David

Karki

Read Davids bio and previous columns here

November 12, 2007

Minneapolis Bridge ‘Victims’ On Board for the Sickest Lottery Imaginable

It's been three months since the I-35W bridge collapse, and shovels are about to be put into the ground to begin construction of the replacement. And as sure as the Minnesota winter is cold, victims and their lawyers are lining up with their hands out, demanding compensation. Meanwhile, politicians are tripping over each other to see who can shovel the most of someone else's money at these people, the better to claim the mantle of “compassion” and then browbeat anyone who objects with angry cries of how one could be so “cruel” to these poor souls. It's enough to make one vomit.

A legislative panel met this Friday to hear from these victims (and their lawyers, who see nothing but contingency fees and hear nothing but the cash register ringing) and listen to their “Queen for a Day” style sob stories. I'm not sure which is worse – that spectacle so lacking in dignity, or the fact that virtually no one there is even going to question much less object to government blindly rewarding people whose only “accomplishment” was simply to have happened to be unlucky enough to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's almost like a sick, twisted lottery – be the poor sap who's on a bridge when it drops, on a plane or in a building when psychotic Muslim terrorists crash the former into the latter, or anywhere a flood, drought, hurricane or wildfire strikes, and you too can get a nice big check with almost no questions asked!

And never mind the perverse incentive for irresponsibility this clearly creates. Why on earth should anyone buy insurance or intelligently prepare for life's inherent risks when you know that government will just bail you out? Why should anyone be stoic when they can just hide behind the label of “victim”?  The whole idea of personally accepting responsibility is all but dead, the way government subsidizes stupid choices by making them economically survivable. And then we wonder why we get more of them. We are actually creating tragedy where none would otherwise exist, absent the incentive involved.

I can hear your objections as you read this already: How can you be so cold-hearted to those who have suffered? How can you deny those who have lost so much? Have you no compassion at all?

These are bogus questions. First, how would I be “compassionate” in spending other people's money, rather than my own? Second, how do you know whether I've donated to a bridge victim’s fund? You're defining “caring” entirely incorrectly, presuming that it's wholly a measure of government expenditure rather than personal initiative. And to the extent I've reached into my own pocket while others clamor for someone else's tax dollars to be spent, I would argue that it is they to whom the label is more appropriately applicable.

Third, and most importantly, the purpose of government is not to be a giant charity! Government is government and charity is charity, and they are not interchangeable. Government exists to secure rights and the blessings of liberty, and to maintain civilization lest it devolve into chaos. Charity exists for those kind souls who wish to help the more downtrodden amongst us, and for those less fortunate to obtain the temporary help they need.

Life inherently contains risk. No one is guaranteed anything in their time on this planet, least of all safety. Once upon a time, we understood this. Kids played on monkey bars without fear of lawsuits, rode their bikes without helmets, and men were sent to the moon in glorified tin cans with less computer power than an iPod. If and when they were dealt a poor hand by fate, they were grateful if help was offered, but they didn't expect it. And they certainly didn't demand it.

And the idea that those who happen to have really bad things occur to them should automatically reap a reward for suffering that inevitability, taken from others at veritable gunpoint by the state, would be appalling to them.

Where does this end? Logically, it doesn’t. If all it takes to drag us into de facto socialism is an endless parade of victims, whose status as such makes us unwilling to challenge the false statements and phony premises made ostensibly on their behalf, then demagogic politicians will eagerly provide those political human shields in perpetuity. And the line of volunteers for that role and the money that presumably comes with it will ever be long. SCHIP, 9/11 widows, school referendums, bridge collapses – the specific issue matters not. The common thread is always emotional wailing over the vast suffering sure to follow if more of your money cannot be spent and accusations of selfish cruelty intended to intimidate those who dare object to it.

Enough is enough – it's well past time to get government out of the charity business. And for some of us to grow up already.

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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