Gary North (h/t LRC) describes how the left twists the Biblical story of Cain and Abel to support the welfare state.
In the story, Cain murders his innocent brother Abel out of envy of his piety and is questioned about it by God shortly after.
North argues that Cain’s famous reply to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” should not be read to support the idea that people ought to be their brothers’ keepers, as it frequently is.
Cain was only temporizing.
He knew full well where Abel’s murdered body lay, since he’d put it there.
And he knew full well that God knew he’d put it there.
God’ question to Cain was only intended to find out whether Cain was willing to admit what he’d done to Abel.
Cain’s answer really has the opposite meaning from the commonly accepted one.
In this version, a keeper can only “keep” (that is, monitor) someone who is mentally non compos or physically incapacitated.
Since Abel was neither, Cain could not be Abel’s “keeper.”
Cain was perfectly right on this point.
Which was why he made it, since he knew he was perfectly wrong on everything else.
Reading Cain’s reply this way, anyone who is someone’s “keeper” is obliged to “monitor” them.
The “kept” ones necessarily lose their physical and moral freedom, since they no longer have full responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
Having full responsibility for the consequences of your actions is roughly what it means to be a legal adult.
Obviously, if other people have to foot the bill for your actions, they are going to watch your actions very closely.
The bill could run up steeply, otherwise.
And that is just what happens when the government (as proxy for the the public) is obliged to provide for its citizens (that is, for everyone).
The bill runs up.
To stop that happening, ostensibly, the government tightens the screws.
When everyone (as the government) monitors everyone (as the public), the results are pretty much what you have in the US, the UK, Europe, and many other countries following the same dysfunctional model of nationhood – a top-heavy bureaucratic police-state, with endless, infinite surveillance.