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Title: The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky, Charles Murray ISBN: 0-89107-863-0 Publisher: Crossway Books Pub. Date: February, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.41 (17 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Masterful and courageous
Comment: Just as it is easier for any of us to practice our compassion by voting for more government programs and occasionally tossing some checks at charities, it probably would have been easier for Mr. Olasky to hold the fire that is this remarkable book. While others (including some of the 20+ friends and colleagues I've favored with copies of this book) complain a bit about Olasky's somewhat comprehensive treatment of the history of charity in America, I found those portions of his book particularly illuminating. How edifying indeed to learn that over 200 years of truly compassionate reformers had warned us against the mockery of compassion that is the welfare state, that it would deprive the needy of essential personal contact with benefactors and volunteers, that it would lend "assistance" breeding dependence and personal ruin, and that it would fail to make the great demands on givers and recipients alike necessary to render compassion either true or effective. If you have ever found yourself frustrated that an attempt to help a needy person, family, or neighborhood failed, this book can likely show what was missing, just as it shows what is missing on a staggering scale in our country's misguided effort to use government to help the needy. A book destined to be unpopular among those with a stake in relieving private citizens of their personal responsibilities to their fellow man, those receiving benefits without efforts at achieving independence, and those with an agenda to expand the authority of government on the false promise of a great society. No responsible commentator on present-day American can afford not to read this book. Bravo, Mr. Olasky.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good ideas, questionable ideology
Comment: Marvin Olasky's basic perscription for dealing with poverty in America is right-on and should be practiced by all Christians - instead of waiting for the government, we should get out there and help the poor ourselves. If we did, the world would be a better place. Our old government welfare system created a ponderous machine that punished families for staying together and made dependence a way of life.
That said, here's why Olasky's book failed to totally impress me.
For starters, Olasky doesn't seem to want to reform government programs for the poor, he wants to eliminate them entirely. It is a radically dangerous idea to absolve society's institutions of any responsibility for the well-being of its weakest members. For all of Olasky's professed "Christianity," this sounds more like dyed-in-the-wool secular humanism to me. Get rid of the external pressure limiting man's innate goodness, and man will naturally do what is good. Anyone thinking in line with the Bible will see that this is not true. People are fallen, and will not naturally do the right thing if left to themselves. That's why the Old Testament had numerous social welfare provisions in the Hebrew law directed at widows and orphans. The Bible also expresses concern for the just treatment of workers (Mal. 3:5, James 5:1-5, etc. A verse in Sirach, I forget the citation, says "To destroy a man's livelihood is to shed blood.") Olasky, like all "Christian Right" thinkers (James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Richard Land, et. al.), completely ignores the reality of the "working poor" and the surging profits of those at the top while those in the middle and the bottom were subject to massive lay-offs and downsizing aimed solely at making rich stockholders richer. Throughout the 1990s, people working one or more jobs routinely could not meet their bills and relied on beseiged food banks and other charities. The economy - booming under President Clinton - may have given some relief to these families, but we are foolish to think this economic boom has benefited everyone equally and that it will last forever. Relying on Olasky's voluntary charity is not the best - or the Biblical - way to deal with these problems. It is disturbing that Olasky seems to blame all poor people for their problems. Granted, there are many homeless people who started out as recreational drug users. But many are mentally ill. A mother working two blue collar jobs to pay for a family that her husband abandoned is not in her situation as a result of her own sin.
It should be noted that Olasky is the editor of World magazine, a Bush campaign advisor, and has been associated with groups like the Council for Biblical Man and Womanhood and other organizations that blame society's predicament on feminists, homosexuals, the media, college professors, etc. I'm not saying that these criticisms are wrong - on the contrary, "the cultural left" is very real. But it's hard to sympathize with Olasky and his Christian Right cohorts who see deconstructionists in Ivy League English departments as a larger threat to families than both parents having to work two jobs each to keep a roof over their heads. It's incredulous that these groups berate women for working - the majority of women work to pay the bills, not to attain feminist glory (Olasky may not know this, since his biography makes it clear he was raised by well-to-do Jewish parents and attended top schools). Of course, with all the money folks like Olasky and Dobson get from groups like the Council for National Policy and the Unification Church, we can be sure that evangelical Christians aren't going to get to hear any opinions other than those that fit neatly into the Republican party platform any time soon. I'd like the Coors Foundation or Rev. Moon to drop me a few million so I could set up a radio show or a magazine and suddenly become an evangelical "leader," but I guess I'll have to content myself with the web.
Rating: 5
Summary: Cannot be improved upon.
Comment: I rarely give out five-star reviews, but boy, if any book deserves five stars it's this one. Each page is an eye-opener, what Olasky brings to light is the severest and most truthful indictment yet of the government-sponsored poverty industry in America. Readers of William Bennett, Ann Coulter, Bernie Goldberg...and the can use this to show liberals exactly why the welfare state doesn't work, instead of simply claiming it does not work.
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Title: Compassionate Conservatism: What it is, What it Does, and How it Can Transform America by Marvin Olasky ISBN: 0743201310 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 15 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass by Myron Magnet ISBN: 1893554023 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: 07 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Renewing American Compassion by Marvin Olasky, Newt Gingrich ISBN: 0684830000 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: Beyond Entitlement by Lawrence M. Mead ISBN: 0743224957 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 28 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America by Dalton Conley ISBN: 0520216733 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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