Of all the comments to the show posting for Action Point 4-27-2008, this is the one I found most interesting:

"I want freedom from government intruding on my privacy, and you want the security of the government bending the Constitution to keep you safe from terrorists.  You reflexively call any move of government to safeguard the public welfare as an example of the Nanny State.  Then the next moment you defend the right of government to wiretap, to incarcerate, to punish, and to torture because you're told it is for our protection.  I guess you hate it when mommy wants to take care of you, but you have no problem doing what daddy tells you to do.  Why is it wrong for government to provide for those that need it, but it's O.K. for government to intrude on our privacy, legislate morality, and mete out punishment?"

Why is that comment most interesting?  Because it goes to the core of policy regardless of issue; the difference in policy is who is ultimately served and at what cost to those (or that) which will provide resources, goods and services. 

If you value the environment as an integrated system on which you are dependent, then extracting resources that damage the integrity will have a high perceived cost.  If you don't value the integrity of the environment, but see it as personal property, then the property from which it is exrtracted will have a high cost and the damage to related systems will have a low cost, and so on.

Regardless of who or what a policy serves it starts with a valuation of those served, and materials and services, via a lens of perceived and attributed "values" or what those things mean to people.

Is the problem then, the cost of the services, or the valuation ("values") through which costs are perceived?  

Can policy be well-crafted when the values of those involved do not seem to be shared?

And what about "moral" values related to belief systems like religion?  Where can values that vary from belief system to belief system have a place in policy that affects many with differing values?