Excellent analysis!
But what got us here?
IMHO, it’s an over-abundance of “compassion”, or, more precisely, what I call “pathological compassion”. The kind that destroys the receiver, the giver and ultimately society.
It’s being “compassionate” to the druggies by giving them clean needles and free drugs, to the homeless by letting them poop on the sidewalk, to the delusionals by enabling and promoting their delusions, to the delinquents by justifying their delinquency on poverty...
Ultimately it is the erasure of personal responsibility and holding no one accountable for their choices and preferring to blame society or some convenient scapegoat instead.
And as in any situation, there are always opportunists that in many ways end up being the drivers. And in this case a “compassion industry” has spung up making billions out of pimping compassion. These include all the homeless activists/advocates, the poverty pimps, the race pimps, the disadvantaged pimps, the churches, the media with their sob stories and of course scrupleless politicians (a bit redundant, I know) ... .
The antidote is “tough love”, where you insist that people suffer the consequences of their choices, that they act responsibly. And to the extent that there is compassion, it must be earned by them sincerely recognizing the errors in their choices and associated behavior.
And all compassion must come from private citizens or groups. There should be no entitled government “compassion”.
Government compassion is delegated compassion. It’s me forcing you to fund my benevolence and kindheartedness so I can be relieved of any sense of guilt or obligation I may have. It’s worst than theft. A thief knows in his heart that he did something wrong. A delegator of compassion steals from you while feeling smugly kind and self righteous.
Nice analysis. I now think of 'government compassion' = 'ENABLING'.
(which is toxic to BOTH parties)
it’s an over-abundance of “compassion”, or, more precisely, what I call “pathological compassion”. The kind that destroys the receiver, the giver and ultimately society.
...........................................
Yes. It’s known as “enabling.”