Reeder:
Do you have some fixation with me or something? I haven’t even posted on this thread, except right now. [blush]I’m begining to think that maybe you’re in love with me.[/blush]
And how, exactly, is it considered comapsionate to take money from one person and give it to another? The government cannot be comasionate, only individuals can.
Having said that, it really should be noted that Compasionate Conservatisn is just a marketing ploy. You know, just like New Democrat.
I’ve enjoyed the exchange too…and I do know what you mean. You should probably take most of my political posts with a few grains of salt. I’m naturally hyperbolic and maybe a little too sarcastic at times.
Also, I find a lot of your posts quite funny (when you’re trying to be funny, I mean, I’m not being sarcastic). I think we have somewhat the same sense of humor. I’m sure I could have a beer with you. I drink with my brother-in-law and he’s way more conservative than you are. 
Disagree. Organizations can certainly be compassionate; just look at groups like Habitat for Humanity, or most well-meaning churches or synagogues.
If an individual can be compassionate, a group of individuals can also be as well. And since a government is also a group of people, it can be as compassionate as the members choose to be. QED.
OK, I was a bit sloppy with my earlier statement. But I’d like to draw a big distinction between an individual who voluntarily gives of his own time and/or money to help a fellow human being and the actions of a government agency that doles out other people’s money.
I’d also like to challenge the premise that Bush, as president of the US, should be concerned with social welfare issues. Those issues are best dealt with at the local (state, county, city) level, and I cannot see any reason that the feds should be involved. Of course that is counter to decades of what has actually happened in this country, so I realize that it’s a non-mainstream view. And Bush himself invites such criticism by coining the phrase in the first place.
Exactly. When I donate my effort and my money to needy people, that’s compassion. When I donate rjung’s time and money, by force of law, that’s a policy choice, not compassion.
There are several problems endemic to government social programs:[ul][li]Some have unforseen adverse consequences. E.g., the welfare system contributed to breaking up families, because of the rule about having a man in the house. Welfare also encouraged out-of-wedlock births, since a welfare recipient could “get a raise” by having another baby.[]Some programs support middle-class administrators to a greater degree than they support poor and needy. []Some program recipients are richer than those contributing, on average. E.g., the elderly, who receive Social Security and Medicare are less needy than the average working person paying into the system.[]Social programs tend to expand over time, because those who benefit from the program lobby that way. ISTM that the richer recipients generally do a better job of lobbying to maintain their goodies. [/li]
E.g., AARP successfully lobbied that adding prescription drug coverage to Medicare be done for non-needy recipients, as well as the needy ones. []Government employees are terrific at maintaining government programs in a way that suits them, even if their needs are different from the needs of the program’s beneficiaries. E.g., there’s an effort to change Head Start so that the children would achieve a higher degree of literacy. Head Start employees have successfully prevented these changes from being made.[/ul]
The Salvation Army takes money donated from other people and doles it out as they see fit. What’s the difference?
(Granted, the Salvation Army’s donations are voluntary, while the government’s is not. But you can change how the government spends its money through elections, lobbying, and what-have-you, so it all evens out)
And I find it typically hypocritical that conservatives who denounce government welfare for individuals have no qualms with government welfare for corporations, such as the Agriculture Department’s Market Access Program (which reimburses food exporters for the cost of shipping and marketing in foreign markets) or the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (where the government uses taxpayer money to finance companies’ investments in developing countries).
Or maybe that’s what “compassionate conservatism” is really all about – “Sorry we can’t help you, but now there’s a girl in Malaysia who’s working in a sweatshop for $4 a day because of the OPIC.”
I hope that part wasn’t directed at me, as I’m neither a conservative nor do I support any type of corporate wealfare.
Nah, I was poking at december’s reply, but decided to leave it open-ended instead.
Diogenes
Scylla
Well, this article suggests that the rising inequality may be due to the following factors (sections copied and numbered by me for an easier overview):
Essentially college attendance rates have fallen (likely due to their increased costs) which has created a shortage of skilled employees. The greater number of unskilled workers both domestic and immigrants has placed a downward pressure on low skilled employment wages. Combined with lowered import costs (which puts more pressure on products created w/unskilled labor in the US), less union participation, and new technologies (which are minimizing the need for unskilled labor in the US) and you end up with wages which have stagnated for unskilled workers.
So how do we fix that? Well, perhaps one way would be to address the reasons underlying rising college costs. If costs raises can be lowered and identified then perhaps a greater percentage of the population will opt for secondary education which will drastically increase their lifetime earning potential. The other methods which immediately come to mind, though probably effective to a degree, probably aren’t very popular (i.e. extra tariffs, stricter immigration laws, etc.).
It seems that rise in wage inequality has been largely due to structural changes in the economy which have disproportionately affected low income workers.
This article presents some reasons why college costs have increased as much as they have.
Hmmm… just thinking out loud about some of the things raised by that article regarding the rising costs of college. Perhaps a new sort of college is due, one which maintains high education standards while cutting optional, but expensive amenities. Would it be possible to provide a high quality secondary education while keeping prices low if dorm/college amenities, optional classes, teacher research, etc. were cut?
Currently colleges are trying to be all things to all people. Lots of services, programs, support staff, extracurricular activities, etc. etc. for practically any field of interest a potential student may have. If a college narrowed and focused it’s efforts on specific degree programs and eliminated nice-to-have-but-not-essential services and programs how affordable could it be made?
So, are we fellow citizens, countrymen, or just a random set of particpants in a very large Monopoly game? Is the man next to me my brother, or just another rat racer, a competitor for zero-sum cheese?
