Idiotic Compassion

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traillius

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Here is an example
A man is addicted to drugs, he uses needles, and is promiscuous.
Idiotic compassion: Give the man clean needles, condoms, and cigarettes. ( he will do these things anyway, we might as well make them easier, safer, or healthy as possible )

Real compassion: Get the man into a rehab, teach him life skills, as well as coping, and get him counseling, as well as urging him to change his life for the better. ( he should do the right things, which are legitimately safer and healthier, and benefit him in reality, rather than just shutting him up, by enabling him. We will help him help himself, as long as he tries to do better )
Generally Liberals and socialists choose the former. They not only frown upon the latter, they also mock those tho choose the latter.
The former creates dependence, under the lie of personal freedom. Real freedom comes with personal responsibility, not 'personal choice " as it is defined by some. Ironically, those who spout ‘personal choice’ with regard to one’s own ‘body’ ( unborn humans, despite the euphemism, aren’t part of one’s body. ) these same people are against any personal expression of freedom that requires self reliance and responsibility ( such as education vouchers, guns, small business, etc… )
 
drum roll please…

wait for it…

wait for it…

waiting for the example…
 
sorry tech issues, had to edit. I can provide links to " drug needle exchange program " among others, if one doubts the authenticy of the claim.
 
Please don’t say " they will do it anyway. " unless you enjoy being idiotically compassionate.
Real compassion is, instead, saying, " I won’t give you means to protect yourself from yourself, if you choose to act recklessly. I will help you to do the right thing, and better yourself.
 
The same argument is used for the “condoms in Africa” debate.

The problem stems in part, methinks, in two things:
  1. That some people want to feel like they’ve done something, even if it’s something ineffective or possibly counterproductive, to help aid a social ill.
  2. That there are some people who refuse to be helped. If the man in the example refuses to try to kick, the question becomes is it then better to help protect the rest of society by helping him limit his spread of, e.g. HIV to others.
I don’t propose to know the answer to this, but I think it may be a legitimate point.
 
traillius said:
Here is an example
A man is addicted to drugs, he uses needles, and is promiscuous.
Idiotic compassion: Give the man clean needles, condoms, and cigarettes. ( he will do these things anyway, we might as well make them easier, safer, or healthy as possible )

Real compassion: Get the man into a rehab, teach him life skills, as well as coping, and get him counseling, as well as urging him to change his life for the better. ( he should do the right things, which are legitimately safer and healthier, and benefit him in reality, rather than just shutting him up, by enabling him. We will help him help himself, as long as he tries to do better )
Generally Liberals and socialists choose the former. They not only frown upon the latter, they also mock those tho choose the latter.
The former creates dependence, under the lie of personal freedom. Real freedom comes with personal responsibility, not 'personal choice " as it is defined by some. Ironically, those who spout ‘personal choice’ with regard to one’s own ‘body’ ( unborn humans, despite the euphemism, aren’t part of one’s body. ) these same people are against any personal expression of freedom that requires self reliance and responsibility ( such as education vouchers, guns, small business, etc… )
Click to expand...
When you help someone improve himself, that is helping. When you help someone continue on with sin, that is called enabling.
 
enabling is a form of idiotic compassion, and one that many, mainly socialists and liberals seem to indulge with reckless abandon.
 
I do not advocate enabling, but I do understand the value of needle exchanges. Intravenous drug use is still a major cause of the spread of HIV. Unfortunately, the people on intravenous drugs tend to not be in a position to afford the medications to help battle HIV/AIDS, let alone the insurance providers that cover it. Even under Obamacare, the vast majority of people with HIV will still be unable to seek the treatment they need.

Additionally, rehab is incredibly expensive. You say that real compassion is getting them there. Are you willing to put even one person through an exorbitantly expensive stay at a rehab center? Even outpatient rehab is ridiculously expensive. And my own personal experience has shown me that if a person is sent there against their will, it will do nothing for them.

So which is better? Spending incredible amounts of money to put someone through rehab in the hope that it actually helps them, or helping protect society from bigger, longer-lasting problems. If a heroin addict dies in an alley way, does it really affect your life very much? If that heroin addict passes HIV on to a friend who is involved in a chain of relationships that ends up with your daughter on the other end who subsequently contracts HIV, would you have preferred that addict to have access to clean needles or not?
 
