Immediately after the o.p. which aims to explain what a good government is by alluding to “quality of life” – a concept that is clarified more fully in the Structure of Ethics vooklet linked to below – Ichthus77 offers us these beautiful words:
[size=85][May I quote you on that, my friend? I’d like to give you credit, but I don’t know your real name …only your nickname.][/size]
However Ichthus77 then goes on to set up a Straw Man, and proceeds to knock it down. In the o.p. I said nothing about a “welfare state.” 
It is a commission of The Straw Man Fallacy of logic to attribute that to - or even imply that about - the definition of a good government presented in the first post.
Then Observr524 picks up on that theme in a post a bit later, and really runs with it. I suggest that he, and everyone, re-read that o.p. more carefully. …Especially study that last paragraph of the first post which emphasizes the importance of democracy This kind of politics is antithetical to, and is the opposite, of the tyranny they have in China, in Russia today, or had in the old Soviet Union.
Also, Observr, you are setting up, and knocking down, a Straw Man. I just don’t see the relevance to anything I said in the original post. Yes, I too want government to be well-balanced. How can a policy which really helps you not help me? For what really hellps me, helps you, and vice versa! {Although we may not yet be conscious of it we are all members of a loving family: the human species. That awareness, and its practice, is the next stage of human evolution.}
You bring up the concept of ‘purpose of life.’ Yes, a person will judge something as “good” if it helps him/her attain or fulfill the purpose of his/her life. That is an informal meaning of the word “good.”
A more-formal meaning is found in the third chapter of M. C. Katz - ETHICS; A College Course, which reports what Dr. Hartman, my mentor, accomplished:
. S. Hartman, - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Hartman - a true genius, created/discovered the definition. [size=54](It states: something, or someone, is good if it bijectively {i.e., in a one-to-one correspondence relationsiip between its attributes and its properties) fulfills the meaning of the concept under which it is subsumed by the valuer.)[/size]
In other words, this specific instance of the concept completely exemplifies its concept: it matches both the definition and the exposition - and even the connotation and the atmospherics of the concept. If it exceeds them, one would rate it as “excellent” or “outstanding” maybe, rather than merely “good.”
Thus, a good government. is one that has everything you suppose ‘a government’ to have. It is “all there” under its concept! That is why one would call it “good.”
BTW, which Party has been more fulfilling the definition lately? Which of the two major political parties in the U.S. has been more in compliance with the definition? Which one is providing a better Quality Life?
