Michael Gerson, who tried to go from Bush speechwriter to political philosopher with his book, Heroic Conservatism, is now slamming Fred Thompson for being “callous.“

Thompson’s crime? Disagreeing with the “compassionate conservative” spending on AIDS in Africa. The set-up:

At a campaign stop attended by a CBS reporter in Lady’s Island, S.C., Thompson was asked if he, “as a Christian, as a conservative,” supported President Bush’s global AIDS initiative. “Christ didn’t tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it,” Thompson responded. “The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other.”

Thompson went on: “I’m not going to go around the state and the country with regards to a serious problem and say that I’m going to prioritize that. With people dying of cancer, and heart disease, and children dying of leukemia still, I got to tell you — we’ve got a lot of problems here. . . . “

That sounds pretty reasonable to me.  When the federal government gets involved in things like AIDS treatment in Africa, priorities for that spending are based on who has the most lobbyists on Capitol Hill.  As Thompson rightly points out, who’s to say whether cancer research or AIDS programs in Africa deserve more funding?  When you look at the the cost of any given aid program, you have to take into account not just the dollar cost, but the opportunity cost of how that money could have otherwise been spent.  And when you’re talking about tax dollars, that money could have been kept by the people who earned it to use as they saw fit.

Michael Gerson is one of those Republicans who wants to turn our party into the religious man’s Democrats.  Some excerpts from his attack on Thompson:

Thompson’s argument reflects an anti-government extremism, which I am sure his defenders would call a belief in limited government. In this case, Thompson is limiting government to a half-full thimble. Its duties apparently do not extend to the treatment of sick people in extreme poverty, which should be “the role of us as individuals and as Christians.”

“Anti-government extremism?”  Really?  I don’t think it’s at all extreme to question whether we ought to be pouring billions of dollars into fighting AIDS.  Especially when we have actual medical researchers who think that spending on AIDS may be out of proportion to its impact.

If you accept, as Gerson does, that it’s our responsibility to treat Africans infected with AIDS, aren’t there millions of people in this world living in various states of poverty, disease, oppression and squalor?  Why do AIDS patients in Africa get $30 billion over the next five years? If it’s just a question of morality, who gets to decide which cause is more deserving than another?  Which is of course the appeal of such an approach:  it’s nice to feel compassionate and important at no great cost to yourself.

Thompson also dives headfirst into the shallow pool of his own theological knowledge. In his interpretation, Jesus seems to be a libertarian activist who taught that compassion is an exclusively private virtue.

By definition, virtue must be private.  Forcibly confiscating other peoples’ money in order to give it to the poor doesn’t make you virtuous.  Nor does being forced to give money to poor.  As soon as it’s forced, it’s not virtue anymore.  People can be virtuous.  Governments cannot be.

What of the more than 1.4 million men, women and children who have received treatment with the help of Bush’s AIDS initiative? According to Thompson, they are not a priority. The 800,000 HIV-positive pregnant women who have gotten treatment to prevent transmission to their children? Not a priority. The care of nearly 3 million orphans? Not a priority.

Does Thompson actually believe this? Perhaps he was merely pandering to anti-government conservatives — though it is difficult to imagine what collection of shriveled souls would be excited by an attack on AIDS treatment. Either way, Thompson’s image as a courageous teller of hard truths — the “adult” in the race — is damaged. It cannot be called bravery for a millionaire actor, with a blessed life, to pick on the most vulnerable people on the planet.

This part is complete assholery.  Shriveled souls?  Picking on the most vulnerable?  Gerson is in fine liberal form today, picking up one of their classic techniques: If you don’t agree, you’re a terrible person.  Thompson is saying that it shouldn’t be up to a handful of bureaucrats and politicians to set the charity priorities of the nation.  Gerson says that Thompson is just being mean, or pandering to mean people.

Thompson’s questioner got it wrong. Support for the fight against AIDS is not a matter of being a “Christian” or a “conservative” — or a liberal or a Buddhist. It is an expression of compassion and empathy, which also reflects a serious conception of America’s role in the world.

No, I think you’ll find that you have it wrong, Mike.  Donating your own money to AIDS treatment is compassionate.  Insisting that the taxpayers fund your charitable projects is theft.

It takes great hubris to be a Michael Gerson.  You have to believe that your priorities are always the right ones.  You have to scorn the idea that individuals may be able to make better charity decisions than government bodies can.  You have to believe that people who disagree are just callous or ungenerous.  Gerson is effectively saying that he doesn’t trust the American people to be charitable with their own money - they need the government to force it out of them.

Gerson wants to save the Republican party with his ideas about compassionate conservatism.  Americans shouldn’t pride themselves on having a generous government, but on being a generous people.  Why not let individuals make their own choices about which cry of need to answer?  I suppose if we did, people like Michael Gerson wouldn’t get to feel as morally superior.

The Wall Street Journal published a review of his book which aptly points out some of the great errors in his judgment.