Friend Scylla frets about the oppressed:
Robbed of what? Beyond creature comforts and the well being of one’s children, what is there to be robbed of?
And perhaps it is true that if we ameliorate poverty to the point where it has no component of misery, we deprive the poor of motivation. Truly, they are even less likely to exhibit the brisk entreprenuerial spirit that we are constantly assured is the very core of Americanism.
We also deprive them of the motivation to cook books and hire lawyers to screw thier neighbors. The motivation to choose one’s life work according to how much money it will enable you to grasp. The motivation to think of sly skullduggery as an admirable skill, even a virtue.
And to reflect the words of the great social theoritician, Woody Guthrie, isn’t this “our land”? Its air, its waters, its natural resource, ours? At bottom, isn’t it rightly held in common, for the benefit of us, the people? Who own it, after all?
Do we really believe that our highest natures are reflected when a two-year-old siezes a toy and shouts “MINE!”?
But I am a compassionate man as well, I realize there are those whose natures compel them to rack up more points on the pinball machine than the next guy, just because. We can make allowances for such as these. So long as a decent level of existence is available for the least of us, there is very little to struggle over. Perhaps in the future they will serve as moral examples, to be pointed out sternly to surly children like our forefathers pointed out the local drunkard.
“See there, child! There goes the village greed-freak!”
You left something out. You should have said:
“Sorry we can’t help you, but now there’s a girl in Malaysia who’s working in a sweatshop for $4 a day instead of $2 a day because of the OPIC.”
Elucidator:
You really not to drop the Ellsworth Toohey imitation. Can you translate your post into English for us left-thinking-challenged types?
The private citizens of the US gave over $180B dollars to charity in 2002 according to The American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC) Trust for Philanthropy. If I had the time, I’d look up how much of our tax dollars go to social welfare, but I’m sure it’s in the 100s of Billions as well (Fed, State and Local).
Perhaps the money needs to be better managed, but I cannot believe there isn’t enough being spent (or wasted). So what was your point, exactly??
Got no idea who Ellsworth Toohey is, but I’m just gonna assume I’ve been dissed. Given the tone of the post, and the source, seems like a good bet. In that light, your subsequent request that I dumb-down my views is probably less than sincere. So I can safely refuse without being churlish.
Can you translate “you really not to drop” for the benefit of the English majors?
That’s a dishonest strawman, Rjung. Conservatives don’t oppose welfare for individuals… they worry about making people dependent on welfare. It’s sad that you automatically assume the worst about those that hold what is, ultimately, a negligibly different point of view.
No offense meant witht his, 'Lucy, but I think he’s saying “Just the facts, ma’am.” You have a habit of excessive eloquence that borders on windbaggery, with the occasional result being a difficulty of finding your point 'mongst the playfully and cleverly orchestrated sentence structures.
Hope you take that as constructive criticism.
You worry about making people dependent on welfare, yet not about making them dependent on employment. How many people do you know that are one pink slip away from having thier lives torpedoed? How many would take a stab at this “entreprenuership” if they were not cravenly afraid of losing thier children’s health insurance?
Work that is willing has dignity. Work out of fear is slavery with a spot of lipstick and perfume to cover the stench.
Well, hell, Spoofe if you insist.
"EAT THE RICH! RULING CLASS TO THE WALL!"
Better?
As a registered Republican, I must say that the catch-phrase “compassionate conservative” irritates me to no end. As somebody mentioned earlier, it’s a marketing ploy, just like “New Democrat”.
I don’t like this phrase because it seems to indicate (and inadvertently lend credence to the notion commonly held by liberals) that compassion is abnormal for conservatives. The fallacy of this phrase is that it’s just a marketing catch-phrase, like so many others thrown out by politicians on both sides of the aisle. The bigger fallacy is the notion that liberals have a monopoly on compassion.
I say that Bush coining this phrase to describe himself is a mistake that has the potential to come back and bite him in the butt. By using it, he is trying to paint a “kindler, gentler” picture of himself, but perhaps he didn’t realize that using this phrase tends to vilify his own political party in general, at the same time. I think he needs to drop the damn phrase altogether.
As for compassion… Disregarding the extreme wackos found on both sides, I’d say that both conservatives and liberals want to reach many of the same goals regarding the well-being of the citizenry – they have definite differences are on how to achieve it. However, neither conservatives nor liberals have a monopoly on “compassion”.
It’s so much easier when people answer their own questions, isn’t it?
In addition, another difference is that smaller organizations like the SA are more likely to use their donations more efficiently. Face it, government programs have become so bloated (and I’m not talking just social engineering programs – I mean all of them), I’m rather curious as to how much of every tax dollar goes to actually achieving the purpose of each govt. program.
When I spend my money on helping somebody, I’d much rather have a choice as to how it’s spent, and I’d like to know that most of it is actually getting to the people it’s intended to help. So I have to agree with John Mace’s drawing the distinction between the individual (choosing where his own money is spent) and the government (happily spending other people’s money).
Not on an individual basis, you can’t. If I don’t like how the Salvation Army chooses to help people, I stop donating to them and I find another organization whose choices I agree with. Can’t just decide to stop paying the IRS when I don’t like the way my government is spending my tax money, now can I?
And to an earlier question, the Good Samaritan was definitely a good guy. He was compassionate with his own money, time, and resources. He made an individual choice to be so, and that has nothing to do with political parties or governments. Any individual who does the same with their own time and money deserves the label “compassionate”, regardless of political affiliation.