Some discussions feel like they are on an endless loop doomed to repeat like the song I’ve Got You, Babe in the movie Groundhog Day. Discuss poverty with Christians and the assumption is that you are a political liberal. Apparently Americans cannot imagine a solution to poverty that does not include the government. Yet no conservative this side of Ayn Rand embraces the joys of greed. A conservative accused of hating the poor will point out, justly, that she simply does not favor government solutions to poverty.
Generally this is the end of the discussion. The leftist leaves thinking that any candidate with an understanding of economics more sophisticated than Bernie Sanders, namely every other candidate, bids to be the Scrooge for this Christmas while the conservative knows he loves the poor and favors effective means of helping them . . . in the abstract. And this is the problem with the conservative position: the help for the poor is there, the ideas are there to be implemented, but the ideas are never discussed.
If conservative candidates love the poor, they talk about them little and this is not good. First, it increases the leftist delusion that to love the poor is to love a big central state. Second, you cannot love a group you never mention. Poverty is real in the world and in the United States and the conservative who has solutions, allegedly, and never talks them up appears the liar. Nobody is quiet about his beloved, but conservatives who claim to love Jesus are often quiet about the poor . . . blessed of our Lord.
John Steinbeck was a fool when it came to solutions to the plight of the poor, but he loved the poor. He did all he could to give them a voice and if he got them wrong at times, he tried. Read a Steinbeck story or novel and you will hate (as you should) the immorality of the hardhearted shop keeper, the frauds of the plutocrats, and the cruelty of bigotry. Does anyone read Grapes of Wrath and think the Joads had it coming to them?
No Christian does.
But what is to be done with the Joads, the Mexican illegals, of this generation? We must secure the border . . . fine. Now what is to be done with the horrific humanitarian problem? Our candidates should tell us in detail. Conservatives can accept the fact that the best solution is not a government solution, but we wish to know what the plan is? Are we organizing the private sector? The need is very great. Who will do what? Shouldn’t the candidate who professes to hate government programs because they hurt the poor talk about alternatives? The late Jack Kemp was willing to do so.
We need candidates that do not leave the pathos to the Steinbecks and the solutions to the Socialists. Huckabee, Carson, Paul, and Kasich have said a few things about the American poor, but not enough. We need someone with the passion of the great Republican Theodore Roosevelt when it comes to helping the poor.
We cannot love people we never mention and God knows we cannot leave the poor to the insanity of socialism.
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