I see medicine as a civilization vs barbarism issue, wherein doctors and nurses are barbarians raiding our civilization. I don’t c how politics can b removed from medicine, and so I want an arch-bureaucrat Cincinnatus to distort them back in their place

But what of the **obligations** that must be imposed for the viability of such “programs?”

Should we conscript teachers, nurses and doctors to serve? Confiscate properties for housing needs?

On what basis shall we allocate the assignments of obligations and in what degrees?

It is quite one thing when obligations are voluntarily assumed (even sought); another when they are imposed. Read, Bastiat, “Justice and Fraternity.”

The other point is that Dorothy and Blanche don’t have to snipe eachother. Unless they are stupid as hell.

The big one, I think, is where the line is drawn with personal responsibility. I think Bryan sees an alcoholic as someone who’s skipping to the front of the line to get his dessert, but a liberal would see it as someone that likely suffers from deep anguish inside and would like to be something else if they could, and thus worthy of help. You refer to this as the Intent Principle, I believe.

Secondly, a lot depends on how you prioritize your values. If you think making sure “Everyone Is Taken Care Of” is the highest moral value, then you’re likely going to support a bloated welfare state even if you agree that it’s poorly constructed, which renders a lot of other points moot.

I don’t think he’d pass the ideological Turing Test on that one.

Welfare is different from Social Insurance. Rather then everyone trying to pay in what they take out, welfare recipients are seen as being permanent lifetime net recipients. That elicits are very different reaction in people. Social Insurance is something you or I might collect one day. Welfare is something most people will never see.

Hence, why people say things like “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” It seems ironic, but what people are really talking about is that they view Medicare as Social Insurance they have paid for over a lifetime of taxes, much like any other annuity you paid premiums on your whole life and expect to collect on in old age.

We can complain the actuarial math doesn’t quite work out that way, but generations of propaganda stating the opposite have been pretty successful in shaping the public mind (and not just paid propagandists, technocratic professionals have added to this public perception as well). If the man on the street could do actuarial calculations I wouldn’t have the career I have. Can’t really blame them for not understanding.

One of the problems though is that Social Insurance assumes a similar level of human capital. That way most people are paying in what they take out, because they produce about as much, and the payouts are mostly based on random chance (getting sick though not fault of your own, etc). If there is a wildly varying level of human capital then some people will never be able to produce enough to pay their fair share into the social insurance pool. This by default means they either “are left to die in the streets” or receive out and out Welfare.

The fundamental issue is that human capital has a large fixed component based on genetics. Education and other factors can’t change this. As a result a segment of the population can’t participate in social insurance schemes and can only be supported by welfare.

This is resented by the people paying for the welfare, and puts strain on the social insurance programs by making them less affordable (they always had a degree of welfare embedded, but it was critical to their popularity that the insurance aspect overwhelm the welfare aspect).

Why do we need to spread a welfare state over 300 million people?

Power and control wants to concentrate itself, not create rivals.

The tendencies are to “deal” with “THE” poor; “THE” homeless, etc. rather than identify the various categories or components that are so aggregated.

The considerations of motivations (“incentives-disincentives” e.g.) seem to ignore their individual or category natures, as well as the *initial* sources of those motivations.

That is one of the reasons that localizing the human aspects of such problems are essential to humane ameliorations or “solutions;” case by case. Go back and read Bastait’s “Justice and Fraternity.”