Government - A Means of Laundering Our Conscience

How many insist that the government must do something to help the poor but pay little attention to those of us who say it does a poor job of it?  Are they bad, stupid, ignorant people?  I like to think most of them are not.  Rather, government is a short-cut -- an easy and insufficient answer to many difficult questions.  So long as one advocates that the government steps in to help the poor, the sick, and the huddled masses, one is off the hook from actually doing or thinking of anything for themselves.  In this way the government (whatever form it may take) is a convenient and insidious means of laundering our conscience when it comes to the matter of helping our fellow man.