I learned today that in modern Britain, full to the brim with iPhones and golf clubs, in a backstreet of Westminster, heart of the British Political Machine, a child under the care of the council died from malnutrition in 2010.
Now, as a Libertarian, my demands for the State to have a minimal impact and intrusion on people’s lives will see my enemies declaring victory insofar as it happened on the watch of evil Tories, cutting welfare to the most vulnerable (it didn’t. It happened in March 2010 under a Labour administration). This child however, was not killed by hunger because of anything other than the utter incompetence of the State in arrogantly assuming the responsibility to feed it.
I am no fan of a welfare State but I am certainly an enemy of any welfare state that assumes a virtual monopoly on the welfare of the vulnerable and then so incompetently fails to take responsibility. A plethora of private charities and institutions would have and could have saved this child if only the State had the courage to relinquish the vice like grip it holds over every minutiae of our lives. Instead, a series of procedures, politically driven mantras and vested interests saw a homeless child on the streets of London die of malnutrition in the 21stCentury.
Contrary to popular belief, children did not die of starvation on Westminster’s pavements 100 years ago. An army of benefactors and noble charities scooped them up, fed them up and thrust them into a trade with an apprenticeship that would see them on the road to a job for life. They would pass out into the Guilds of craftsmen who in turn would look after their elderly or unemployed without the need for some hairy lipped, sandal wearing, quill pushing apparatchik at the council ever casting a glance in their direction.
Just as Government was never designed to run railways, it is woefully incapable of doing more than guarding the borders and maintaining a justice system. It is time people, instead of political parties, were once again allowed to rule their own lives. Families instead of committees, communities instead of "steering/focus" groups. The ridiculous safety net woven by deceitful politicians has never been fit for purpose and only ever served as a hollow bribe for more votes, for more power and for more wealth of the select elite born to rule us. It's time to get politicians back out of our lives and let the humanity back in.
Food for thought, indeed
