Belief in a Just World

I have an extremely conservative friend that sprang a comment on me somewhat out of the blue, that took me quite aback.  The comment was: life isn't good, but it's fair.  I was struck at how diametrically opposed I was to this viewpoint.  In fairness, his statement may have been: the world isn't good, but it's fair, but for me these are functionally identical statements, though I can see how they can differ for some.

There's two parts to his assertion: life/the world being good or bad, and life/the world being just or unjust.  The first (good vs bad) lends itself to more permutations on personal opinion.  I'm personally of the camp that life is good considering the options available outside of life.  This opinion on whether there is something outside of life, is probably the biggest differentiator in having a view that life vs the world being significantly different components in this statement.

The second part, life/the world being just vs unjust and its correlation to viewpoints, seems to have the largest ramifications.  I've held the viewpoint that the world and life aren't fair, but hadn't fixated on it as a marker to whether someone had conservative vs liberal viewpoints.  More importantly in looking at this, was the question of were there groups of self identified liberals who believe the world is just, and are there self identified conservatives who believe the world is unjust.

This may be a basic concept covered in some Poli Sci/Psych 101 courses, and I don't pretend in anyway to be the first to have stumbled upon the concept:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

To ask this might be very underwhelming based on the number of hits I get to my blog, but if you'll bear with me I'd like to run a poll to see what kind of a breakdown we have between conservative vs liberal and the world being just vs unjust.  If people could vote in this poll I'd appreciate it, and if you vote as a liberal who thinks the world is just or as a conservative who thinks the world is unjust, I'd love to have you post how these views fit together for you.

If we can get some info gathered/feedback, I'd like to expand this discussion based on input people can provide.

My Top 10 "Benevolant" Dictator ideas

To have some fun, here's the my top 10 list of implementations I would make if I was a "Benevolent" dictator of my country.  Yes, I know the framing of being a benevolent dictator is pretty much an oxymoron, and automatically puts you in a grouping with some fairly unsavory characters.  If you can't appreciate this as being somewhat tongue and check, try to absorb it as just a list of things I think we'd be better off if we had the stomach to make happen.

1. Voting reform: Institute federal voting standards for federal elections, and require an instant runoff system instituted for the top 5 vote draws in the party primary elections.
2. If we ever see a peace time again, establish a classification for certain military units to be designated as part time public service/job corp type functions while continuing training to keep battle readiness.
3. Make natural resource planning extend significantly beyond 40 years.
4. Establish a program to create a self sufficient population on an off Earth location (Moon/Mars/in orbit)
5. Tax capital gains as ordinary income, implement an added tax penalty for short term capital gains if there is a need to maintain a difference.
6. Make it illegal to require green laws via HOA during droughts.
7. Require legislated financial limits financial minimums (minimum wage/tax codes) be linked in some way (possibly with a delay) to inflation.
8. Standardize car bumper heights.
9. Implement national referendums.
10. Work toward a cure for IPv6.

I'm toying with keeping this as a dynamic post, so I'm starting it out with a section for ideas that get "bumped".  If you have a list of 10, or close to it to, I'd love to see them.

Ideas voted off from the top 10:

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