> Obviously, there is large political disagreement on this issue (viz: conservatives vs. liberals, to use American jargon). There is not as much disagreement a

> Obviously, there is large political disagreement on this issue (viz: conservatives vs. liberals, to use American jargon). There is not as much disagreement as it can sometimes seem, between those particular groups, as ID'ed using that jargon. The American Conservatives and the American Liberals both think that laws should be the knee-jerk reaction to certain sets of problems. Their differences lie in which problems those are: by and large, the Conservatives say that those are the social problems, and the Liberals say that those are the economic problems. But you are right, there are many who think they should be a last-resort measure in all-but-every case: the American jargon calls them Libertarians, and the American first-past-the-post voting system calls them personae non gratae.