President
Bush’s “Compassionate Conservative” By Gabrielle Reilly
A fundamental, yet deadly, national and international
misunderstanding has occurred that is giving rise to global
tensions causing more deaths and hatred around the world.
The stories that you read in the newspapers are often based
on stories from other news sources that need to get a quick
story out but lack the full comprehension of an issue. Deadlines.
The public consumes these stories and a culture of “common
thinking” is established. What if the journalist who
wrote the original story was so busy chasing stories that
they did not have a full understanding of who or what they
were dealing with? What if they based their article on bias
and stereotypes of what they already thought to be the case
based on public perception, but not on the real account
of information? Whatever your political affiliation, it
is essential that you understand the term “compassionate
conservative” that President Bush uses to refer to
his beliefs. Whether you agree or disagree, regardless of
where you live in the world, it would be difficult to have
an educated opinion of global events without understanding
the following breakdown of what that term actually means
and how it affects the national and international community.
So, “compassionate conservative”… there are three
main schools of thought on helping those in need:
1. The government takes money from everybody’s
paycheck via taxes and gives to those in need. This is normally the
Democrat/Australian Labour Party strategy. 2. We give no money at all under any circumstances
and those people in need should stand on their own two feet and not
sponge off society. This represents a very small minority of hard
core Republican’\s, which is where Republicans get their mean-hearted,
greedy image. The Republican Party is really a “big tent”
full of many ideals, though. 3. Assist those in need using wisdom, heart, and
business savvy. This is the “compassionate conservative”
Republican Party ideal that blends both the party’s ideals into
effective business models that are designed to assist those in need
while also providing a sustainable economic/social model. Normally
based on the philosophy “Give a man a fish; you have fed him
for today; teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.”
If many of us do want to help, why would we choose a “conservative
compassionate” Republican over the tax handout system? It comes
down to two reasons. Fundamentally just “handing” somebody
something thinking you have solved the problem is the difference between
giving a fish and teaching someone how to fish. It only offers a “feel
good” temporary solution when we really want to improve the
quality of lives instead of just putting on a band-aid.
The goal is to help people, very much so actually, but “handouts”
crush the human spirit and breed laziness, which really offers short-term
help and long-term problems. This is a very important point. Much
is charged around poor people being “given” help, or not,
when we need to look at something more fundamental- the “effect”
of human nature when people are “given” handouts. We only
have to assess the dynamics of third generation wealthy children who
are also “given” everything, including great opportunities,
to see the impact of handouts. In the book “The Millionaire
Mind” the third generation of wealthy who were “given”
everything most often became lazy, unmotivated, and squandered the
family wealth. It took much more intestinal fortitude for them to
pry themselves from the television because they had become reliant
on being “given” money to survive. You see being “given”
everything is certainly not a healthy solution and just breeds more
dependency. With this philosophy in mind, it is fascinating to know
that the Democrat Party demographics are made up of mainly the wealthiest
elite and the poorest in the country.
Secondly, it is not about not wanting to give, but that government
management of handouts goes against the economic model Republicans
believe in, which is fundamentally this:
“Chicago's 1995 Nobel Prize winner, Robert Lucas, led a new
line of research, starting in the 1970s, around the issue of "rational
expectations." That work argues that government decisions are
not likely to have the anticipated results, owing to the responses
of decision makers in the economy. Market knowledge outwits
government knowledge.” Professor Daniel Yergin
If we don’t believe government will manage our personal finances
as effectively as we would, why would we think they could manage helping
those in need any better than we can either? Incentives to faith-based
organizations that dedicate their lives to helping others and running
on a fiscally conservative budget would help many more people than
a government project that costs often four times as much or more to
run.
So if we are Republican and also believe in personal responsibility
and accountability, why the “conservative compassionate”
philosophy over “let everyone fend for themselves I am not giving
them a dime” portion of the Republican Party? Let’s get
to the crux of the matter and talk money. National security and crime
impact the quality of our life and our economy. 9/11 taught us that.
A broken state in Afghanistan trained the terrorists that struck the
largest blow to our country both in loss of life and on our economy.
A portion of our money can go to either being proactive or reactive.
A reactive answer may cost much more than the devastation that 9/11
had on our economy. Either way we will pay, so let’s do it the
smart way. What they do on the other side of the world affects us.
Our oceans no longer protect us, which is why so much support is going
to Africa. It is in the best interest of our families to assist third
world countries, which brings me to the blend of the Republican philosophy
of “compassionate conservative.”
No-one seems to have seen the true face of what “compassionate
conservative” means more so than, surprisingly, musician Sir
Bob Geldof:
“Live Aid founder Bob Geldof said Mr. Bush is far more committed
than Mr. Clinton to fighting AIDS and famine on the continent. "Clinton
talked the talk and did diddly squat, whereas Bush doesn't talk but
does deliver," said Mr. Geldof, an Irish musician and activist
who in 1985 staged the world's largest rock concert to combat starvation
in Africa.
"You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush
administration is the most radical, in a positive sense, in the approach
to Africa since Kennedy," he said.” Washington Times
President Bush has done more for Africa by threefold than President
Clinton, but after the mass media bias against President Bush I would
about guarantee the public would resoundingly think the opposite.
If you remove yourself from the propaganda, the international community
has never been more wrong about an American President than they have
been wrong about President Bush.
This is “compassionate conservative” in action; giving
incentives to faith-based organizations, which allows more room for
projects such (click on the links) Coalition
and Urban Renewal , Living
Water, and Never
Ending Garden. It could be compared to giving tax incentives to
investors to encourage growth. So “compassionate conservative”
Republican is all about heart, caring, and assisting. The implementation
of how to achieve those results using effective strategies is what
differs from the Democrat or Labour Party, and ties in to the Republican
Party. No big government project, but cost-efficient business models
using incentives. Each of us has a choice on what cause we want to
support based on our own life experiences and in some cases tragedy.
Teach them to fish, don’t just “give” them fish
where possible. The priority of our assistance still needs to be in
the best interest of our responsibility to rightly and fairly take
care of our own families who rely on us.
The only way a journalist could write with any authority or understanding
about the meaning of “compassionate conservative” is if
they had submersed themselves with “compassionate conservative”
politicians, leaders, and community to fully understand the culture
and nuances. As someone who has submersed myself in that culture I
can tell you that all their hopes and dreams are exactly the same
hopes and dreams I had when I used to sing “Imagine” when
I was 18…the hope and dream of peace and love for mankind. The
difference is not in being cold, heartless, and greedy as so often
portrayed by a sometimes bias, single-dimensional, outdated thinking
media, but in the strategies used to achieve our common goal. At 18
my understanding of global events was naive and unsophisticated. The
way to achieve that great dream was only good in theory but not realistic
in practice. In fact, it could have actually contributed to more deaths
now that I reflect on it. I wouldn’t recommend a town disband
its police force because chaos would rule as we clearly see with looters
coming out after disasters have struck… but it was sort of what
I was thinking when I dreamed of John Lennon’s world. So let’s
find some common ground and not fight each other, but dedicate our
efforts to actually achieving a more peaceful world.
The End
LOVE
Never let a problem to be solved
become more important
than a person to be loved.
