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View Full Version : Selfish Compassion: Do liberals really care about the poor?




SilentBull
11-19-2012, 01:27 PM
Here's my latest article, attacking the notion that liberals are compassionate. This is the kind of approach that I believe we need to take when fighting against their demagoguery. Anyone running for office against a democrat would greatly benefit from a strategy that exposes their fake compassion. Share it if you like it.

http://www.truthinexile.com/2012/11/18/selfish-compassion-and-the-war-on-poverty/

Pericles
11-19-2012, 01:34 PM
Of course liberals care about the poor. Why do you think that they create so many of them whenever they can?

AGRP
11-19-2012, 01:35 PM
Statists dont care about the poor. They care about the revenue stream to the poor.

James Madison
11-19-2012, 01:39 PM
No, for the same reason those who advocate for 'Universal Healthcare' aren't in medicine. They're just lazy, and they want the satisfaction of being compassionate without sacrificing their own time and money.

Acala
11-19-2012, 01:41 PM
I think many, if not most, rank and file Democrats actually DO care about the poor and others they see as "downtrodden". The problem is that they want to delgate their compassion and that just doesn't work. Caring for your fellow man is a do-it-yourself job. As soon as you try to delegate it, especially to government, the laudable concern becomes corrupted.

I suggest starting a discussion by recognizing the virtue of compassion in your Democrat friend and only THEN pointing out how and why it doesn't work when they try to get government to do it.

Lucille
11-19-2012, 02:05 PM
No.

"The biggest pests are the people who use altruism as an alibi. What they passionately wish is to make themselves important."
--Isabel Paterson

The Humanitarian with the Guillotine
http://mises.org/daily/2739


But if taxes are to be imposed for relief, who is the judge of what is possible or beneficial? It must be either the producers, the needy, or some third group. To say it shall be all three together is no answer; the verdict must swing upon majority or plurality drawn from one or other group. Are the needy to vote themselves whatever they want? Are the humanitarians, the third group, to vote themselves control of both the producers and the needy? That is what they have done.)

The government is thus supposed to be empowered to give "security" to the needy. It cannot. What it does is to seize the provision made by private persons for their own security, thus depriving everyone of every hope or chance of security. It can do nothing else, if it acts at all. Those who do not understand the nature of the action are like savages who might cut down a tree to get the fruit; they do not think over time and space, as civilized men must think.
[...]
The philanthropist, the politician, and the pimp are inevitably found in alliance because they have the same motives, they seek the same ends, to exist for, through, and by others. And the good people cannot be exonerated for supporting them. Neither can it be believed that the good people are wholly unaware of what actually happens. But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism.

Henry Rogue
11-19-2012, 02:08 PM
I would also make the argument that rejecting sound money in favor of an ever expanding currency hurts the poor by devaluing what little they have and eliminating wealth growth through savings, while allowing the the government to grow at the poors expense.

1836
11-19-2012, 02:13 PM
Here's my latest article, attacking the notion that liberals are compassionate. This is the kind of approach that I believe we need to take when fighting against their demagoguery. Anyone running for office against a democrat would greatly benefit from a strategy that exposes their fake compassion. Share it if you like it.

http://www.truthinexile.com/2012/11/18/selfish-compassion-the-liberal-way/

Nice article, as a fellow writer, two suggestions:

- Narrower focus, you go through a lot of topics and therefore never build a case as much as summarize for those who agree with you already. One detailed example is better than many cursory ones.

- More evidence, you need to throw so much out there that your point about unintended consequence is indisputably valid.

nice site!:)

CaptainAmerica
11-19-2012, 02:25 PM
attack the policy not the people noobs.

The Free Hornet
11-19-2012, 02:39 PM
No, for the same reason those who advocate for 'Universal Healthcare' aren't in medicine. They're just lazy, and they want the satisfaction of being compassionate without sacrificing their own time and money.

Beyond that, there is a group of healthy people whose biggest fear seems to be bankruptcy as they are always saying health care costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy.

They don't mind euthanizing at the age extremes or losing anybody who needed too much medical care. Nor do they weep for the dead due to all the hospitals that closed thanks to 1986's Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.

These illiberal progressives are not likely to need extreme medical care until their children want them dead. I guess they're OK with that for a lifetime of not worrying about a big hospital bill they could just toss in the trash were it too great a burden. Universal Healthcare is the illusion of healthcare just as the TSA is the illusion of security.

BAllen
11-19-2012, 02:39 PM
As long as they're getting that government check, they don't care to listen to you. When that stops, they'll look for alternatives.

fisharmor
11-19-2012, 02:40 PM
attack the policy not the people noobs.

Yeah, that's been going on with redistributionism ever since I can remember.
And ever since I converted to libertarianism, I lose arguments to ad hom attacks and nonsensical shit-chucking.
Not sure attacking the policy is the best approach at this point.

acptulsa
11-20-2012, 12:42 PM
Liberals care about the poor. Some of them actually care more about the poor than they do their arrogant belief that they can micromanage everyone's life better than we can manage our own affairs. Some don't.

But one thing is certain. Government corruption, which is throughout everything government touches, ensures beyond doubt that government can never, ever be as efficient as charity. And no amount of ad hom attacks can change that.

fisharmor
11-20-2012, 01:01 PM
Liberals care about the poor. Some of them actually care more about the poor than they do their arrogant belief that they can micromanage everyone's life better than we can manage our own affairs. Some don't.

Everyone I know who has let a homeless person sleep in his house,
everyone I know who has personally cooked a meal for someone down on his luck,
everyone I know who has driven someone to job interviews,
everyone I know who has helped a 20-year married woman who woke up one day to her husband and all his stuff being missing come to terms with her new life as a divorcee,
everyone I know who has advocated for a parent to CPS,
everyone I know who has adopted a child,

are all either conservatives or libertarians.

The liberals I know - yeah, I do know some who are working within a system. But I don't know any who are personally helping people out. They fall into two categories: the ones that want to do the work and are getting paid poorly for it, and the ones that just want to make sure those people are funded.

Funny, 100 years ago the same structure could be said to have existed within the Church.... just more evidence that there actually is an established religion here.

None of this is scientific, I know. Just my experience.

seraphson
11-20-2012, 01:28 PM
Is filling in the little oval next to the name of a dictator that promises to take care of the poor compassionate?



It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we’re compassionate we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint. - Penn Jillette

SilentBull
11-20-2012, 08:38 PM
Nice article, as a fellow writer, two suggestions:

- Narrower focus, you go through a lot of topics and therefore never build a case as much as summarize for those who agree with you already. One detailed example is better than many cursory ones.

- More evidence, you need to throw so much out there that your point about unintended consequence is indisputably valid.

nice site!:)

Thanks for the feedback. I did end up removing the paragraphs about the minimum wage and the community reinvestment act, since the main point of the article was to question the motive of the "compassionate." And I could do that just fine by sticking with the chart on welfare spending.