The Government's Job

I have heard many, many pundits and private individuals go on about how taking care of the poor and the sick are not the government's job, that it's the private sector's place to handle such things. Government messes up everything it touches and does everything inefficiently. It would be the least reliable arbiter of who should and should not receive health care or food and shelter. Or so the story goes.

Fair enough. So then it should stand to reason that these same folks would have no problem with the government staying out of people's morality as well, seeing as how it would be the least reliable arbiter of such things. By that logic, Americans should be free to marry whom they want to marry (regardless of gender), burn whatever objects they wish (including the national flag), sleep with their students, put their chronically ill loved ones to death, and do any of these things on television or in the movies or in front of small children if it cranks their tractor. All without government intervention.

Point made yet? If not, here goes: Sure, in an ideal world the free market would make everything available to everyone at a reasonable price that is kept down by competition. But that ain't the way it works. And I do believe it is the private sector - nay, the CHURCH's - job to be the primary support for the poor. But we ain't getting the job done, folks. And our government IS put in place to "establish justice" for and "promote the general welfare" of all its citizens. And justice and welfare are often in short supply in a system predicated primarily on stock valuation and populated by those of us who are more worried about TiVo than transients.