Compassionate Conservatism has been a central rationalization of President Bush’s approach to social issues and a key element of his political campaigns. He has displayed his feelings of pity for the poor, the sick and the unemployed and he has talked about their needs. The problem is compassion is not a substitute for justice: a compassionate conservative as President Bush likes to characterize himself may feel a call to help those in need but does not understand the drive to take effective action to relieve the needs of those who demand his help.
One other problem is that conservatism is not compassionate. In the last four years compassionate conservatism has evolved into such things as pity for the wealthy, whose taxes have been cut, or subtle breaches of the Constitution in the name of faith based initiatives, devised to shift government’s responsibility for social justice to religious institutions, thus making a joke of the separation of church and State.
The legacy of compassionate conservatism poses an additional problem. Plutocrats run Washington out of commiseration for Wall Street. The administration seems to have overlooked the Lincoln legacy of the government of the people, by the people and for the people to attempt instead to install the government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. Large enterprises secretly shaped the government’s energy policy; they have enjoyed relief from tax cuts and relaxation of environmental regulations; and they have been given huge contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq. In stark contrast with growing profits for the rich, the number of people living under the poverty line has increased every year since President Bush took office, after a seven years decline to 2000. The number of poor in the U.S. 35.9 million people is larger than Canada’s population and far exceeds the population of Iraq or Afghanistan. There are 45 million people without health insurance. Average income in the Hispanic community dropped 2.6% in 2003. It is time to call things by their name and to understand that compassion can be a personal virtue but it is far from being an acceptable tool of government.
A further problem is that compassionate conservatism tends to be deceiving. President Bush on immigration is an example of misleading compassionate promises. The suggestion that he would seek authorization to allow undocumented laborers to work legally in the United States for a temporary period without the right to apply for citizenship would provide only short term relief plus a firm promise of future personal and family hardship, when beneficiaries of the policy ultimately face the time of compulsory return to their countries of origin.
There is only one way to restore justice and fair play as instruments of government and to preserve the cherished democratic institutions that have made the United States an outstanding bastion of liberty in the world: elect John Kerry and John Edwards on November 2.