Distinguishing Private Approaches and Government Policy

Dennis Prager gives an important insight here (italics mine):

"Compassion in social policy almost always produces unfair results. Compassion for murderers allows them to keep their lives after taking the life of another. Compassion for minorities leads to affirmative action, which means that individuals who are not members of a designated minority will be treated unfairly. Compassion for immigrant children led to bilingual education, which subsequently prevented most of those children from advancing in American society.
Compassion as the primary determinant of behavior is effective in personal life. In making public policy, it is a morally and socially destructive guideline. In fact, it is so bad that thinking people must conclude that its primary purpose is to enable policy makers who are guided by compassion to feel good about themselves."

There's a connecting theme of personal responsibility. In many ways US culture has shifted to saying that individuals are not personally responsible for their decisions (though businesses, military, and government leaders still are, and don't get the same benefit of the doubt).

When personal responsibility erodes you see two aspects come forward: (1) It's not my fault, it's _________ (my genes, my environment, my parents...) and (2) the government should take care of that, not me.

Neither of these builds strong healthy societies or strengthens families.

The ultimate extension of this thinking is "we need more education and money, and then all these problems will go away."

Far better to state the facts: there is sin, and it must be dealt with.

It is good for individuals to treat one another with compassion (and that means real love, holding them accountable, dealing with sin). It is appropriate for public policy to set standards and act in ways that are consistent with the law.