Politics: Conservative Compassion

I sat down with my father this morning and talked over cups of coffee. He told me about an alarming comment a coworker made to him the other day. She questioned him saying, "You're a Republican? Republicans don't work in the health care system!" Her question, while surprising is not completely off base. It seems that her view of Republicans is that they don't care for those who are less fortunate than themselves. Does she have a point? I believe that conservative politics has lost something--namely, it's Christian moral foundation. When coupled together, biblical values and conservative politics lead to hard working, responsible people who govern themselves and give a hand to those in need. Modern Republicans don't forget to help themselves, but they forget to help those who can't help themselves. Conservative political ideology, by itself, will lead to less humanitarian effort, fewer volunteer social workers, and a terrible gap between the poor and the rich. Gone are the days of the moral majority being the "moral" majority. This is what my Father's co-worker was referring to. She sees that it is the Democrats who are providing services to others--bleeding hearts pumping out social action for the helpless. But, what then? Should we all become liberals? Does the Democratic party have it right? Democratic political ideology is slipping more and more into socialism with each passing election. The vacuum created by the decreasing influence of biblical principles on Main Street (and even more so on Wall Street) will cause liberals to clamor for government to step in and lay heavy taxes on those who have so they can give to those who have not. They may have right motives, but they forget the lessons history has taught us about forced wealth redistribution. For example: In 1918 Marxists rapidly enforced social policies through the Soviet Constitution. "All private property is abolished, and the entire land is declared to be national property and is to be apportioned among agriculturists without any compensation to the former owners..." (Laidler, History of Socialism, p. 384). Lenin quickly realized that such a quick change would spell doom for the USSR. In 1921 he declared, "We are no longer attempting to break up the old social economic order, with its trade, its small-scale economy and private initiative, its capitalism, but we are now trying to revive trade, private enterprise, and capitalism, at the same time gradually and cautiously subjugating them to state regulation just as far as they survive." What we learn from the experience of the Communists is that forced socialism from a powerful government cannot produce the will to work in its people without capitalism! Lenin became so frustrated with the ill effects socialism had on the work ethic of the Russian people that he contemplated enforcing a law stating, "one out of every ten idlers will be shot on the spot." (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 26, pp.414-15) Is this the direction in which The United States should be going? The more power we hand to the government, the more we choke the biblical work ethic through taxation and redistribution, the closer we will get to shooting idlers in the streets. No, Republican conservative economics and politics are not the solution in and of themselves. They are devoid of compassion and generosity without biblical morality. If conservatives regain their consciences we will soon find ourselves moving in the right direction. Where do we begin? We cannot begin by setting up a state religion. That is self-evident. No, we must begin in the home. We must teach our children right from wrong and we must live out our convictions in their presence. Modeling biblical values (whether you believe the Bible or not, though I highly recommend it) over time will gradually strengthen our collective work ethic and our social conscience.