"Compassionate" Liberalism?
Misunderstanding the nature of man leads the left horribly astray in every area.
by Rod D. Martin
August 3, 2000
This Republican Convention week, we are all hearing a lot about "compassionate conservatism", and a lot of what we're hearing consists of guffaws from the Left. The Republican nominee's catch-phrase is an oxymoron, we are told, most notably because, in Jesse Jackson's words, "If you say 'leave no American behind,' that must be a budget priority, not just a speech."
Or to put that another way, if you're not for big government programs with bureaucrats telling everyone what to do, you hate women, children and poor people.
This used to be the dominant view in American political life, but it's hardly a recent invention. The gap between Left and Right on this issue is age-old, and comes down to a difference in what the two sides think of the nature of man.
To the Left, man is basically morally good, and indeed morality itself is a relative term if meaningful at all. This is the Left's most deeply-held, quasi-theological…