One claim statists continue to make is that the government is necessary to provide for those in need. They claim that in a world absent of government the most vulnerable people in our society would starve to death, be tossed off of cliffs by family members who are tired of caring for them, or thrown into cages and forced to fight to the death for the amusement of the mob. But in a society with a government all of their needs will be provided for… unless, of course, they need too much:
West St. Paul and South St. Paul have taken steps to restrict housing options for people who receive state assistance for being both low-income and disabled, despite Dakota County’s misgivings.
City officials say such residents call police too often and that their communities have more than their fair share of rental properties catering to their needs.
“We have enough of these properties in the community,” said Tom Seaberg, a South St. Paul City Council member. “It’s not a discriminatory thing, it’s an economic issue.”
It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.
The statists’ claims fall apart once you analyze the nature of government. Government isn’t some benevolent entity that can triumph over human greed. Government is simply the largest criminal gang in a territory. Like any other criminal gang a government is interested in gaining at least some approval from the community since an approving community makes its job of expropriating wealth easier. To this end it offers people within its territory the option to buy protection from it… to protect against it, provides jobs by hiring people within its territory to perform menial tasks, and diverts some of its loot to people within its territory. However, as with any other criminal gang, when an individual becomes too bothersome to the government it will either cut them off or execute them.
Governments don’t provide welfare for altruistic reasons, they provide welfare to buy the acceptance of at least some of the people they’re exploiting. But if the welfare starts eating into the politicians’ profits they cut it off. The municipal governments of West and South St. Paul have made a simple business decision by telling people who use “too much” of their services to buzz off. By doing so those two municipal governments should be able to increase their profits by both immediately cutting the amount of services provided and creating an atmosphere where residents avoid using their services for fear of being the next individuals run out of town.