(July 1st, 2018, 14:50)Bacchus Wrote: To be sure, but I would say that the community has not only the right, but even the obligation to take care of such children directly. If parents, having means to feed their children, elect to have those children starve -- the community has to save the children from such abuse. The last thing the community should do is shower additional material support on these parents.
I say community rather than state, because ideally, and normally, such children will be rescued from abuse by their other relatives or, if this fails, by other associations that family is a member of. In a modern anonymised world such an association might not be present, so the state could step in, but only as a last resort. Even there, the state would do much better to promote and empower community-building, than to send out social workers.
As such, I don't think this issue proves the necessity of other forms of welfare.
The main reason why mass welfare (e.g. for unemployment) is needed in the first place is that for large numbers of people in the modern world, local community has largely collapsed and the 'safety net' traditionally provided by family or church or other association is ceasing to exist. Resorting to a UBI is a tacit admission that the safety nets are largely not working any more, and therefore you can't count on them to save the kids.
I agree that the restoration of community is the long-run solution.