I ran across a column by David Limbaugh from August called: The Myth of Liberal Compassion which was of course interesting to me, as that’s a big part of what sparked my blog here!
Once you wade through all the ‘Obama this, Obama that, I blame Obama’ noise and B.S., I think David Limbaugh has a point. He basically says that Liberals are seen as compassionate, but when you look at the results of their policies, they are not helping the people they say they do. I agree.
David Limbaugh writes in his article:
At some point, Obama and his fellow liberals need to be judged for the effects of their policies, not the grandiosity of their self-congratulatory rhetoric.
I’d say ALL politicians ‘need to be judged for the effects of their policies, not the grandiosity of their self-congratulatory rhetoric,’ not just liberals and Obama.
Intent matters more than outcomes in politics…It’s unfortunate that they can all use rhetoric and dress up bad results and government failures in big words…and get away with it and not have any significant consequences.
Aside: Sort of the heart of the problem – reading this book LeaderShift which suggests the 3 branches of government only work if a fourth branch exists – informed, actively engaged citizens holding the branches of government to account!
Anyway, It seems clear to me that routing charity and efforts to help those less fortunate through the government is misguided and not the best solution. Once we bureaucratize helping others and create government entities to manage it, private and local charity and efforts are starved out.
Private alternatives are more efficient, more innovative, able to adapt to particular societal changes, able to address individual situations, able to look at whether poverty is caused by misfortune or through consistent bad choices (situations that require different solutions and aid)…Private alternatives require less money/resources and are more effective.
I suggest that we wake up and stop this craziness of thinking that government is a nobler alternative, somehow not prone to human conditions of self interest, greed, bad incentives. I vote for a patchwork of voluntary, private sector organizations who can innovate, require much less in terms of funds compared to government alternatives which invariably become inefficient (you can’t kill anything off, end any programs, so it becomes costlier and costlier, and they stick around even if they stop working well)
This is a topic I’m very interested in – the paradigm says government is good, liberals are compassionate. Private sector is brutal, conservatives are selfish. This leaves no room at all for real solutions to helping people get out of poverty traps and thrive. Calling them lazy and dumb and dependent won’t get you very far either, if you want to change the default mindset and implement alternatives. Right now, any reform or voluntary alternatives that don’t fit the paradigm are ignored/dismissed/overlooked.
Note to David Limbaugh: aren’t you tired of blaming Obama for all problems… Obama this, Obama that. It’s a much bigger problem than one man and started ages ago, before he was born. Right now our paradigm is flawed and needs fixin.’
Compassion and the Free Market 