May I Have a Word? Compassion
Michael Landauer, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, notes the recent string of bad news and posits a hypothetical worst-case scenario:
"Mom works (for now) for AIG. Dad works (for now) for EDS. Balloon payments are coming due on their leased vehicles, and their adjustable-rate mortgage just reset to a higher rate. And Junior's favorite teacher just got called to the principal's office to talk about the cutbacks at his DISD school."Landauer asks, "What could be worse?" To which Trey Garrison quickly responds, "Bailing mom and dad out." When accused of lacking compassion, Garrison replies, "What's compassionate about treating adults like children who have to be protected from their own decisions?"
I'm a native speaker of English. For me, compassion is not an emotion that needs to be earned. It's not something to be withheld from people who fail to see misfortune coming. Compassion is a word descriptive of the person with compassion, not the person for whom compassion is felt. From American Heritage Dictionary:
"compassion - n. Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it."Garrison's brand of libertarianism preaches that if tragedy befalls you, it's your own fault. For living in the path of a hurricane, or for working for a company that goes bankrupt, or for sending your kids to failing schools, or for not making enough money to be able to move to west Plano. Garrison's attitude is that everyone is on his own. Aid and comfort just begets more need for aid and comfort. That cold-hearted philosophy might or might not be good public policy (I think not), but for sure it's not compassion. Trey Garrison may or may not know the meaning of compassion, but for sure he doesn't show any.
4 comments:
Infantalizing adults and protecting them from the consequences of their own actions is the cruelest thing you can do. There's nothing compassionate about it.
You rob them of self-esteem and accomplishment in fixing their own problems.
You ensure they are unprepared and unequipped to deal with life's challenges.
trey, you see collective action as doing something to people. I see it as people jointly doing something for themselves. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. We could let the dominoes fall until eventually they fall on all of us. Or we could act in concert to restore stability to the economic system we all have to operate in. Your laissez-faire philosophy is not practical nor desired, and it certainly isn't compassionate.
Collective voluntary action is charity. It's great.
Doing it under threat of force is neither charity nor compassion. It is simply force.
You complain you don't want laissez-faire. Fine. I'm not forcing it on you or interfering with your charity. But your plan forces me to participate whether I want to or not.
You don't hold the moral high ground when you're pointing a gun at others.
A state, by definition, has a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its territory. No matter what the state does, it's always holding a gun. That doesn't make all state actions immoral. In particular, it doesn't make it immoral to take collective action to promote the general welfare, especially when it is difficult or impossible to target the benefits of that collective action only towards those who agree to participate.
Post a Comment