…At Republican conventions they express sympathy for this woman, as they do for those who are entrepreneurial, who start businesses and create jobs and build things. Republicans have, that is, sympathy for taxpayers. But they don’t dwell all that much, or show much expressed sympathy for, the sick mother with the uninsured kids, and the soldier with the shot nerves.
Noonan misses the point. Republicans have as much sympathy for people who are sick, poor or troubled as anyone does. Where Republicans and Democrats differ is in their opinions about how best to help such people. Democrats tend to believe in direct government action as a remedy. Republicans tend to believe that government is often part of the problem, and that better remedies are available through private charity and by pursuing government policies that encourage personal responsibility and economic development.
Noonan is correct, however, that Democrats, particularly national politicians, tend to lack sympathy for entrepreneurs, particularly small-business people who in many areas are victimized by high tax rates and excessive regulation. Government action to reduce such burdens would boost productivity, and therefore wealth, jobs and tax receipts. But Democrats as a group tend to be indifferent or hostile to business people other than those in regulated industries who make large political contributions.
Some of the Democratic “sympathy” is genuine, much of it is fake. I don’t see the Democrats having much genuine sympathy for the generations of kids whose chances have been crippled by dysfunctional public school systems.
Right, David: let us have faith based vouchers and close down all our public schools. Ps: name any state college that does not get federal funds. I believe in a free market but when there are subsidies for many businesses then the market is no longer free. Both parties get lobbied and sup[port and do in fact get influenced by special interest groups. This is the problem with American politics and it is not true of one party only but of both parties, no matter what they may say in public.
Who was the ardent McCain who just solved the health problem? let all those without health coverage go to the emergency rooms and get treated and the govt will pick up the tab!
ah, here it is:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/27/22326/5277/714/576952
see no health crisis and suck on the govt tit
Deaths by war and those by democide are deaths; the latter seem at least as likely to be horrific. The sympathy for those deaths seem somewhat dictated by how we look at the role of government, how proportional our vision is. A powerful nation may be able to have more influence on war than on democide, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be part of any vision of what the world is and what the world should be.
The daily sympathy of a small business proprietor for employees and customers is tough, real, and often altruistic. The sympathy of a social worker is not likely to be any more real, practical, or sympathetic.
Following on Ginny, I would point out that the sympathy that faith-based organizations exhibit in their efforts to go the extra mile to help the poor, alcohol and drug addicts, etc., is that they regard such activities as a “calling,” (which makes them so effective) while government social workers, in the main, exhibit more of a time-clock mentality towards what they all too often see as “just” a job.