"Compassion" and the New Democrat

[Peter Kilander]

This is sorta interesting except for Kaus's pathetic attempt to rationalize
welfare reform, or as his team named it, "The Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconcilliation Act." Shouldn't he know that shredding the
safety net hurts the father working 50 hours a week in a roundabout way?
Conversely, "demogrants" would help bolster workers' bargaining power.
Another example of a blindspot when it comes to class war, something that
Doug had so eloquently refered to recently, no?
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New York Times Op-Ed 6/24/99

Compassion, the Political Liability

          By MICKEY KAUS

          LOS ANGELES -- Has compassion
              become a Republican virtue? Seems
          like it.

          George W. Bush, in his Presidential
          campaign kickoff speech, positively
          wallowed in the stuff, not only
          calling for "compassionate
          conservatism" but also declaring his
          intention "to rally [the] armies of
          compassion," to show "mercy," to "take
          the side of charities and churches."
          Governor Bush's compassion play
          annoyed his competitors, softened his
          image, distanced him from the
          Republican Congress and was generally
          applauded in the press.

          This is great news for Democrats.
          Compassion is a miserable basis for
          American politics. It was a bad idea
          when liberals were selling it, and
          it's no less bad now that
          conservatives are embracing it. It has
          at least three defects.

          First, it's inegalitarian, carrying
          the condescending implication of
          charity, of inferiority and
          helplessness on the part of those on
          its receiving end. Governor Bush makes
          this explicit by citing as examples of
          compassion charities that run
          drug-treatment programs and "prison
          ministries." There is every indication
          that Governor Bush, like his father,
          really is animated by this philosophy
          of noblesse oblige.

          People should, of course, feel
          compassion for those who have fallen
          on hard times and can't help
          themselves. But the relation of
          charitable giver and recipient is not
          the relation of free and equal
          citizens. The demeaning aspect of
          charitable compassion is one reason
          pre-New Deal union officials talked of
          "rescuing" their members "from
          demoralization at the hands of
          sentimental almsgivers."

          On the left, an emphasis on compassion
          has been a sure sign of what the
          historian Sean Wilentz calls
          "shmiberalism" -- an ideology whose
          adherents "assume that the poor and
          powerless are the abject, pitiable
          victims of other people."
          Shmiberalism, he says, "appeals to
          people's compassion rather than to
          their interests."

          Second, the sentiment of compassion
          tends to override traditional, and
          sensible, moral distinctions that
          should govern policy. Mr. Bush's
          charities have compassion for a young
          father who works 50 hours a week yet
          gets paid only $14,000. But they also
          have compassion for an indolent drug
          addict or a prisoner.

          Compassion politics makes no
          distinction between these cases, which
          is why -- in the hands of Democrats,
          and not a few Republicans -- it has
          tended to promote generalized aid
          programs that shower cash (in the form
          of food stamps, welfare or the old
          holy grail of a guaranteed annual
          income) indiscriminately on the "less
          fortunate" and "disadvantaged."

          Obviously, though, the working father
          and the indolent drug addict are
          fundamentally different and should be
          treated differently. The worker is an
          upstanding citizen who doesn't deserve
          to be lumped in with crackheads.
          That's one reason we've just gone
          through a revolution in welfare policy
          that's explicitly designed to separate
          the deserving, working poor from those
          nonworkers on welfare (and to move as
          many people as possible from the
          latter category to the former).

          Third, because it appeals to
          essentially charitable impulses,
          compassion politics is fragile. If
          citizens believe the Government is
          engaged in a big United Way drive,
          they'll give generously when times are
          good. But they will stop giving when
          they feel pinched themselves.

          You didn't catch Franklin Roosevelt
          mooning on about compassion. Liberals
          fervently embraced compassion only in
          their senescent, comic-book phase, in
          the 1970's and 80's -- a period in
          which they were repudiated by the
          voters as impractical mush-heads.

          It was during this era that George
          McGovern proposed a "demogrant," which
          would have guaranteed $1,000 a year
          for workers and shirkers alike. Ted
          Kennedy said, "The work of compassion
          must continue." Mario Cuomo defined
          Democrats as those who "look beyond
          our own welfare" and "reach down to
          those at the bottom of the ladder and
          help them up, if only a rung or two."
          None of these men made it anywhere
          near the White House.

          Democrats came back into the nation's
          good graces only when they found a
          standard-bearer who implicitly
          abandoned compassion politics by
          promising to "end welfare as we know
          it" -- and who then, unaccountably,
          kept that promise.

          So it should be heartening for
          Democrats to hear Governor Bush flaunt
          his compassion as a "noble calling --
          the calling of a nation where the
          strong are just and the weak are
          valued."

          Could he have handed Democrats a
          clearer definition of social
          inequality? According to Governor
          Bush, there are some people (let's
          call them "the rich") who, like him,
          are "strong." Then there are other
          people (let's call them "the nonrich")
          who have the privilege of being
          "valued" by people like Mr. Bush. Take
          it away, James Carville!

          Certainly, attacking the snobbery
          within Governor Bush's compassion is a
          smarter Democratic tactic than trying
          to link him with harder-edged
          Congressional conservatives like
          Representative Tom DeLay of Texas. The
          voters will know that Mr. Bush isn't
          Tom DeLay.

          Which is why it was equally cheering
          to see Vice President Al Gore, in his
          campaign kickoff speech, react against
          Mr. Bush's preening virtue by scorning
          "the crumbs of compassion." Good line!

          Was it just rhetoric? Maybe. But Mr.
          Gore now has an incentive to find a
          new, noncompassionate vocabulary for
          his Government activism. For example,
          he can frame the reform of Government
          programs -- most obviously Social
          Security and Medicare -- as a
          strengthening of institutions created
          by proud, free working citizens for
          themselves, not gifted to the grateful
          masses by Bushian Brahmins. Something
          along the lines of: "Medicare is not
          charity, Mr. Bush. Neither is the
          minimum wage."

          So the Republicans now have
          compassion? They can keep it.

          Mickey Kaus, author of ``The End of
          Equality,'' is the editor of
          Kausfiles.com.