Who’s More Compassionate: The Left or the Right? | 5 Minute Video
Democrats often think of themselves as kind and caring, and of Republicans as callous and mean-spirited. But why? Are Progressive policies more likely to raise people out of poverty than conservative ones? And what really counts as “kind”: supporting policies that feel good? Or supporting policies that do good? William Voegeli, Senior Editor of the Claremont Review of Books, explains.
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Script:
What’s the major difference between liberals and conservatives? For liberals the answer is easy. Liberals are compassionate and conservatives are mean.
“I am a liberal,” public radio host Garrison Keillor wrote in 2004, “and liberalism is the politics of kindness.” President Barack Obama agrees. “Kindness covers all of my political beliefs,” he has said.
Earlier in his political career, Senator Obama urged college students “to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others.”
If liberalism is the politics of kindness, it follows that conservatism must be the opposite – heartless.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman contends that conservatives want to limit government spending on social welfare programs because they take “positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable.” Is this characterization fair? Is it accurate? Hardly.
For one thing, helping others—generosity—requires resources to be generous with. To provide needy people tangible assistance, as opposed to inconsequential gestures, requires wealth. And wealth has to be created before it can be donated.
This necessity, however, complicates the politics of kindness. Both economic theory and the historical record of different, competing economic systems, clearly show that the best way to create wealth is to narrow, rather than broaden, “the ambit of our concern.” Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, wrote in 1776, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
Our natural desire to care more for our families and friends than for distant strangers is not a moral defect, but an advantage. Free markets and voluntary associations, such as churches and civic groups, make the most of this asset. The welfare state tears it down.
There is, then, a glaring contradiction in the politics of kindness: On the one hand, liberals frequently criticize the “selfishness” of people preoccupied with building careers, businesses, and investments. On the other, liberals are bursting with ideas for all the humane things government can do by redistributing the wealth created by these so-called selfish people.
There’s another contradiction. Liberals champion government action as the best vehicle to alleviate suffering. At the same time, they are uninterested in the question of whether these government programs actually do alleviate suffering.
To take just one example, the government’s own studies have demonstrated that the federal pre-school program Head Start does not achieve its goals. Children enrolled in it are no better off by the end of the first grade than those children who don’t enroll. But this program has lost none of its liberal luster. On the contrary, liberals constantly call for its expansion.
Our federal, state, and local governments spend more than $3.2 trillion per year on programs designed to prevent or relieve poverty. That’s more than $10,000 per American. Yet the official poverty rate has fluctuated in the same narrow range, from 11 to 15 percent of the population, for the past 40 years.
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source
We must wake up to the true nature of the problem. The doctrine of the Left says we aren’t nice enough, we need more programs, we need to integrate migrants better–the fault is always ours. I happen to agree that the fault is with us, but it is due to our ignorance, not our lack of virtue.
Once we understand the problem is the Islamic doctrine, then we can make proper plans for solutions, like changing migration laws, citizenry laws, instituting zero tolerance for Sharia, etc.
4:32 did he just give a false definition and try to explain why it’s wrong? 😂
0:47 is the dumbest reverse conceptualism BS I ever heard 😂
No liberal will ever watch this. No liberal cares about anyone except themselves
Do good!
An institution cannot be benevolent. Only individuals who share their daily bread are benevolent.
God
Given the thumbnail and the title, I can already guess what will be the conclusion.
Edit: I was right, kind of disappointed but not surprised given that it's a Prager U video. Now, why this was in my recommendations is another question.
His last point: "The liberal asks, does it FEEL good. The conservative askes Does it DO good". This above all is a great point to be made on why we MUST have both openly and freely expressed in government and why America is in a wild downward spiral. As the Liberals have been corrupted by Socialists bent on stifling or even removing Conservatives voice in government, they are gaining power but destroying the country in doing so because their policies cannot work, and they know it but cannot change them AND retain power. So, they opt for the time-honored tradition of loot and pillage on your way out. At the fall of every great civilization there was this group. Yelling about how they must burn it down to remake it then leaving with all they can carry and rebuilding NOTHING. Leaving a beleaguered people to suffer and rebuild in their wake. In England this is still evident in the archology. England Pre Roman rule was subsisting and at best precarious. During the Romen rule it was flourishing with roads and pluming. Substantial wealth flowed and people were living better and longer. This however forced the weaker groups out of power. Those groups who have nothing of any real value to offer. But they are parasitical in nature and eventually weakening the host nation. Causing an Inserection in the name of change but never offering any real direction just using the chaos to further their own selfish ends. Pre-Fall of Rome we see substantial fiends because homes where solid and well built. Most has good pottery and were eating and trading and all this leaves substantial remnants behind. After Rome falls there is less in the way of such substantial findings and a saver decline in trade and lifestyles. Pluming disappears as do paved roads and stable economies. In the first hundred years after Rome Millions die from things that had been all but removed from everyday life for most like hunger and sanitary induced ailments. Wealth dried up and while they gloss over this point, it did not just disappear it was taken and horded by a few who used the chaos they caused for their own gain. Unfortunately, Man still has not learned from History and now we are on the brink of a new collapse, let's call it "The Dark Ages 2.0".
