jonathan-cunningham asked: "Somehow my parents and I managed to muddle on through without government help."
Ah, so because you did, the rest of the world should (or die trying) right? Unbelievable.
Um, are you implying that it is unreasonable to expect people to live their lives as people have for millenia?
Every single person is subject to the whims of fate and chance. Some people suffer outrageous misfortune, but that is merely the nature of human existence. We cannot stop all bad things from happening to all people and to attempt to do so would be madness. Certainly we can find some way to assist those who are encumbered by misfortune and we are, in fact, obligated to do so by the basic tenets of modern Western Culture which looks on charity, and self sacrifice as a virtue (as well as perseverance and self-reliance, incidentally). The question is merely what are the most effective and just means to render that aid. Some would prefer to shrug off that responsibility to the impersonal forces of the government. That’s understandable but in the end very, very dangerous because government is both inefficient, and often unjust.
E.g.: the infamous Roman grain dole no doubt helped many poverty stricken in the city of Rome for several centuries but eventually helped destroy the Roman state because it distorted grain prices and encouraged a complacency and a sense of entitlement in the populace ultimately leading to political and social chaos as well as economic decline.
iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli
uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