Needle exchange programs, as a harm reduction strategy, have value. But their existence doesn’t mean that we can’t, or shouldn’t try, to wean addicts off their drugs. Doing so would be the ultimate in harm reduction.

It is a false dichotomy to say if we have one program, we can’t have the other. Unfortunately, often there is little political will to do either one.
 
IHeartAquinas said:
I do not advocate enabling, but I do understand the value of needle exchanges. Intravenous drug use is still a major cause of the spread of HIV. Unfortunately, the people on intravenous drugs tend to not be in a position to afford the medications to help battle HIV/AIDS, let alone the insurance providers that cover it.
Click to expand...
People that will regularly poke themselves with needles to inject illegal drugs are likely involved in multiple other risky behaviors.
It is an entire lifestyle that end up being adopted once these drugs are involved.

I do not believe making certain they have clean needles is going to make a difference of the infection rate among these people.
 
Saint Thomas Aquinas said something about compassion without reason is the same as any passion in that it can promote evil as well as good. I wish I could find the quote, but that is the general idea anyway. It seems that our culture/society could do well to read a little bit about what he had to say.
 
I agree with you 99% of the way. The one place I get hung up is the condemnation of clean needle dispensaries.

My life has been touched as my mother contracted Hepatitus B & C from IV drug use. I get mixed feelings because I wish someone would have snagged her before drugs and alcohol rotted her brain (literally) but I also wish that at the time she was doing it she would have had access to clean needles so at least she didn’t contract a disease that is going to kill her in about 3 years. It’s really impacted my life since for as long as I can remember I’ve had to keep distance from her, and I remember the fear of waiting to see if I had contracted the illness every single time I had an exposure to her blood. Thankfully, God preserved me. I also know the pain that drugs rotted the brain of a mother that I have never really got to know because she’s been mildly demented (I mean that literally – she has beginning stages of dementia, and has for almost as long as I’ve known her), and the pain that an illess she contracted because of no access to clean needles will take her in a few short years.

I dearly wish everyone would get treatment and it would work, rather than clean needles. But for goodness’s sake, if there was access to clean needles then so many people could be spared a horrific death and lifelong illness. It’d be one thing if these diseases killed you in a few months. No…they last years and are usually undetectable since no symptoms present themselves. You have to get a blood test. In that time, even if you clean up, you can spread the disease to many, many others.
 
traillius said:
Here is an example
A man is addicted to drugs, he uses needles, and is promiscuous.
Idiotic compassion: Give the man clean needles, condoms, and cigarettes. ( he will do these things anyway, we might as well make them easier, safer, or healthy as possible )

Real compassion: Get the man into a rehab, teach him life skills, as well as coping, and get him counseling, as well as urging him to change his life for the better. ( he should do the right things, which are legitimately safer and healthier, and benefit him in reality, rather than just shutting him up, by enabling him. We will help him help himself, as long as he tries to do better )
Generally Liberals and socialists choose the former. They not only frown upon the latter, they also mock those tho choose the latter.
The former creates dependence, under the lie of personal freedom. Real freedom comes with personal responsibility, not 'personal choice " as it is defined by some. Ironically, those who spout ‘personal choice’ with regard to one’s own ‘body’ ( unborn humans, despite the euphemism, aren’t part of one’s body. ) these same people are against any personal expression of freedom that requires self reliance and responsibility ( such as education vouchers, guns, small business, etc… )
Click to expand...
Actually true liberals treat the least like they may be Jesus in the guise of the least. So they will want the addict to be a safe as possible while still addicted(which also makes the addict a lesser financial burden on society) and help the addict get clean.

The conservative viewpoint has gotten us to the point where the people addicted are making very poor choices about the issues you bring up. The existence of a subculture that revolves around drug usage and crime instead of around rehabilitation leads to more of the horrors of abortion, elderly abuse, child abuse and the like.

The “supposed” conservative focus on the addict being “rehabbed” is just a code for withholding help. While that is contrary to what Jesus taught and counterproductive to the stated pro-life goals of the movement, it does give comfort to those that seek to be reassured that they have made better moral choices than others.

Peace
 
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