Pesonal Responsibility vs. State

It's a Wonderful life. A group of people give money(insert taxes, forced giving) to another group of people who are totally remote from their day to day life. This remote group is suppose to take care of local needs and problems. Everyone lives happily ever after.

What could go wrong? Can't we depend on the goodness of human nature? Would a group (inset Republicans, Democrats, Washington bureauracrats, Progressives, Socialist, Communist, national media) take all that money, and pretend to take care of local needs while enjoying being in control of all that money?

If America wants to predict the future of America, just look at Enron, or Madoff. How did that turn out for those who depended on someone else to insure their future?

Our country was setup so that local communities had power over local issues. The Federal government was only setup for defense against other nations wanting to harm Americans. That was it. That is why we have 50 states with 50 governments. Not one state with one government. If you have local representation that always looks to what the Federal government can do for their state, you have no local representation at all. At that point, local government is meaningless.

Why have countries never been successful after centralizing all programs and money under a single government? Common sense should explain this. Can you be a good parent and never see you children? Can you know what they need, but never communicate with them? Can you raise a child on theory of what is suppose to work? Are there ever parents who see to their own needs first, and then the children? Do we have any abusive situations by parents? Do we have any incestuous parents?

If you answer these questions honestly, you will realize the problem with thinking that a central government is going to solve our day to day problems. Too many avenues present themselves for people to personally benefit before sending the program to its final destination, so that when the programs get to the local people, it will not come close to meeting the specific needs of that local population., or even have enough funds left to be effective. This is usually true of even the best programs with the best intentions, i.e. social security, medicare. Corruption runs rampant because the system is too large to be monitored.

Why does a strong statist government always gain popularity? Because human nature wants someone else to be responsible for our problems. It is hard to take personal responsibility, and easy to find excuses to why we can't. Another option is joining a group or party and passing responsibility on to that group. Also, people tend to isolate themselves naturally. Afraid they will be judged, they do nothing. That creates a void that the laws of nature tell us will get filled with something. That something will usually not be the best "fill" for the problem (insert emergency healthcare that must be passed now).