... Compassion from the Right

Here's the typical stereotype: The left is compassionate, the right is greedy and only cares about themselves.

I don't buy that. I believe that only the right is truly compassionate. I believe that the left may WANT to be compassionate, may seek compassion as a value first and foremost. But I believe that their methods produce more bondage, more greed and less real results for those in need.

There is no doubt that there are times people need just a "hand up". Reagan talked much of a safety net. And going back to the time of the Great Depression, we bought into a system that said that this was government's role.

My argument is that government is the LAST place this compassion should come from.

I believe government compassion will ALWAYS become twisted. While some may care about the people they are helping and serving, in reality, human nature says that greed will always become a factor.

I've worked in the dispensing side of a state's Human Services department. They had no interest in seeing people freed from poverty and government assistance. They wanted to see MORE if anything.

In addition, the idea of government assistance is confiscatory and unfair. There are winners and losers. It's government playing Robin Hood. But since it's government, it's faith neutral so there is no moral safeguard.

Why should government be allowed to take from me and give to someone else? Isn't that the kind of policy that drove the Colonists to rebel in the first place?

The foundation of governmental taxation has a purpose. All are levied to provide services all can take advantage of. Roads, fire, police, sewer, recreation facilities, these are things that enhance the community at large, provide more economic opportunities.

To be honest, there has been a lot of talk that the "Great Society" program actually DID have a civic purpose. In the mid-60s our cities were burning. The violence was astounding.

Stupid civic policy led to enclaves of poverty and racial inequity. These became enclaves of violence. Many students of the time have recorded conversations by both left and right that set up the social programs as a firebreak.

Once in place, these policies couldn't be moved for fear of igniting the violence again. The Great Society was more a tranquilizing drug than therapy for poverty.

Never mind many of the programs caused dramatically more ravaging of the social structure. Much has been made that forced integration killed both white AND black neighborhoods. That equal opportunity put a stigma on the black march to equity. That Aid to Families with Dependant Children has bred generational bastardy. Fathers had no reason to stay around.

The Great Society gutted American cities and urban black communities. The moral and ethical ground was nearly permanently poisoned and salted over. Not much can grow there.

Real compassion wouldn't have been a quick fix. It never is. We want quick fixes as a society. Conservatives have a tough sell with the truth that low taxation and requiring responsibility is a far better long-term solution.

But that is the solution. Work is the only way forward. Yes, logjams must be broken and only government can do that. But once those logjams are broken, government must get out of the way. He which governs least governs best.

Real compassion isn't a quick band-aid. It isn't feel good. It's facing the tough truths courageously. The vast middle of our country needs to hear this again and again. They've bought the pablum that only the left cares, that the right doesn't.

The right cares and the right knows that real change is slow, but effective. That the left's fast-change is a forever lock into poverty.

Oh yes, and a forever lock to the people watering at the trough of easy money. These people are miserable, but the little that they have they owe to the left. They become a powerful message and a powerful vote. And we evil right-wingers (who truly care and weep over the situation) are demonized effectively again and again.

D--