[blogforlovxr]

Do you think the state can make people more competent and responsible? I think that's a naiive overestimation of the state's abilities.

I think people develop competence and responsibility in response to their environments, and that the State is a legitimate part of everyone's environment.

No, I don't think that the State can make people more competent and responsible, but it can implement policies that encourage and reward these traits-- or it can refrain from implementing policies that suppress them. Part of the problem is that most people who make similar claims is that they primarily believe in punishing people whom they view as "irresponsible", while doing nothing towards (or deliberately withdrawing from) supporting their ideal of responsibility.

It's kind of hard to get people to be selfless, nationalist drones without invoking state power.

It is telling that you automatically conflate both nationalism and a social conscience with "selfless drones". I know who I am and what I want, and my behaviors are rationally consistent with both; I think this statement is a deliberate attempt to structure the debate in a way that makes disagreeing with you impossible, if not a thinly veiled ad hominem.

The question is... are these people competent and responsible? Of course not! But the use of the conjunction "who" by Korimyr suggests that he believes otherwise.

Yes, I do believe that people who place the well-being of others above-- or at least on level with-- their own are "responsible". Competence is a separate issue, and a big part of our social problems is that the two are not necessarily linked.

Perhaps my belief in the general usefulness of government is naïve, but no more so than your belief in the good intentions of businessmen. Without government, there's nothing preventing them from using force and fraud to support their bottom lines-- and the long history of their collusion with government proves that it is effective to do so.