Friday, June 13, 2014

Why is it a crime to be kind?

Our ego is a strange beast. By making us stubbornly resistant to see our mistakes it makes us go on defending a course of action which has been repeatedly shown to be wrong. This is beautifully demonstrated in a rambling article which starts by saying," Voters who gave the Congress its worst drubbing did not reject its welfare agenda, but its performance." Those who are receiving handouts for free will always want to protect them but those who pay taxes and receive nothing in return will be angry. That is why the Shinawatra family easily wins elections in Thailand but keeps getting removed by army coup. Recep Erdogan also keeps winning elections despite protests and allegations of corruption. Even though he is dead followers of Hugo Chavez go around killing people protesting against inflation of over 50%, shortage of basic necessities and very high rates of violent crime. " The Jawahar Rozgar Yojana which for the first time recognized the rights of slum dwellers to be settled in their present locations with in situ upgrading of public services rather than demolition was never implemented," he writes. That is shocking. Land is extremely expensive and a scarce commodity in India so to encourage land grabbing in the name of poverty is to encourage crime. " The end result after five years was that the government had no credible story to tell about either its priorities or its performance to the voters." Not true. Poverty declined from 37.2% in 2004 to 20% in 2012 which is an enormous achievement. The reason why there was a " fatal malfunction of communication " was because the Congress would not be able to announce more handouts to buy votes if it boasted about fewer poor people. Therein lay the paradox. " ..... public expenditure in public education, public health, social security, decent housing and nutrition are not doles but investments in human beings...." he writes. Absolutely, provided it is for everybody and those who pay taxes also benefit from state spending and are not treated as compulsory blood donors by our elected government. Why are these communists so blinkered that they cannot understand that a policy where public finance is treated like personal booty, to be distributed selectively to win votes, is bound to lead to " the ignominy of gigantic corruption scandals ". If the government shows no respect for public money then no one will and the loot will go out of control. That is why the USSR collapsed, Cuba is opening up and China practices harsh capitalism and has to suppress its citizens to stay in power. It is time to junk their egos and accept the simple truth that India should be for everyone so make everyone wealthy and not selected ' vote banks '. Selective kindness is a crime.

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