Bryn Davies wrote:
That said... I think the system is somewhat better than the government directly pouring taxpayer money into charities to which many may be apathetic, and some outright hostile. This is not a new problem though, and applies to all government spending.
It seems a little ridiculous to me that people would get a warm gooey feeling for donating money to a charity (which are often affiliated with a religion), and feel resentful about paying their tax (which is administered by a professional institution, the government of which you elect, that is (ostensibly) separated from The Church). I'd rather pay tax than support a charity, not least because it's easier to do only one set of paperwork. It'd be nice if politicians and public servants saw role as charity administrators do their own.
On that note, think about this: if you appeal to a charity for help you're seen as worthy of pity, and if you appeal to the state then you're seen as a bludger. That doesn't make sense to me.
I'd prefer to live in a country where the state saw their role as being there to help individuals who asked for help and to conduct large-scale public projects, than as an authority that dictated what people can and can't do.
Why hasn't the computer/jetcar age fixed this for us yet?
We can't fix it with computers until we fix our social attitudes. This is the 'full transparency' problem. We're going to have to stare that down some time over the next ten or twenty years. So much of our culture (and law) is built on a lie. Lies are easy enough to ignore when they're not made patently obvious, and when some form of privacy protections are in place.
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