Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Because they think funding is "doing something"

One of my favorite television shows of all time is "the west wing". I like it for the writing and the characterization, not so much for the political viewpoints... But those viewpoints are illuminating.

One thing which libertarians and conservatives scoff at, is the language that liberals use when it comes to government programs...  "this is a victory in fighting poverty" etc...

Fighting poverty, racism, AIDS... these things are all INCREDIBLY hard. They're so hard that there's very little any one of us can do about it. 

Conservatives and libertarians solution to that, is the power of voluntary charity, volunteer work... and accepting that we won't fix these problems. That eventually, over the long term, they will get better... but we aren't going to win them ourselves. 

Poverty for example... Poverty isn't a disease, it's not an inevitable mass condition, it's not like Old age. The solution to poverty is more, higher paying jobs. You get more jobs, with more businesses, and more activity in each business. You get more jobs with lower regulation, and a freer market and freer competition, and by making it cost less to employ people.

But that's diffuse... it's not DIRECTLY acting to "solve" the problem. There's no "program" for it, that they can provide funding for. 

The problem is that liberals morals and ethics won't allow them to accept this. They believe that they... and all of us, as a nation in fact... have a moral obligation to "do something". Even if it doesn't work, we have to at least "do something". 

Unfortunately, reality is what it is...

So, their substitute for actually doing something about the problem is "government funding to solve the problem".

This let's them fulfill what they feel to be their moral obligation, because they are able to deceive themselves into believing that funding the government really is "doing something". 

They get to blame the failure on not trying hard enough, or not getting enough funding... though that's pretty much ridiculous. 

They then believe that everyone who opposes their "moral" imperatives is either stupid or evil. 

Some of us are just... practical, logical... 

We spend enough in the "war on poverty" every year (to almost no effect) to actually give everyone below the poverty line, enough money to be well above it. We could literally just send them a check every month.

I'd rather do THAT, than what we do now... It wouldn't be any more expensive, and it would have the added benefit of ACTUALLY WORKING.