If you were truly compassionate, you would not think you can force others to be virtuous. Force never results in virtue. Force begets more force, which creates the opposite of virtue.
If you were truly compassionate, you would constantly remind yourself of the golden rule. You should treat people like you want to be treated. So, if you do not want people with guns to come and steal your property, you should not promote policies where people with guns take other peoples’ property (and then justify it because it is “the government”).
If you were truly compassionate, you would think carefully about how you deal with your neighbors. Are you a busy-body? Do you constantly interfere in their lives? Do you go to their homes to steal their cars because they have two cars and you only have one? Well, if you do not do this in your personal life, why is it suddenly OK if “the government” does it?
If you were truly compassionate, you would realize that making people dependent on government welfare hinders their progress and retards their growth. Difficult times make us stronger. We learn self-reliance by facing difficult times. People will not better themselves if they can, instead, simply get a government check. You would weep when you go to a poor inner city neighborhood and see entire generations ruined by “good intentions.”
If you were truly compassionate, you would help the poor through service and encourage others to voluntarily do the same. You would be a great example to those around you, but you would not spend your time worrying about other peoples’ choices and how you must compel them to be generous or make the same choices you have made.
If you were truly compassionate, you would realize that only purely defensive wars are just. Satan loves to reign with blood and horror on this Earth. Meddling in the affairs of other nations that may someday be a threat always backfires. War is only a reasonable solution in defense of a direct attack.
If you were truly compassionate, you would recognize that talking disparagingly about “the rich” and constantly about “social justice” and “fairness” only promotes envy and covetousness, which are sins. You should not encourage people to sin.
If you were truly compassionate, you would recognize that an ever-increasing government, with trillions spent on social welfare and the military, is not sustainable. Somebody must pay for all this spending. Either more money must be taken from the people, turning us into slaves, or money must be printed, which is inflation, and inflation harms the poor and working people disproportionately. If you were truly compassionate, you would realize the only solution is to live within our means and you would favor cutting government spending for the good of all.
If you were truly compassionate, you would recognize that the burden of government debt will fall on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. You would see that in fact the wealthiest people, as a group, are the elderly, who have savings, pensions and Social Security and Medicare. You would see that there are fewer and fewer workers to maintain these relatively wealthy people. You would favor entitlement reform so less money goes to the wealthy older people — now. You would realize that without such reform you are condemning our children and grandchildren to the same misery as the people in poor inner city neighborhoods.
If you were truly compassionate, you would not respond to this post by saying “government must use force to take some things from some people.” Instead, you would say: “let’s work to get rid of as much control and compulsion as possible, let’s decrease dependency and promote self-reliance, let’s promote voluntary, not forced, charity.” It would be a different world…if you were truly compassionate.