In "The Compassion Trap," James Delong at The American Enterprise notes the dilemma we create when we obey a compulsion to help without a commitment to bear the cost without grudging. In the Florida version of the lawsuit against Obamacare, for instance, the government justified the individual mandate on the ground that the government had previously decided to make emergency medical treatment mandatory; it followed, therefore, that irresponsible citizens must not be permitted to take a free ride.
The Florida judge countered that perhaps the problem was with the mandate for free emergency care. I think the problem is instead with the double-thinking that permits us to congratulate ourselves for our compassionate extension of free emergency medical care, while at the same time resenting the recipients' failure to make adequate pre-arrangements to pay us back.
So, because we are not willing to let people suffer consequences, we, acting through the government, must control increasingly large dimensions of everyone’s behavior for the sake of our own amour-propre. . . . When anyone tries to call a halt, the trump card is played—the children! We might let you die in the gutter, but how can we possibly let your children do so?
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