> but it's still true that most of those examples don't answer the question

That's because the question is bad. It was meant to challenge the benefit of government, and a non-answer was meant to be interpreted as "government < business." But at its core is was fundamental misunderstanding of government, so if the question was answered mindlessly, it was unfairly biased towards the asker's biased conclusion.

> and to refuse them is not "weaseling out".

It'd be weaseling out of the faults of the question.