The State is not your friend

A little puzzlement here:

I had a visit from my benefits assessor – and now I fear the state more than poverty

Rob Palk

We’ll not try to vouch for the story but it’s one of the State being incompetent at determining who is eligible, who should be eligible, for that help from the rest of us that it is said state’s responsiblity to dispense.

Well, OK.

No, not that’s OK. But the statement, OK, and?

For those who rail against that incompetence at disability assessment are those who also insist the state must do more. The very people who tell us that the welfare part of the state is somewhere between bad and incompetent at taking care of the poor and needy are the very same people who tell us that the government should also be taking on the entire transport system. Owning and running the electricity and other utility systems. Managing the economy, deciding what should be invested in and to what amount. Deciding what the appropriate car technology is 11 years ahead.

That’s what puzzles us. The shouting is that the state is incompetent at giving away free money. Why therefore the insistence that they should be doing more of more complicated things?

All of us having had real lives we tend to think that those who can’t do things be asked to do less.