What is compassion in governance?

[sweetheart]

The following quote is from an article by an inner-city prison doctor in the UK. He is deriding the welfare state's methods... and the conservatives also have their own theory on what compassion is ? ?

Of course, where all claims to suffering are equal, where no case is especially deserving, where the only criterion for allocation of assistance is the acuteness of current need, all real or genuine compassion is extinguished, to be replaced by box-ticking. Compassion requires the imaginative entry into the suffering of others: and, as anyone who has ever been to a social security office will attest, the exercise of the imagination is not among the principal virtues of the people working there. On the other hand, a barnacle-like adherence to procedures, however wildly inappropriate to the case under consideration, is certainly among their characteristics....
<snip>
... Institutionalized compassion is not compassion but state bureaucracy. It would be untrue to say that it never did any good: but its power to deform the human personality and corrode the values of citizenship in a quite fundamental way should not be forgotten.

As a libertarian socialist, i am inclined to agree. . . but then the alternative is no provision of state medicine, and no provision of state pension/welfare... so of course any society cares for its elderly, but is caring herding them in to death hospices as soon as older folks become a nuisance?

I love the wooly word "compassion" but what does it mean in terms of how a government supports a citizen in the genuine-citizen-state goodwill contract to achieve the human rights of that individual?

[Paschall]

1. Oh, now I understand...perhaps...

...what has been incomprehensible in some of your posts, sweetheart. "Libertarian socialist"? Hmmm. No oxymoron there, huh?

[sweetheart]

2. I'm not an ox or a moron...

:-) I discuss things on a democratic free speech forum without labels, where we cut to the chase... or at least aspire to... :-)

I live in a socialist place. I have great respect for that obviously, to have refuge after a jarring period of US disenfranchisement. I find that my own views are very libertarian, but i will concede these that we achieve the Universal declaration of human rights. Clearly i'm a libertarian as i'm outspoken of views you have opinions on. Clearly i support free speech and the deposing of the evil shrub by my quorum here.

I reserve the right to be inconsistent over time, as i change and evolve... but it seems to me, i support every liberty in the book, and i believe a lightweight version of regulated socialist capitalism can be the best mix. I like to think sweetheart is a progressive agent provacateur, and where she's wrong, correct her... but not an ox or a moron. ;-)

[unblock]

3. oh. i see now

it's welfare is fine, then, as long as the bureaucrats do it with feeling!

this is actually brilliant propaganda. the idea of welfare was never compassion, it was financial assistance. this financial assistance accomplishes many things, e.g., crime reduction.

but this article tries to claim that the real reason was compassion, and that, the government being incapable of delivering genuine compassion to the author's high standards, we should scrap welfare. but the original motivations for the program: crime reduction, poverty reduction, disease control, literacy improvement, etc., all remain.

if you can't attack the real rationale of a government program you dislike, simply shift the rationale to something you can attack. very clever.

[sweetheart]

4. my thoughts exactly.

It is outstanding propaganda to attack mediocrity in a welfare state. What is compassion. They are separate things. Compassion and the social contract... and what business has a state being benevolent... "neutral" surely would be more jurisprudent.

We have to defeat neocon propaganda one concept at a time. This is from a murdock publication like educated/london/print-newspaper=FAUX TV. It is the same o'reilly spin except cloaqued in different cloth. Murdoch is an evil fuck interfering in national elections of states... and in policies for social welfare.

Welfare does kill something, better to jobs and skills... i myself see it as a short term measure... but in his article the doctor speaks of medical service (NHS). This is the miranda of his ire.

And he is used as a noble pawn writing his heart out for murdoch to undermine goodfaith in government.