> If you believe people should be helped, you can go help them.
I could, but how is that better? If there's a natural disaster on the other side of the country and I can see that people need help should I immediately pack up my car with water bottles, food, and blankets and drive for three or four days to "go help them?"
I have responsibilities here too. I have a job and a family who need me here. Should I just leave them at a moment's notice? And not just me, you want everyone to do this? Have thousands of people drop everything they are responsible for to drive however many days/hours it takes to "go help"? Getting to the people who need the help in a timely manner would be hard enough, but imagine the roads being blocked by all the traffic at a time when emergency responders are trying to work. Clearly my efforts are not better directed at helping people myself.
It's stupidly inefficient for everyone to respond to people in need by going to help them. It's sure as hell not how it's "supposed to work" and that's why we've set up the response systems that we have. We need to depend on others to do the helping so that we can contribute to their efforts while still living our lives and without wasting massive amounts of time and resources causing new problems.
Because we're stuck depending on others to help collect needed supplies and funding, coordinate with local emergency response teams, and disseminate whatever aid is needed the fewer organizations we task with doing all that the better and more efficiently it all works.
> than trying to use government force to do it.
"The government" isn't forcing anyone to help people. It's your neighbors, my neighbors, and everyone around and between us choosing to help others. We decided we want state and federal aid for people who need it. It wasn't even a decision we made one time, we continuously decide that it's the best way to handle aid. If we ever change our minds and decide that everyone packing up their cars and rushing in to personally deliver assistance is preferable we can vote to stop it. No one is forcing us, it was our choice. You might not agree with it, but that's just life in a democracy. Collectively we may choose things you don't personally care for, and thank goodness because it sounds like you haven't really thought through your "Everyone go help whoever they think needs it directly" strategy at all.