Yesterday’s quote of the day was from a Jonah Goldberg article where he talks about the problems with Obama’s compulsory “volunteer” plan. 

Indeed, there’s ample evidence that countries with intrusive, expensive welfare states stifle citizens’ spirit of charity and volunteerism precisely because people conclude that government should solve every problem. Merely paying your taxes substitutes for charity, and cleaning up litter for two years absolves you from doing anything more.

It seems like almost every time the government touches something like this, they make it worse. Or maybe more accurately, when the government gets outside it’s core functions like infrastructure, military, and crime control they screw it up. Even with crime, once you get outside punishing criminals into gun control, useless social programs, etc., the government screws it up. And this goes for almost every government, not just the U.S. Federal government. 

Welfare – people become dependent on it, creating a generational poor class. Left to themselves in this great country, most poor people can rise above poverty, and make a better life for themselves. In a welfare state, there is a certain class of people that never will.

Schools – Public schools are extremely expensive compared to schools in the private sector. One of the big reasons for this is the bureaucracy, where in Milwaukee, for instance, there are more administrative positions than classroom teachers.

Gun control – D.C., with the countries toughest gun laws (up until now, we’ll see post Heller) has been Murder Capitol USA, while a number of studies have shown that allowing things like CCW reduces crime, with the “worst” results being no change. Britain is seeing a huge rise in crime involving knives, and has a much higher violent crime rate, even if they can claim less “gun crime.”

Government run healthcare – Think government run healthcare is a good idea? Think back to the VA scandals. Are these the people you want running healthcare? There are many stories of people coming down from Canada because of the waiting lists up there, with similar problems in other countries with government healthcare.

Americans are some of the most generous people in the world. Mandating that generosity will result in a system where many people will do what is expected of them, and little more, just like we have seen in other countries.