Doubtless you could find people of all political persuasions who feel this way. I have some sympathy for it myself, but I'd still rather have idiots spend money on themselves than idiot bureaucrats spend the money supposedly for the benefit of other idiots.

I saw some video with Milton Friedman where he walked through the various permutations of person A spending person's B money on person C, where to begin with A=B=C - you spend your money on yourself, and he slowly increased the distance of A,B, C in knowledge and caring, The farther you got from A=B=C, the less value C got per dollar spent.

But I asked to get liberal opinions in particular because it just doesn't make sense to me, and they may be able to make sense of it without a paternalistic interpretation. Or, they may just endorse paternalism. Either, way, I'd consider it progress in understanding.

One of the best posts recently was a liberal just asking libertarians why they favored what they did. What a great idea. It struck me that we rarely ask; we argue against instead. Thought I'd try something new.