We have erred.  We have allowed the Left to paint us as cold, unfeeling, and hard-hearted toward the suffering of others.  In some cases, we have even lent truth to their accusations, at times getting so wrapped up in the fight that in the heat of argument, we have forgotten that we were actually debating how best to help others and not the worthiness of doing so.

By now, we have developed knee-jerk reactions to mere mention of these issues, wholly devoid of the advanced (and superior) reasoning that initially guided us.  The best proof of this is in your reason for reading this far.  Would it be fair to say that you were curious about the apparent juxtaposition in the title of this post?

But I say that true conservatism and a genuine concern for the welfare of our fellow human beings could not be less orthogonal.  We have been maneuvered into thinking otherwise... duped.  The Left took an implement to which they knew we would have a visceral, instinctual counter-reaction-- income redistribution-- and carefully tied it to a well-marketed, and now widely accepted notion of social welfare.  Whether this was of design, or they merely accidentally dropped a hand grenade in our laps, we pulled the pin.  We assented.  That was a mistake.

Only the wrong, destructive, and ultimately cruel manifestation of the principles of social welfare lead to income redistribution.  The old adage about the man and the fish could be extended.  "Give a man a fish, glue him to the couch.  Give him ten fish, glue him to your campaign.  Give him a hundred fish, glue him to his coffin and bury him alive."

Income redistribution is wrong and destructive to both parties involved: the donor and receipient.

Right social welfare should have none of that.  But that cannot mean that right social welfare is passive or inactive.  To insist so is to work against a vacuum.  We cannot carry a reasonable expectation of victory in any attempt to vote down liberal social welfare policies with an argument that does not offer a comprehensive replacement thereof.

An application of the right principles can be seen in the raising of children.  Any parent understands the damaging effect of doing everything for and demanding nothing from a maturing child.  On this we are in agreement.  But if the child is already delinquent, or if there are forces pulling him in the direction of expecting more for doing less, then merely doing less for him and demanding more is a hopeless approach.  He will naturally choose the path of least resistance and fall under the spell of those who preach his entitlement.

But as conservatives, we know better than this.  We understand that it is better to hand out fishing poles than fish.  Yet, we have done a poor job of putting this belief into practice.  We have allowed the debate to remain limited to the choice between fish or no fish.  We have fought the wrong fight on the wrong battlefield.

It's time to change.