In a WSJ($) article on the intersection of progressive politics and folk music, Dave Shiflett observes:
"You definitely won't see a Bush sticker here," said Charlie Stagmer, an engineer with CSX Railroad who has been playing old-time fiddle for about 30 years. "We're the caring people, the compassionate people." Mr. Stagmer, whose flowing white hair and beard suggest Moses after the famed encounter with the burning bush, was clearly pleased not to be rubbing shoulders with professing Republicans.
Sigh. With all due deference to the principle against making sweeping generalizations, this is probably what bugs me most about some liberals: smug self- satisfaction in their own moral superiority. If I met Mr. Stagmer, I'd like to ask him whether he feels compassion for the unborn? For those who are out of work because society provides too few incentives for entrepreneurs to create jobs? For people whose lives have been messed up by uncaring and/or incompetent government bureaucrats running ineffectual (or outright harmful) spending programs?
I find it instructive that low-income red states tend to give more to charity than rich blue states, BTW.
In any case, what the heck is so caring and compassionate about liberal policies that invoke the government's monopoly on the use of coercive force to redistribute other people's money? A better use of that monopoly might be to make Marvin Olasky's classic book The Tragedy of American Compassion a required read in our schools. Or maybe Olasky's citizen's guide: Renewing American Compassion: How Compassion for the Needy Can Turn Ordinary Citizens into Heroes. As he compellingly demonstrates, we've tried that approach and it doesn't work.
