3 ms·

Relying on governments to do the following: * determine who is really in need * helping people to make better choices seems absurd to me, and more a defen

• mc-lovin 14y ago
  These decisions aren't made at a personal level. E.g. when you provide people with free healthcare instead of giving them money, your are implicitly constraining their choices. Same for food stamps, free public transport for the poor, etc. Determining who is in need means, for example, not giving welfare to people who are not genuinely searching for work. This is a difficult decision to make but it is done fairly well in Australia. It is mostly based on objective criteria e.g. filling in a list of places where you applied for work, showing up to interviews that are arranged for you. I suspect that your objection is not to the general principles listed above, but rather to listing them explicitly without any disclaimers like "I know the government often gets this wrong" etc.