The Hypocrisy of Political Compassion
We hear a lot today in our society about compassion. It's on the lips of every politician, every layman; yet, so often, we mess compassion up. We end up helping one group at the expense of another, or hurting the population as a whole with a measure or policy that, on the surface, seems to be very meritorious in its stated goals. So why do we keep repeating our mistakes in this area?
It seems that no action, however invasive, is too egregious to be undertaken when performed under the auspices of charity. Policies that would be considered serious threats to personal freedoms under any other circumstances are tolerated, even praised, when embarked upon in the name of altruism. The offences come from both sides of the political spectrum.
It seems that no action, however invasive, is too egregious to be undertaken when performed under the auspices of charity. Policies that would be considered serious threats to personal freedoms under any other circumstances are tolerated, even praised, when embarked upon in the name of altruism. The offences come from both sides of the political spectrum.
Capitalism on the Left
Anyone who can bear to listen to the rhetoric from those on the left of the political spectrum will quickly deduce how they plan to improve the state of things in society. Their solution is found in government itself. If we could just give people enough housing, money, food, training, health care, etc., we would provide an environment in which all the ills of society would be cured. Poverty, disease, discrimination, and unemployment would all cease to exist. In effect, they would have the government run an end all, be all charity that would provide anyone with the tools they need to eliminate whatever undesirable condition they might find themselves in.
Therefore, they are willing to undertake any number of measures that are, admittedly-even by those who promote them-anti-capitalistic. Freedom is not as important, they say, as equality; opportunity not to be as highly regarded as fairness. However, given their tendencies in matters of public policy, it is interesting to see how they conduct themselves in private matters.
One of the most obvious instances of this charitable bent by the left is their alignment with labor unions who promise to achieve fair and uniform wages and working conditions for employees. Another is their aversion to using immigrant labor in production. This is looked down upon by the left as 'exploitation'- certainly not a charitable end. However, when Nancy Pelosi went into business as a winemaker, she hired a staff dominated by migrants (all of whom, we assume, are, of course, legal) to work in her vineyards. She then promptly barred them from unionizing.
If immigrant labor is exploitation, and unions help workers and our economy by ensuring fair wages and working conditions, why would Pelosi not hire all 'native' Americans working under the protection of a union? It's because she understands the tenets of capitalism. She knows that running a business in the most efficient manner possible (keeping costs-including the costs of labor-down) leads to accumulation of capital and wealth. She also knows that producing goods as cheaply as possible leads to lower prices for consumers and therefore a higher standard of living for the population in general.
When Pelosi, along with her friends in the newly-elected congressional majorities in the House and Senate, worked to push through a bill raising the minimum wage by 40% over the next three years, a curious exception was put into the bill. The American Samoan Islands, a U.S. territory normally subject to U.S. federal law, was exempted from the mandatory minimum wage increases. It seems that the owners of StarKist Tuna, a subsidiary of DelMonte Foods operating a large tuna-packing plant in the Somoan Islands, whose headquarters are in Pelosi's San Fransisco-area district, were afraid that the increased cost of labor resulting from the mandatory wage hikes would be bad for business. They were able to prevail upon Pelosi to put the provision into the bill that would exempt them from the new requirements.
So why would Pelosi and her friends on the left enact a law for the good of the whole country that was not good enough for businesses headquartered in her own district? Pelosi knows that the minimum wage increase will hurt businesses, and she did not want to get on the bad side of some of her more prominent constituents. She knows what we all know, that the hike will lead to higher prices for goods, less products on the market, and unemployment- or a combination of all three.
Hillary Clinton rose to prominence in Arkansas as one of the most successful lawyers in the state. How was she able to do so? Capitalism. It turns out that the services of lawyers are in high demand. Therefore the price paid for their time is quite high, making a nice salary for those in the profession. Clinton was able to make enough as a lawyer to begin investing in commodities, later making enough money off of the trades to draw the attention of investigators. What was she doing in the commodities market? Risking her own capital in an attempt to bring resources from a place where they were less valued, to a market where they would be more valuable in hopes of being rewarded with profits for doing so- a classic practice of capitalism used by entrepreneurs everywhere.
Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards and any number of other prominent politicians from the left all have this one thing in common: they have come to considerable wealth through free-market capitalism. If capitalism, when applied to their own private lives, has been so instrumental in allowing them to obtain the means and status necessary to run for high public office, why do they insist on promoting policies in direct opposition to these principles in their public roles as politicians? The error seems even the more egregious when one considers the fact that their influence and position give them a much better platform from which to promote the ideas that have made them so successful and that would allow the whole of the public access to that same system.
The reason is very simple. Political power is more important to them than the well-being of people. They know that enough people will agree with them that it puts anyone promoting the ideas of fairness and equality above all else within reach of election. They blatantly pander to that portion of the electorate that will take heart in their anti-capitalistic sophistry. Their great hypocrisy is that they know from personal experience that capitalism works to bring people great wealth and opportunity better than any other system of political economy, yet they continue to promote policies and practices that will be direct hindrances to these ends.
Therefore, they are willing to undertake any number of measures that are, admittedly-even by those who promote them-anti-capitalistic. Freedom is not as important, they say, as equality; opportunity not to be as highly regarded as fairness. However, given their tendencies in matters of public policy, it is interesting to see how they conduct themselves in private matters.
One of the most obvious instances of this charitable bent by the left is their alignment with labor unions who promise to achieve fair and uniform wages and working conditions for employees. Another is their aversion to using immigrant labor in production. This is looked down upon by the left as 'exploitation'- certainly not a charitable end. However, when Nancy Pelosi went into business as a winemaker, she hired a staff dominated by migrants (all of whom, we assume, are, of course, legal) to work in her vineyards. She then promptly barred them from unionizing.
If immigrant labor is exploitation, and unions help workers and our economy by ensuring fair wages and working conditions, why would Pelosi not hire all 'native' Americans working under the protection of a union? It's because she understands the tenets of capitalism. She knows that running a business in the most efficient manner possible (keeping costs-including the costs of labor-down) leads to accumulation of capital and wealth. She also knows that producing goods as cheaply as possible leads to lower prices for consumers and therefore a higher standard of living for the population in general.
When Pelosi, along with her friends in the newly-elected congressional majorities in the House and Senate, worked to push through a bill raising the minimum wage by 40% over the next three years, a curious exception was put into the bill. The American Samoan Islands, a U.S. territory normally subject to U.S. federal law, was exempted from the mandatory minimum wage increases. It seems that the owners of StarKist Tuna, a subsidiary of DelMonte Foods operating a large tuna-packing plant in the Somoan Islands, whose headquarters are in Pelosi's San Fransisco-area district, were afraid that the increased cost of labor resulting from the mandatory wage hikes would be bad for business. They were able to prevail upon Pelosi to put the provision into the bill that would exempt them from the new requirements.
So why would Pelosi and her friends on the left enact a law for the good of the whole country that was not good enough for businesses headquartered in her own district? Pelosi knows that the minimum wage increase will hurt businesses, and she did not want to get on the bad side of some of her more prominent constituents. She knows what we all know, that the hike will lead to higher prices for goods, less products on the market, and unemployment- or a combination of all three.
Hillary Clinton rose to prominence in Arkansas as one of the most successful lawyers in the state. How was she able to do so? Capitalism. It turns out that the services of lawyers are in high demand. Therefore the price paid for their time is quite high, making a nice salary for those in the profession. Clinton was able to make enough as a lawyer to begin investing in commodities, later making enough money off of the trades to draw the attention of investigators. What was she doing in the commodities market? Risking her own capital in an attempt to bring resources from a place where they were less valued, to a market where they would be more valuable in hopes of being rewarded with profits for doing so- a classic practice of capitalism used by entrepreneurs everywhere.
Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards and any number of other prominent politicians from the left all have this one thing in common: they have come to considerable wealth through free-market capitalism. If capitalism, when applied to their own private lives, has been so instrumental in allowing them to obtain the means and status necessary to run for high public office, why do they insist on promoting policies in direct opposition to these principles in their public roles as politicians? The error seems even the more egregious when one considers the fact that their influence and position give them a much better platform from which to promote the ideas that have made them so successful and that would allow the whole of the public access to that same system.
