1) Why are conservatives skeptical about giving the "disadvantaged" a leg-up?

A: Because first, we don't necessarily agree with your premise.  Liberals like to use loaded terms like "disadvantaged". I would call someone who is physically or mentally disabled to be disadvantaged and conservatives, such as myself, are strongly in favor of programs that help these people. But most poor people are not "disadvantaged". They're just people who either choose not to work or make repeated poor choices. This is backed up both from the experiences most conservatives have with "poor" people as well as statistically.

2) This conservative does not believe in unchecked capitalism.  Conservatives need not be libertarians. I don't trust big business any more than I trust the government.

What conservatives most dislike about liberals is that liberals usually get the luxury of sounding compassionate because they themselves don't have to do anything.  Statistically, Republicans, who tend to be conservative, earn a lot more money.  And statistically (i.e. generally) income is loosely tied to amount of hours worked.  So conservatives tend to resent being villified by liberals for being incompassionate even as they (conservatives) tend to be the ones who have to pay for the compassion liberals espouse.

Look at JoeUser.com's denziens. The most vocal bleeding heart here I know of gets to sound really compassionate even though I suspect it's been many years since she's worked a full time job. It's easy for her to write from her apartment about how "the government" should be doing this or that.  But as someone who works 60 to 70 hours per week, I resent more of my time being spent working so that her compassion is made a reality -- even as people like you demonize us as being heartless.

Stevendedalus,  I read your article again and I come away with the same impression - that conservatives are not as caring as liberals.

It is easy to be compassionate if your compassion does not have to be backed up by action. The "compassion" we demand our government provide to its citizens comes largely off the backs of conservatives.

Let me use my own wife as an example. She is a home maker (house wife). She's more conservative than I am. And she is skeptical of governments helping the "disadvantaged".  Her husband (me) does bring in a pretty good income.

But that wasn't by chance.  My wife chose to live responsibly and make responsible choices. Rather than getting herself knocked up at 16 like the typical welfare mother, she behaved responsibly. She and her parents worked hard and she went to college (where she met me). She got a degree in applied mathematics.  After we were married for 2 years, we decided to begin having children and we decided to decided that she would stay home with them full time rather than continuing with her career.

The basic disagreement here is that you seem to imply that most poor people are simply disadvantaged at birth. That they are poor and needy through no fault of their own.  That is what I read.  But most conservatives know better. Most poor people, who are not disabled physically or mentally, are poor because they make poor choices.

It has been my experience that you have two types of liberals. The first type is the type that is already poor and wants more government help.  The second type is usually quite wealthy and has always lived an upper or middle class lifestyle. These types can be found in academia or in legal firms and typically have very little long term experience with poor people (serving in a soup kitchen is not real experience).

I know about the poor from first hand experience of having been one. And most of them simply were crude, stupid, lazy people. And even if you handed them a brand new house with everything but utilities paid, they would often as not trash the house through their own stupidity and end up getting the water turned off because they were too stupid or lazy to pay the water bill.

But calling it like it is gets people like me branded as heartless. It's much more "compassionate" to look at these stupid, lazy, losers of the world as simply disadvantaged people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves somehow, as if by magic, living in squalor trying to raise several children that they somehow managed to get pregnant with and trying to somehow make due on government assistance.

What I really don't like about your article is that it makes it sound like the conservative housewife is somehow simply naive. It is my opinion that the writer is more naive than the conservative housewife.  There have been so many studies on who "the poor" are that there's no excuse these days not being aware that the ugly picture I have painted of them is largely true even if you didn't (like me) grow up amongst them.

That's a pretty pathetic strawman argument.

So one guy inherits a fortune therefore that's the norm? And people don't inherit gambling debts.

My opinions are based not just on personal experience but statistical fact. You can wish it was some other way but that's just that - wishing.

I and many other successful housewives got degrees, supported their husbands' pursuits of career, then sacrificed a career of their own in order to  do what is best for their families.  Many housewives sacrifice their time making phone calls and organizing charity events.  They sacrifice their time and energy  taking care of the children of working friends and neighbors so those kids don't end up in latch key programs.  I think the compassion of the average conservative housewife has been misrepresented.

I am a conservative housewife although I am not religious.  I came from meager beginnings and live very well now.  My husband and I both have first hand experience with poverty and have seen for ourselves the difference personal choices has made.  I have many family members who made very different choices than my own and they are still living in or just above poverty.  I have also witnessed how you can't help those who don't want to be helped.  That is why I see so many problems with welfare.  Just because I am a realist doesn't mean I don't care.  I put my compassion toward where I feel it will do the most good.

Stevendedalus, I read your article again and I come away with the same impression - that conservatives are not as caring as liberals.

Perhaps that is partially my point, but in no way implicit is there aren’t conservatives who are just as, and exceed, in caring. Bush ‘41, I trust, truly believed in the power of the “thousand lights,” just as his son believes strongly in faith-based assistance. The trouble, however, is that programs such as these are not cohesive and, if I may, mandatory. Though it would be rude to take notes during Sunday collection, subliminally we suspect the guy next to us is not giving his share.

Indeed “compassionate” government does take from those who can afford to pay, but it is not a liberal conspiracy to soak only rich conservatives — most of us are levied in behalf of the poor and defenseless.

I admire your wife for placing the love of her children before her career, but her deep faith in you helped her decision in that her family would not go without. I couldn’t agree with you more that sixteen year olds or any single female for that matter, shouldn’t get knocked up [an argument for abortion?] nor should the government be compelled to support their children unless, their family situation is so desolate that it precludes assistance, nor should the government take the word of the family or the runaway father without an extensive asset search.

I do believe that some are disadvantaged, either congenitally or having the ill-luck of an atrociously shiftless family. In such cases, they should immediately be placed in foster care with no ifs and buts. Nor should the taxpayer be expected to support such a family without a mandatory work program to assimilate them into the mainstream. Given “poor choices” such as drug, alcohol addiction or habitual gambling — except for the family victimized — should not be recipients of welfare but surely the government needs to broach this problem with viable alternatives in order to grow responsible citizens.

It has been my experience that you have two types of liberals. The first type is the type that is already poor and wants more government help. The second type is usually quite wealthy and has always lived an upper or middle class lifestyle. This a broad brush stroke. In the first type there are predominantly hard working people who are still in need of helpful legislation because they are on the low chain of gainful employment — particularly in light of the near demise of unions or bargaining rights. Those in this type who are crude, stupid, lazy people seldom vote and few of whom do are like Nader and can’t differentiate one party from another. I notice that in the second type you do not include those who, like yourself, came from poverty and as a result oddly empathize with the have-nots. There would be no criterion that could rule out your joining this type, but for your hostile stereotyping that leaves little room to make an attempt at compassionate nuances. There are those — when you put down your broad brush — who have as much responsibility as you do but simply are not as gifted as you to climb toward success.

My thrust is not to denigrate the housewife, nor did I suggest she is naive; on the contrary she is a realist and at the crunch point simply recognizes that in the end the nation is a class society — and there it is, case closed.

Actually, I had no intention of branding your ilk with heartlessness; it is simply the way it is — those that have, want more or at least protect what they have; yet among these haves some moderates do see the value of helping out beyond the Dickensian cry: “Are there not poorhouses?” Those who have not, necessarily want more, but also realize that they will remain in the same low class, but with a little more comfort. In no way, do I support those who have nothing but won’t lift a finger to work out of it. [By the way, I did grow up amongst them.]