conservatism, (perceived) compassion, and welfare

A provocative post from Aaron Baker at Veritas Rex on conservatism, (perceived) compassion, and welfare:

Here is the comment I made in reply:

The other thing I would add is that the typical conservative approach to policy on this is purely negative: anti-welfare.

Two problems with this:

1.) It easily lumps together those who hate welfare and don't care a lick for the poor with those who hate welfare and do care.

2.) It's purely negative and thus relatively unattractive. (Who likes people or belief systems that are largely/wholly anti-everything?)

The remedy to both problems is to have a fuller and more positive agenda-- encompassing a diverse set of important policies:

a.) to take the most recent example, the surprising Democratic apathy and water-muddying approach to gas prices (High gas prices have a far greater impact on the lower and lower-middle classes.)
b.) an insistence on educating the poor within a government monopoly
c.) imposing staggeringly oppressive payroll taxes on the working poor
d.) a pathetic rate of return on Social Security (most/all of the nest egg for the working poor) and a negative rate of return for African Americans
e.) and so on...

By the way, it's time for a shameless plug for my book, which covers this (as well as why welfare is not a great idea) in considerable detail.

The other thing to say-- not on VR-- is that the research is clear that conservatives are more compassionate with their own time and money.