Poor poor misunderstood conservatives.

Yeah yeah, I know what I will get with this... "aww, boo hoo, shut up you whiney puke!!". But I'm not really looking for sympathy for my party, more like just trying to show a nuance, to a group who is supposed to be the ones who invented nuance.

A few years ago I was watching some news deal... don't really remember what it was, but the usual talking heads were analyzing Reagan for some reason. Sam Donaldson was on, and had this to say...

(cut/pasted from some site)- Responding to Charlie Gibson’s request for some criticisms of Ronald Reagan, on Friday’s three-hour Good Morning America, Sam Donaldson maintained that “there were two Ronald Reagans.” One, a man who was “friendly, warm, everybody like him, he liked people,” but “then there was Ronald Reagan the ideologue.” Regurgitating an old Reagan-era media cliche, Donaldson argued that if you “were down on your luck,” Reagan “would literally give you the shirt off his back, and then he'd sit down in his undershirt and he'd sign legislation throwing your kids off school lunch program, maybe your parents off Social Security, and of course the Welfare Queen off of welfare."

Now Im not sure if those were the exact words, or if they were gined up a bit by whatever "righty" put it up... but I saw it live, and it IS the general idea. Donaldson, and lots of other leftists, see a huge disconnect between personal generosity & the forced charity of big government.

To me, it's simple- The idea of government exacting a tax from one citizen & giving that money to another, is a pure contrivance. It is an obvious overstepping of federal authority, which MAY have started with good intent, but has, in effect ruined lives & families. While on the other hand, it is admirable to be personally generous, and we as a people are.

But to Sam, the government is an agent of good, a provider for all who need, & a repressor of all who are undeservedly advantaged. The government taketh, and the government giveth away... well, at least some of what it tooketh, the rest it keepeth for thine slush fund. Yeah, I know usually its "giveth" first, and "taketh away" after, but government doesn't produce anything so it has to take first. To him & his like, charity by persons & confiscated/redistributed wealth, are one in the same... And a guy who is personally generous, but politically, is socially conservative, must be some Jekyll & Hyde, bipolar lunatic.

The real mystery is, how can I so easily see his point of view... while he is so flummoxed by the perceived dichotomy of our's, that he had to attribute the behavior to insanity. Why?... Why cant he get, that to a conservative- the government should not take more than it needs, to do what the constitution lets it do. And that we believe individuals & private organizations can take care of charity, and to be better judges of it's need, than government.

To us it's clear, letting government decide who needs charity & how much they need, is folly. Any good that comes of it will be (and has been) outweighed by negative consequences 10 fold. Just take the inherent inefficiency of government... losses to bureaucracy, waste, graft, & so on, mean that getting $1 to a poor family costs $20 (a wild guess, that's probably close), this factor alone makes it a bad idea regardless of it's constitutionality. We see that the redistribution of wealth creates more distinct classes than even extreme economic differences, these being groups that are taxed & groups that are not taxed. The untaxed have little incentive to care what is done with the money, confiscated from the taxed, and will of course vote for any tax increase. This begins a cycle of increasing tax rates, on a decreasing tax base, leading to decreased tax revenue. This cycle only lasts till government runs low on cash, at which point a new type of tax will be levied, to catch all citizens (like the VAT tax being discussed now).

But all that is logistics, costs & losses, just money... and that's not the main reason for avoiding a nanny state. We are prosperous to be sure and very productive, we can truly absorb a bit of state coddling, but the point is, it's just wrong. Subverting the responsibility of the family is wrong. Removing the incentive to strive for a better life is wrong. Subjecting people to degrading requirements to attain a minimal existence, is even wronger. Of course you could just give it away, without demoralizing questions... but then even more fraud would occur. It's wrong to breed apathy, it's wrong to lord an adult's "allowance" over them, till they comply with the interest-de jour, it's wrong to create entire generations of zombies.

We are just human, simple animals really... give us stuff for free, and we take it. I'm sure there are a few of us that can persevere, keep striving, inventing, creating, working hard, even as free crap is shoved into our hands. But in general, we only do what we need to do to get by... and getting by should never be a goal of a society.

Mr. Donaldson, conservatives don't want starving children any more than libs do, we just want their parents to provide for them, not the state. We feel for the homeless guy (well ok, not all of them), like you do... and when we say "get a job" it's not meant to shame him...... oh wait, it is meant to shame him, into trying to find honest work. Government can help us succeed, by getting out of our way, and even letting us learn... from failing.