Fool me once ...

I'm feeling much less alarmed at last week's Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found a majority of Americans think the U.S. tax system isn't fair because it doesn't soak the rich enough.

That's because of this week's AP-Ipsos poll, which is headlined "Americans' confidence shaky in government's ability to deal with bird flu." Sorry, I can't find a Web link to the AP story, but it says:

"In the survey out Friday, 52 percent said they were not confident the government would handle an outbreak among humans properly; 48 percent were confident. One-third worried someone in their family would get the bird flu."

Here is why I'm feeling less disillusioned:

The new survey found strong majorities in favor of all options presented to them to contain any outbreak among humans.

These were: quarantining those who have been exposed to the bird flu, closing the borders to visitors from countries that have experienced the flu, closing schools, offering experimental vaccines or drugs, and encouraging people to work from home.

Why does this make me feel less disillusioned? After all, the survey results show I'm surrounded by people who want the police state to crack down to protect us from that nasty person-to-person strain of bird flu that, as of now, doesn't exist.

Here's the thing about polls: Ask the right question, and you can prove that people think the way you want them to think. This is the second consecutive AP-Ipsos poll that shows people really want a powerful centralized government to crack down on us.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you. AP-Ipsos clearly doesn't trust freedom-loving people and wants to prove that most of us want a central nanny to run our lives. I am putting a red flag in my mind to signal me whenever I read an AP-Ipsos poll in the future.