The oxymoronic ‘Compassionate Conservative’

During the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush and the rest of the Republican Party have used the words “compassionate conservative” to describe themselves as frequently as they used the phrase “mission accomplished” to prematurely declare American victory in Iraq.

But Bush is not the compassionate conservative he claims to be – and the mere phrase “compassionate conservative” is an oxymoron, made of words that by definition cannot coexist together.

When one looks at the facts behind this verbal veil of misrepresentation used by Bush to confuse the American people, this phenomenon is easily discerned. Bush has fought long and hard to outlaw abortion and take that right away from the women of this country. Virginia Republicans, riding Bush’s coattails, have tried to severely limit, if not eliminate, access to “morning-after” pills, student sex education in public schools, and the distribution of condoms by colleges and high schools.

Where, then, lies the compassion when a young person, because they were raised in this “Puritan Bush Society,” is forced to have a child because of a lack of access to proper sex education, preventive methods and abortions? Certainly the Republican Party would have “compassion” for this child they forced into the world – but they don’t.

Republican leaders have completed the trifecta in cold-hearted compassion, as they have sought to eliminate or roll back welfare benefits to single mothers. Such cuts make it more difficult to women to receive unemployment benefits and allow businesses to get out of paying overtime to hourly workers.

Where is the compassion? Perhaps it’s in the same place as the fictional weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But this is nothing new, as history tells us the founder of modern “conservatism” was cold-hearted himself.
When former President Ronald Reagan died this summer, many in the media, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, shamefully lauded him as being a great man while failing to portray any of his presidential shortcomings. These shortcomings far outweighed anything good Reagan did.

In the early-eighties the AIDS epidemic was in its infancy. Scientists and pathologists warned Reagan that science could beat this terrible disease if money was allotted to deal with it. Reagan turned a deaf ear, refused money to researchers, and said that AIDS was sent from God to wipe out sinners, namely homosexuals.

Where was the compassion in this? There was none. Confront the Republican Party on this issue, however, and you are likely to get a response lacking any real answers, for to do otherwise would force the party to admit that it has been hypocritical.

This stench of “say one thing, do another” logic extends into everything Republicans stand for. They preach “compassion,” and when it’s good for them they want it. Look at how often the religious community goes on any Fox News show to shed tears over the increasing number of Americans seeking a ban on religion in our national educational and judicial systems. Republicans proclaim they want compassion extended to them so that they can practice religion in these public areas. But when it comes time for them to extend compassion, such as toward gays who seek to marry, conservatives claim they don’t want “their” religion to condone this and act selfishly cold.

Ask yourself, who do these hypocritical policies really hurt? Certainly not people like George Bush. His niece, Noelle, daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is in her mid-twenties and has been addicted to painkillers numerous times throughout her young life. The wealthy Bush family bails her out and sends her to expensive rehabilitation clinics – time and time again.

The same thing happens every day to young minority women on the streets of Richmond. The key difference: the families these girls come from don’t have the same financial wealth as Bush.

If these women are addicted to drugs or get in trouble, they go to jail, likely to come out still addicted to drugs, still dangerously uneducated about sex, and still prey to the downward spiral of a Republican-engineered society – one that only benefits themselves.