this time of night?"

Apparently that got her upset. When she called the show she brought up the old standby of 'think of the children!' and all that crap, blah blah blah. And I'm thinking to myself, "Lady, you identified the problem, you've deemed it hazardous, you know what the solution is (spread some sand or ice melter), you see the city isn't able to get it done for one reason or another, and yet your only action is to gripe to the city about it? How about, if it's such an imminent hazard, you put on some boots, grab your little bag of ice melter, and take 3 minutes to spread some on the road yourself? Or ask your husband or neighbor to take care of it."

And I decided that (I think this ties in loosely with your point above) while we rant about government being slow to respond or whatever the problem is, even when the solution to the problem is so glaringly obvious and simple to implement, we're stuck on the notion of "it's their job so they should do it," to the point that we're becoming mentally helpless to do these things ourselves. I don't think it ever occurred to her to simply take care of the problem herself, even though she likely does the exact same thing to eliminate the exact same problem on her sidewalk, driveway, and front steps. And why would she? We've learned over the years that government is the solution to problems big and small, and there is no other way. "Well, yeah, I could do that, but they are supposed to handle it." That's great, but they're not, so what are you going to do about it? "Call someone else."

The next day she probably went back to bitching about high taxes, gov't spending, loss of freedom, etc.