Caring

Penn says it much better than I can

 

I hope it's safe to use this image, because it sums up a blog post that has been fermenting in my mind the last few days.

An accusation you'll often hear out of "liberals" is that "conservatives don't care about the poor!" What is that supposed to mean?

Usually this claim is offered up as a logical fallacy intended to stop debate. The "conservative" makes a comment like "We seriously need to cut government spending" and the "liberal" retorts with "You don't care about the poor! You want old people thrown out of nursing homes and onto the streets! You want children to starve!"

It's happened to me. I didn't know what a logical fallacy was at that point, so I caved to the emotionally overladen illogic. I knew it was wrong, but had no idea how to counter it.

What exactly do liberals mean by "caring" anyway? Most that I've known don't indicate how they care through any other action than voting and verbally and emotionally supporting government programs. Most of these programs actually leave the people they claim to care about worse off than at the start.

I don't want to be cared about like that.

Then there's the invasion of conscience. What goes on in my head is my own business. What external words and actions I give off can become your business. Who cares how I "care" about the poor other than the actions I take toward them?

I routinely give money (after taxes) in ways that end up benefiting the poor in my local community. How many of you liberals do that? I'm part of a group that occasionally cooks meals for the homeless. I've put my own money into making that meal. Again, liberal proponents of government programs, how many of you have done that?

I can't say I walk around with an overwhelming feeling that I "care" about the poor, but I have actually done productive things with my time and money that directly benefit and provide for the poor.

I've found that liberals and other people who are largely ruled by their feelings engage in a process I refer to as "projection". They take what they're feeling and project it onto somebody else.  My ex-wife did that a lot. It took me years to figure it out. But once I did, I noticed it a lot more in other places.  My ex-wife's projection habit really makes me wonder about her insecurities that I might have been unfaithful (I was not) and refusal to believe me when I said I had been entirely faithful.

Whenever somebody accuses you of something that can only take place inside your own head, and is unverifiable, chances are, it's really in their head. They're just projecting it back onto you. This is where I believe a lot of accusations of "hate" come from.

This makes me think liberals who accuse others of not caring about the poor really are that insecure of their endorsement of oversized and inefficient government programs that in many ways just make things worse. I, of course, have no personal experience on which to base this, because I have never been a liberal and I have never advocated large, inefficient government programs. Other than defense, that is. And I've begun to question that over the last several years.

By the way, I'm not a "conservative". I describe myself as a libertarian/anarchist. Not the chaos type anarchist, but the "leave me the hell alone and I'll leave you the hell alone" anarchist.