Neal's Workshop

From Simon Heffer over at the Telegraph:

Certain youths have no sense of responsibility because their parents have none. Their parents have none because it is a function of the welfare state to turn adults into children. When self-reliance becomes not merely an option, but an eccentricity, then the ethics of how we conduct ourselves in relation to our fellow citizen become completely distorted.

Heffer has some other memorable lines in this editorial if you want to read the whole thing. However, one horrid contradiction stands out, undermining the entire piece:

In a humane society the state has a role in the private lives of certain individuals. It should see that people are educated. It should see that those who suffer misfortune can cope and, as far as possible, thrive again, whether they be widows, orphans, the indigent elderly, or the mentally or physically disabled.

And immediately thereafter, "However, it does not have the wherewithal to run people's lives . . . "

Such blatant contradictions confound reason. How can you lambast the state for fostering irresponsibility — nay slavery — in one sentence (which he does) and in the next sentence acquiesce to the state the right to educate?

And how do you ever hope to arrive at the answer, which is nothing short of freedom when you make such allowances for the state as providing education to indoctrinate the next generation of "citizens"?