The reason is very simple. Political power is more important to them than the well-being of people. They know that enough people will agree with them that it puts anyone promoting the ideas of fairness and equality above all else within reach of election. They blatantly pander to that portion of the electorate that will take heart in their anti-capitalistic sophistry. Their great hypocrisy is that they know from personal experience that capitalism works to bring people great wealth and opportunity better than any other system of political economy, yet they continue to promote policies and practices that will be direct hindrances to these ends.
Bleeding Hearts on the Right
In the same manner, anyone strong enough to listen to the disquisitions from the right for any length of time will likewise quickly divine how they propose to remedy all the maladies that beset us. The solutions, they say, are to be found in private enterprise and freedom of association, and the right often does half-heartedly pursue these interests in their public policy decisions on some issues. However, it is interesting to see how far they will trample onto these same rights in certain areas of discourse.
Fiscal conservatism is a staple in the doctrine of the right. They banter about the excess and waste of big government and all the needless programs pushed upon us by the left, and claim to favor a smaller government that will spend less of the people's money. But in some instances, they are just as bad as any in the area of excess and waste, and, ultimately, wind up injuring the public just as bad as their counterparts on the left. Vice squads and drug prohibition are two examples.
Prostitution is a practice as old as time and, insofar as it is entered into voluntarily by consenting adults, is a victimless crime. But the compassionate conservatives don't see it that way. They see it as their job to protect communities, as well as the would-be participants, from the dangers and evils resulting from this type of vice. So every night we pay officers to spend hour upon hour in strip-clubs making sure that no dancer (who we assume is employed voluntarily) dances too close to a paying customer-buying drinks and dances themselves, no doubt, the whole time, in order to maintain their cover. Every weekend we see the elaborate undercover operations to arrest tricks and johns at incredible expense to the public, only to see the same women and men hooking up at the same street corner a week later.
Not only is this incredibly wasteful, but it's injurious. How many homicide detectives could be put on the street to solve and prevent murders with the money needlessly spent in a strip club, adding to the coffers of the very establishments they claim to be protecting us from? How many rapists could be tracked down before they reach their next victim with the money spent on undercover 'sting' operations on prostitutes and their customers?
But this doesn't happen. Murders are committed that could have been prevented; others are left unsolved, leaving the perpetrators free to strike again. Rapes are committed that need not be tolerated and rapists are left on the street, free to terrorize neighborhoods with their violence. Yet those on the right stand in the public square and talk about their desire to 'protect the community'-all with a straight face.
The same holds true for the war on drugs. Any good conservative will tell you that we need to reduce the amount of money we spend on welfare and government programs, but there seems to be no end to the amount of money that would be considered prudent to use in the combat of the drug trade. Of course, the rationalization is that of the public good-a thinly veiled disguise for government charity, a concept the right claims to loathe.
The drug trade is profitable, at least for those at the top of the distribution chain, for a reason. Prohibition makes supply significantly lower than it would be otherwise, and increases the risk associated with distribution, both factors in the high prices the product can bring on the streets of this country.
Those who do take the risk to engage in the trade are highly rewarded, at least as long as they can avoid incarceration. As basic economics teaches us, high profits encourage new entrants into the field in which the are being realized. We should not expect the drug trade to be any different.
The war on drugs sets up drug dealers as the richest people in the ghetto when, otherwise, they would not be. They become a hero, of sorts, to the community. They drive the nicest looking cars, wear the nicest looking clothes and date the nicest looking women. This only encourages young, impressionable, men and women who see no other way out of their poverty-ridden existence to join in and give drug dealing their best shot, hoping that they will be one of the few who succeed at it. As we know, very few do. Most end up incarcerated or dead, leaving orphans and poverty behind them, two of the greatest causes of human suffering known to man.
In the face of these facts, politicians on the right continue to run campaigns for office, promising to clamp down even further on vice and the drug trade. So why do they persist in promoting policies in the name of the public good that have been shown to be either useless or downright detrimental to the goal of reducing human suffering? Once again, it's pandering.
They know they can appeal to bleeding hearts everywhere who will believe that the government has the ability to establish and maintain order and protect the public from such evils. Their great hypocrisy is that they are willing to sell the public on a lie of government as protector of the community when they know it will only, in fact, lead to more suffering. If they can convince enough people that the farce is true, they can lead a comfortable life as a government bureaucrat-society be damned.
