One of the most frustrating aspects of contemporary conversations about politics and public policy is how often the deleterious effects of terrible programs — local, state and federal — are brushed aside with distracting (and even deceitful) claims that the intentions behind the policies were "compassionate." This is an utterly wrongheaded analysis for many reasons. Laws, public policies and government programs should be evaluated by their results, not by the state of mind of their advocates or sponsors.

The weaponization of compassion has launched a de facto competition of who can be thought to be the most "compassionate" (or, at least, not thought to be uncompassionate). The result of this arms race has been chaos, destruction and depravity.

It's easy to lose sight of just how often this pernicious dynamic takes place, so it's worthwhile to point out a few of the disastrous policies that were promoted (and, in some cases, continue to be promoted) as being "compassionate" and to call them out for the societally corrosive lies they are.

     1. It wasn't "compassionate" to close our mental hospitals. The impulse was understandable; plenty of those facilities were substandard. But the results were catastrophic. Until fairly recently in this country's history, the "homeless" population consisted largely of small numbers of unattached males who drifted from place to place seeking work. But since the 1980s, the homeless population of the U.S. has exploded. Nearly three-quarters of a million people are homeless, and the number jumped 18 percent from 2023 to 2024. California has 187,000 of the country's homeless; more than 70,000 are in Los Angeles County alone.

     2. It isn't "compassionate" (nor is it respect for "individual autonomy" or "dignity") to leave the homeless........

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