It’s not the “welfare abuse”. It’s the inevitable and predictable demoralizing, detrimental and corrupting to human spirit effect of welfare.
What is “it”? Is “it” supposed to be the rationale against social welfare?
That would be the “either or” fallacy; it seems to be assuming that you can either provide a social safety net or you can offer people opportunities to improve themselves, but you can’t do both. In fact you can do both, and many social democracies around the world have proven that you can, and have strong social infrastructures along with accessible higher eduction (often free) and robust economies.
That said, there can be elements of welfare programs that are indeed demoralizing and entrapping. The irony of it is that programs are sometimes intentionally made degrading as a deliberate disincentive – it’s supposed to be a feature, not a bug (ask a Republican to explain). It’s also true that the “welfare trap” is a real phenomenon – the situation where you just simply no longer have the resources to participate in society and meaningfully compete for jobs – and that, too, is a policy implementation problem.
There’s a wonderful little movie I saw a year or so ago that might be treading the bounds of hyperbole but it’s emotional and bittersweet. The operative policy question is how to you prevent these kinds of situations?
Republicans/conservatives are definitely less empathetic than Democrats/liberals in that they appear to be less capable of understanding that their own personal experiences are not universal. For example, consider voter ID laws. To them requiring ID is perfectly reasonable because, to them, it’s not that hard to take time off during lunch to get one. Liberals, on the other hand, understand that for many people, due to factors such as limited DMVs with limited hours, coupled with limited transportation options, that it’s not that simple. Or consider how they don’t understand why anyone would complain about Christian prayers at public meetings or events (because they’re Christian and it doesn’t bother them), while a liberal would (even if they are Christian because they understand everybody isn’t). Then there’s Clarence Thomas, who recently talked about how he was the first black student at his school in Savannah, and “rarely did the issue of race come up.” That might have been true for him, but a liberal would not think it was true for everyone.
As is common of the Democrat in his natural habitat, the Internet, he immediately turns discussion of who is more empathetic into who gives away more money. No talk of caring for the sick or helping rebuild after a storm. No mention of soup kitchen attendance or youth sport coaching. In the world of D, empathy is measured in tax dollars.
“Republican” and “Democrat” describe political parties. That makes the discussion inherently about politics and policy, and that is indeed closely related to how governments spend money and what they spend it on. Whether, for instance, they spend it on subsidizing education, improving health care, or helping to lift the poor out of poverty, or whether they prefer to spend it on subsidies for oil companies and tax cuts for their owners.
Broad-brush arguments of the kind I just made can always be undermined with specific counter-examples which is why I generally dislike them, but it does contain strong elements of truth. Anybody who truly cared about the sick (your example) would have instituted universal health care long ago, instead of blocking every kind of health care reform at every turn, campaigning against Medicare, and most recently engaging in the mind-boggling gambit of refusing free federal money for expanded Medicaid.
Except this sort of thinking treats the economy as a static environment where some mythical entity just magically creates jobs. There are actual non-crazy non-asshole rationales for reducing welfare and unemployment benefits. The economic theory behind reducing unemployment benefits is that any sort of welfare creates a moral hazard. People won’t take a job they feel is beneath them if they don’t have to. And the taxes used to pay for those entitlements is a drain on the economy.
But there are also non-crazy, non-lazy fuckup reasons for having social safety nets as well.
The thing is. When I talk to off the street Republicans and conservatives (i.e. people I know in my social circles or through their postings online), there does seem to be a lack of empathy, almost bordering on an intense anger. It’s like they are so enamored by power and authority that any form of weakness disgusts them.
Dems have more women. Women care about stuff like healthcare, the environment, childcare, etc. So if you want to go with the Leave it to Beaver era sexual politics you can say the Dems are more empathic by default thanks to all the estrogen.
I’d like to see an actual empathy study. I’d expect homologous groups to be more similar to each other than those in the rest of their party, e.g. elites on either side to score very low, religious on both sides to score high, secular lower. One difference that would push libs up would be hippies. Pubs don’t really have an analogous group. Quakers, maybe? Not too numerous though.
This is the biggest difference I notice. Conservatives will be against or not care about an issue until it becomes relevant to their own lives, then all the sudden it’s a huge deal and they start talking like a bleeding heart.
One split you can see is in how each side uses propaganda for overseas adventures. Libs are all oh no, those poor people! We have to bomb and invade them to help them. Think of the girls going to school! For conservatives it’s all about shows of force, not being weak, basically the Green Lantern theory. I don’t know if this is an actual difference though. Could just be how each group prefers to see itself.
A good example of this are Republicans that have a gay child supporting gay marriage.
And the Democratic men? Same reason.
Not to hijack, but it does strike me as funny that both the conservatives and liberals want to basically take something away from a large group because a small minority misuse that privilege/right.
(welfare for Conservatives, guns for Liberals).
Consider former VP Dick Cheney and Senator Rob Portman, two conservatives took positions against their party line on gay rights but not until after they found out they had kids who were gay.
If you don’t care about the people your policies hurt until someone in your own family is affected, that’s a failure of empathy.
That’s alright, but the ones that make them talk like commies are when they or someone in their family has a medical problem and they get red pilled on the nature of their plan or the company tries to stonewall/cut them off and bankrupts them. Or when they get laid off from their hitherto comfortable and seemingly secure job and can’t find another one.
edit: Or when they’re against the evil of abortions, except for their daughter. But that’s more like the gay kid thing.
P. J. O’Rourke said it best:
"I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.
God is an elderly, or at any rate, middle-aged, male. A stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal, and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds man strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of others. He is politically connected, socially powerful, and holds the mortgage on everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club.
Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. He’s non-threatening. He’s always cheerful. He loves animals. He knows who’s been naughty and nice, but never does anything about it. He gives every one everything they want, without a thought of quid pro quo. He works hard for charity and is famously generous to the poor.
Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: there is no such thing as Santa Claus!