The Right seems to be overly concerned about welfare fraud; though admittedly a concern for fraud is a politically better reason to cut programs than just admitting you don’t believe in them, so maybe they’re not as concerned as they seem to be. Obviously the Republican’s concern about fraud, both voter and welfare, speaks to their opinion of our essential nature. I don’t think I’m surprising anyone, but it seems to me that Republicans tend to have a rather negative view of people. You can’t trust anyone, as a Republican, to not cheat the system.
Why do I expect people not to commit widespread welfare fraud? I don’t trust people, so I expect that some people will commit welfare fraud. Who wouldn’t want free money? Answer, people who don’t want to fill out thick packets of forms every six months to a year. Besides that, I don’t think people generally break the law. Not because they can’t, not even out of fear of the punishment, just because that’s our nature. Perhaps the best example of this is driving. It’s easy to get away with almost every driving infraction. There just aren’t enough police to guarantee that someone will get stopped. You might get caught, but even then the punishment is mild and you usually notice if a cop is nearby. Still, people don’t break most traffic laws most of the time. People aren’t necessarily naturally good, but they do like to follow the rules. Not everyone does, of course, so you need someone to oversee the system. Conformity is natural to the human condition, it’s what allows us to get along — we like to be the same. Bringing this back to welfare fraud, it seems to me if you trust people not to kill each other while driving, you can rely on their conformity to not commit welfare fraud. Maybe not though, welfare fraud isn’t something you die doing. That certainly explains all the speeding and minor, i.e. less dangerous, infractions, but even with very little risk of death people still don’t speed obnoxiously or run red lights and stop signs. If you drive late at night, like 3AM night, you’ll notice that people do drive a little faster, but even then a lot of people are going the speed limit and there’s not many people going 90+ even though it’s easy to drive that fast without any repercussions on a clear freeway. Conformity, the thing we all hated in high school and probably scorn even now, proves useful at times
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