"A Fraying Social Safety Net": As if!

So many people sick and hurting, so many people dependent on the State for assistance.

Indeed, there are some segments of society so in need that assistance is more than called for. Children without homes and in need of care, patients with debilitating mental illness; prisoners needing to be sequestered from the communities which they harmed.

Yet these needs still beg the questions: how large should the State be? What really does it take for the Government to care of these dependent populations? To what extent can the private sector step in to meet the need?

If that State has a role to play, it must the last, most local, and most limited resort. Allow families to step in, if they can. Religious and other charitable organizations can accomplish as much if not more for children, and to a lesser extent. Regarding prison populations, the private sector may be at cross purposes, relegating its role to housing inmates without providing an avenue of rehabilitation. Instead of eliminating its role in housing prisoners, the government must streamline the penal code, eliminate non-violent offenders better suited for diversion programs (drug dependence) or fines and community service (petty theft, vandalism).

Beyond these necessary evils, the government at any level must retreat from caring for all the poor, the ill, the unfit, and the just-plain unwilling to shift on their own. Unemployment insurance, for example, prolongs unemployment. Welfare prolongs dependence on the State, when able-bodied individuals can and must step out and find work again. They can do it! The State should not inadvertently dupe and enable them into thinking otherwise!

"Fraying Social Safety Net" notwithstanding, most people do not need to be rescued. The state must decrease that they as individuals may increase in their capacity and confidence to take on the challenges which face them.