We realize that it is not human nature to heap suffering and misery upon people. The actions of those in government, and their supporters in the electorate, are undertaken with good intentions. This question is never about intent-it's about effects. The question that we should really be asking ourselves is, "Is this something that government should even be involved in to start with?" I don't think charity is something the government should involve itself in. It only leads to hypocrisy.
Fiscal conservatism is a staple in the doctrine of the right. They banter about the excess and waste of big government and all the needless programs pushed upon us by the left, and claim to favor a smaller government that will spend less of the people's money. But in some instances, they are just as bad as any in the area of excess and waste, and, ultimately, wind up injuring the public just as bad as their counterparts on the left. Vice squads and drug prohibition are two examples.
Prostitution is a practice as old as time and, insofar as it is entered into voluntarily by consenting adults, is a victimless crime. But the compassionate conservatives don't see it that way. They see it as their job to protect communities, as well as the would-be participants, from the dangers and evils resulting from this type of vice. So every night we pay officers to spend hour upon hour in strip-clubs making sure that no dancer (who we assume is employed voluntarily) dances too close to a paying customer-buying drinks and dances themselves, no doubt, the whole time, in order to maintain their cover. Every weekend we see the elaborate undercover operations to arrest tricks and johns at incredible expense to the public, only to see the same women and men hooking up at the same street corner a week later.
Not only is this incredibly wasteful, but it's injurious. How many homicide detectives could be put on the street to solve and prevent murders with the money needlessly spent in a strip club, adding to the coffers of the very establishments they claim to be protecting us from? How many rapists could be tracked down before they reach their next victim with the money spent on undercover 'sting' operations on prostitutes and their customers?
But this doesn't happen. Murders are committed that could have been prevented; others are left unsolved, leaving the perpetrators free to strike again. Rapes are committed that need not be tolerated and rapists are left on the street, free to terrorize neighborhoods with their violence. Yet those on the right stand in the public square and talk about their desire to 'protect the community'-all with a straight face.
The same holds true for the war on drugs. Any good conservative will tell you that we need to reduce the amount of money we spend on welfare and government programs, but there seems to be no end to the amount of money that would be considered prudent to use in the combat of the drug trade. Of course, the rationalization is that of the public good-a thinly veiled disguise for government charity, a concept the right claims to loathe.
The drug trade is profitable, at least for those at the top of the distribution chain, for a reason. Prohibition makes supply significantly lower than it would be otherwise, and increases the risk associated with distribution, both factors in the high prices the product can bring on the streets of this country.
Those who do take the risk to engage in the trade are highly rewarded, at least as long as they can avoid incarceration. As basic economics teaches us, high profits encourage new entrants into the field in which the are being realized. We should not expect the drug trade to be any different.
The war on drugs sets up drug dealers as the richest people in the ghetto when, otherwise, they would not be. They become a hero, of sorts, to the community. They drive the nicest looking cars, wear the nicest looking clothes and date the nicest looking women. This only encourages young, impressionable, men and women who see no other way out of their poverty-ridden existence to join in and give drug dealing their best shot, hoping that they will be one of the few who succeed at it. As we know, very few do. Most end up incarcerated or dead, leaving orphans and poverty behind them, two of the greatest causes of human suffering known to man.
In the face of these facts, politicians on the right continue to run campaigns for office, promising to clamp down even further on vice and the drug trade. So why do they persist in promoting policies in the name of the public good that have been shown to be either useless or downright detrimental to the goal of reducing human suffering? Once again, it's pandering.
They know they can appeal to bleeding hearts everywhere who will believe that the government has the ability to establish and maintain order and protect the public from such evils. Their great hypocrisy is that they are willing to sell the public on a lie of government as protector of the community when they know it will only, in fact, lead to more suffering. If they can convince enough people that the farce is true, they can lead a comfortable life as a government bureaucrat-society be damned.
We realize that it is not human nature to heap suffering and misery upon people. The actions of those in government, and their supporters in the electorate, are undertaken with good intentions. This question is never about intent-it's about effects. The question that we should really be asking ourselves is, "Is this something that government should even be involved in to start with?" I don't think charity is something the government should involve itself in. It only leads to hypocrisy.
1 comment:
Good points John B. I will discuss further with you later as I am at work. I made a new blog thingy myself at fortworthonmymind.blogspot.com
Peace,
JD
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