> In October, the government released the results of a public survey on the scheme, which found that 97 percent of respondents support the program. However, 47 percent of the 17,000 respondents said artists should be selected based on economic need, while 37.5 percent favored selection by merit. Only 14 percent preferred random selection.
People generally won't prefer the fairest method of selection, but that doesn't mean it's not the best.
Most surveys can't even get 97% of respondents to agree that terrorism is wrong.
The government is just blatantly lying about these results. There is simply no way 97% of the population (most of whom pay into this system yet receive nothing from it) supports this.
People generally won't prefer the fairest method of selection, but that doesn't mean it's not the best.