> It's stupidly inefficient for everyone to respond to people in need by going to help them.By "go help them" I did not mean literally drop what you're doing at any moment. I meant, set up private means to help people, funded by volutary contributions. That would entail some people actually physically going to help, but not everyone involved. A private institution could take all of the measures you describe as being more efficient. Indeed, historically private institutions have done so. The monopolization of "helping people" by governments, on the theory (mistaken--see below) that governments can do it more efficiently, is a fairly recent development.
> "The government" isn't forcing anyone to help people.
Yes, it is. No one has the option of not paying their taxes because they don't agree with what the government is doing with the money. Try that and you will go to jail. That's force. All government laws and policies are backed up by force and the threat of force.
> It's your neighbors, my neighbors, and everyone around and between us choosing to help others.
No, it isn't. What that would look like is not passing laws. What it would look like is you, your neighbors, and everyone else who agreed with you forming a private institution to help others, funded by voluntary contributions.
> You might not agree with it, but that's just life in a democracy.
In other words, you agree that democracy forces some people to pay for things they do not support. Thank you. But you realize, of course, that you are contradicting your earlier statement that the government isn't forcing anyone to help people.
> it sounds like you haven't really thought through your "Everyone go help whoever they think needs it directly" strategy at all.
On the contrary, you are the one who hasn't thought through your position, because, aside from contradicting yourself (see above), you are helping yourself to the extremely implausible (I could say "demonstrably false", but I'll go easy on you for now) claims that (1) democratic processes as they actually exist in our country and others actually do a good job of giving all viewpoints a fair hearing and deciding questions on the merits and not on irrelevant grounds of political expediency or cronyism or... (I could go on and on), and (2) that the government programs that result from these democratic processes actually do what they are ostensibly created to do, and (3) that they do it more efficiently (i.e., with more actual good done per dollar contributed by the people) that private charitable institutions would.
It's precisely because I have thought through these things, and have seen, through both first-hand experience and through looking at the overall performance of government programs in general, that all three of the above claims are false, that I have come to the views I have been expressing.