The liberal ethos is to create a permanent underclass, dependent on liberals in government. If they educate and become self supporting it destroys the power the crave.
Democrats = Bolsheviks
CNN and MSNPC = Pravda
I noticed on your thumbnail picture that you have the stars wrong on the elephant. They used to be upright, until W. Bush took control of the party in 2000. In 2000 they inverted those stars, making them the pentagrams which are frequently used to display the image of Baphomet. A message? There is/was a photo out there showing Hillary Clinton campaigning for president. The room had a large flag covering one wall. It appeared to be a US flag, but all of the stars were inverted. A message?
Liberal is the amount of garbage you can dump on the people to cover the lies.
Last time I checked US conservatives are pretty keen on corn and other food subsidies. As an Australian centrist I think I would prefer my socialised health care over US Conservative market distortions. You don't need an over supply of corn. Though, Australian society in general takes advantage of our hybrid health system…… one thing I can agree with US Conservatives is that Leftists are completely insane and Liberals in general do well to distance themselves from them.
Biden is destroying America; the Bill of Rights stands in his way. Attacks on the second amendment are against the Bill of Rights & not for anyone's safety ‼️💯
Don't make me laugh
Liberals hate us because we insist on promoting Individual responsibility and they LOVE to be the state's children and have everything handed to them.
The big businesses have plenty of money supplied already. Trickling down flat out doesn't work. We should reach out to people beyond outside our friends and families. The biggest reason why welfare programs are not working is that they are not doing enough. It becomes a handcuff scenario. The better way to do things is to have the government do more. It should have more wealth redistribution. There should be more taxes on the rich and more welfare to the poor. Lets move beyond and get into hand ups and hand outs.
Most of the liberal-leftists that worked with were mean….
Actually they are the opposite.
Another Prager video riddled with lies.
Liberals are very willing to share someone else’s resources to promote causes they favor
For any follower of Christ the question is laughable, The path of the leftist democrat is always death and destruction, chaos..cloaked by the shiny for those that are easily lead astray (The Guilty & Blandish Bunnies) The other thing is, and it matters not your feelings or opinion, you can't say you know or have a close relationship with our heavenly father and vote for a party that supports every abomination known to God, as do the Democrats, they are just like Satan the authors of lies, just look how they twisted history about race… think Satan didn't have a hand in it?..Gods people will always be vilified by the insane and reprobate, You will know them by their fruit! not the pretty words and deeds they wrap themselves in to cloak the bigger picture, But Gods people are harder to fool, they stand on a rock. And people we fight a spiritual battle Satan isn't after Gods Man Trump, a spiritual battle is fought to wear YOU down…e.g I'm just tired of all the drama, and Trump should just blah blah….When God uses a man the world will be at that man..Do You Know God? or are you indoctrinated by degree or otherwise to accept the lie and be damned, aiming squarely at the lukewarm… Show me a leftist democrat "PASTOR" i will show you a fraud. Christ isn't impressed by your faux tutelage never was and never will be…Helpful to some to know GOD NEVER CHANGES…Get Right, Get God, or get gone….
their isnt one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlIjMJBSnRE
Yh s mch trln
Leftist are no compassionate to anyone.
Neither really. Lefties are fake kindness with a wealthare state that does not really help people, the right says to take some individual responsibility
0:25 Because drone strikes are love.
"left bad right good"
-the comment section
The right. The left cannot operate without commissars machine-gunning them from behind, the job all leftists want the most.
I am 100% and favor of a meritocracy. The idea of people getting money and not earning it through their own efforts sickens me. This is why I'm in favor of a 100% inheritance tax and a 10% annual wealth tax. Nobody should get rich just by being born rich.
Uhm let’s just agree that both sides have their own ultra assholes.
The peoples party ? the workers party ? now where have we heard that , between 1925 & 1945 ?
Its six years later and it's still the same results. Wasteful government spending on government social programs that are suppose to be temporary for the individual to be lifted back on their feet, only to be indoctrinated to depend on the government. Most of our national debt stems from wasteful spending on government programs due to the fact there are people out there that take advantage of a charitable and important part of our society to help them get back onto their feet. We must start educating people and instill a better perspective on this than continue going down the road we are on
Wanna start a radical group, you begin courting liberals. Liberals are cannon fodder. Anything trendy or cult like appeals to the liberal hive mind. Usually against their own interest hence the term liberated.
The left is intolerant. The right is always willing to have a conversation.
OUTSTANDING!
I always question these government studies. For example, what group of kids were compared in the head start program. Did they compare those poor kids who went to head start with children who were affluent families and didn't attend any pre=school -the point is, we don't know. I don't believe it is true that liberals just want to be nice and not know if the programs work -what would be the point in spending the money. WHat I do see and read about is congressmen spending 60K on an office desk to furnish their new office using our tax money -that money could be used to build one small house.
It’s funny because considering a fetus a human being and that’s wanting them a wire does not show compassion and being against assisted suicide does not show compassion either i’m not liberal on all the Issues but I think liberals are generally more compassionate than conservatives are
The libs claimed to be for me. But they were in actuality against me and want the destruction of my ideals
This is basically an advocacy for leftism at this point. And if so, based.