Why Is It a Mark of Compassion to Stick a Gun in a Person's Belly and Say, 'Turn Over Your Wallet, in Jesus' Name'?

Jim Wallis has announced “The death of compassionate conservatism.” If only it were true.

“Compassionate conservatism” is the Republican Party’s pat phrase that justifies tax money being spent by private welfare agencies in the name of the poor. It is the means by which Republicans loot the taxpayers and then buy votes in the name of helping the poor. Because they entice private charities into the transaction, they can wrap the policy of confiscation in the swaddling clothes of religion. This gives the Republicans a way to increase their voting base in traditional Democratic neighborhoods, whose blue-collar or no-collar voters are turned off by the Democrats’ self-professed secularism.

Second, as a political side benefit, the money makes the dispensing agencies dependent on the Federal government. It puts them on the side of tax-funded welfare spending — charity at the barrel of a gun.

Third, humanists see this as another great opportunity to sue the government in the name of the separation of church and state. The ACLU can bring a lawsuit for using government money for sectarian purposes. If successful in court, this pressures the receiving agencies to abandon their confessional stance in order to keep receiving the funds. Sometimes they do.

In short, compassionate conservatism is a three-fer for the proponents of the healer State.

Wallis says that compassionate conservatism is now dead. Why? Because the Republicans are planning to reduce this specialized form of looting by cutting some welfare spending. So, he concludes, Republicans are not truly compassionate. This is because Wallis defines compassion as sending out armed tax collectors to demand that Americans and resident aliens fork over their hard-earned money to the State on behalf of his official constituency, the poor. He warns:

The House is scheduled to begin debate tomorrow on its budget bill, which includes $54 billion in cuts. On the table are cuts of $9.5 billion in Medicaid — by requiring co-pays for pregnant women and children for the first time; $8 billion in foster care, child support enforcement, and aid to the disabled; and $844 million in the Food Stamps Program, which would prevent 300,000 people from receiving food stamps. Forty thousand children would be cut from reduced-price school lunches. Lawmakers intend to follow these with a further cut of $70 billion in taxes that will primarily benefit the top 3% of taxpayers. The message from Congress is that in response to Hurricane Katrina, we’re going to cut services for the poor, cut taxes for the rich, and increase deficits for our children and grandchildren.

Such a spending cut, he believes, is immoral.

We need strong moral leadership in Congress, especially during this time of war, record deficits, rising poverty and hunger, and natural disasters. Cutting food stamps and health care that meet the basic needs of poor families is an outrage. Cutting social services to pay for further tax cuts for the rich is a moral travesty that violates biblical priorities.

Mr. Wallis and his colleagues are masters of verbal guilt manipulation. It is their most highly developed skill in their contribution to the social division of labor.

The House leadership seems to be saying they literally want to take food from the mouths of children to make rich people richer. If this ideology and politics of rich over poor prevails and our leaders fail to govern from a set of moral values, then the religious community must conclude that compassionate conservatism is dead.

One can only hope.

What Congress needs is more Bible study. If Congressmen will just study the Bible, they will not do this morally reprehensible thing.

As this battle for the budget unfolds, I am calling on members of Congress, some of whom make much out of their faith, to start Bible studies before they cast votes to cut services that will further harm the weakest in our nation. They should focus on the gospel imperative — what Jesus tells us about our obligations to the “least of these.”

You see, “our obligations” really means “the State’s obligations.” It therefore means “obligations of those morally wretched rich.” It means “obligations owed to my favored special-interest groups and voting blocs” to be paid for by “my political opponents’ favored special-interest voting blocs.”

Next, he invokes that famous slogan, “What would Jesus do?”” For Wallis, it really means, “What wouldn’t Jesus steal?

Some of them have heard the slogan “What would Jesus do?” Now they should ask, “What would Jesus cut?” Budgets are moral documents, and they reflect our national priorities and values. In the name of social conscience, fiscal responsibility, equal opportunity, protecting our communities, and the very idea of a common good, the upcoming budget votes will be closely watched by people of faith.

It will surely be watched by this person of faith. I pray that the cuts will be made. It is almost too much to hope for.

Wallis sees Jesus as a precinct organizer.

I urge you to read the alert that follows, pick up your phone, and call your member of Congress. Tell him or her to show political will in standing up for the least of these, as Jesus reminds us.

This is not how I see Jesus. What about you?

November 10, 2005

The author’s website, www.garynorth.com, has a regularly updated department: Questions for Jim Wallis. This serves as a supplement to a second department, Capitalism and the Bible.

Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com