Solutions, not theories

The Best of Intentions

 Sometimes it is hard to tell where we go wrong when trying to do the right thing.  Perhaps it is not where we go wrong, but where the government goes wrong when it takes on the task of telling us what is right and compels us to follow their plan.  It is right to care for the poor.  It is right to care for the sick, and the uneducated, and all others who struggle to find a path in life that allows them to succeed. 

The problem always comes when one considers how we achieve the goal.  Very few would deny the need for help, but many would disagree with the method.  And so we reach the inevitable inertia that results when too many opinions try to get their own way.

Perhaps the first question would be who provides the care?

Federal?  State?  County?  Private charity?

The further the care provider is from the care receiver, the poorer the care.  The more hands and bureaucracy through which the help has to travel, the less effective the help is.  So if the federal government is providing the money for the care, the care is the least personal care that can be provided.  If the care is provided by the county, at least the care is provided by people who can assess the needs in their own community.  But when the care is provided by a charity, the care is provided person to person.  Very personal indeed.  And it affords the ability to provide care for problems that can't be solved with money.  Perhaps money is needed for rent, but the underlying problem is a health problem that is preventing them from working.  Would it make more sense to give just money, or would it make more sense to pay the rent and facilitate health care, provide medication and job re-training for a new career.  There are those that might say that government assistance can do that.  And they can.  It is impersonal and no effort is made to create a relationship that applauds success and backs up failures. 

And that is where it fails to make a difference.  There is no need to measure success, as the success is the effort made to seem successful.  How often does the government say "We are working hard on this problem", as if the work is the measure of success?  This might explain decades on the War on Poverty with no measurable change in the poverty rate.  All the money spent, and all the "work" done, and the end result solves nothing. 

It would make sense then to make sure that achievable goals are set and then the results of our efforts are measured, not to see if our intentions were good, or whether we worked hard, but whether the goal we set was achieved.

War on poverty?  Nope.

Improving education?  Nope.

Safe, affordable housing?  Nope.

Affordable healthcare?  Nope.

And yet billions of taxpayer dollars were spent and trillions of hours were worked and the lack of success continues.

When we know best:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely  exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive....those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."


C.S. Lewis

About things that matter and things that don't matter at all.

When Last We Spoke....