Hear hear
Tom Paine sets out the
fundamental objection to the State supplying essential services.
If I am ever in a nursing home, I want my daughters to be paying the bills, checking up on the service and making it clear to the proprietors that they are ready to take our family's business elsewhere if they are dissatisfied. No bureaucrat, however kindly s/he may be, can replace that.
Precisely.
Don't tell me that socialists "care" more than conservatives or libertarians. Ignore their fine words and look at what they actually do.
Well said.
There's a lot of truth in this. The removal of moral responsibility from the individual to the state is a great moral evil, not only in its effects, but in itself. But to point that out, is not to make "a fundamental objection to the State supplying services" - or if it is, it fails to address the fundamental rationale for the state to supply such services.
ReplyDeleteFor surely the heart of the matter is that some elderly (or sick) people do not have family to care for them, or the family can't (or won't) care for them.
Perhaps we needed a more Churchillian view of state support after the war: a net beneath which no one can fall, and above which all can rise.
A very rich retired local business man is reputed to have bought up a nearby old peoples' home and is refurbishing it to modern standards. Apparently he took the view that he might have to go into such a home one day, so he might as well make certain that he was in charge.
ReplyDeleteEP - what an excellent idea!
ReplyDelete