“Compassion is the use of public funds to buy votes.”

Putting aside that this is a completely ludicrous statement, one might point out that if this is so, then compassion for the poor is a much cheaper alternative than the current administration's compassion for the filthy rich...

Charity should be lent, expecting repayment, to those who need to get back on their feet. NOT given to everyone (citizen, immigrant or alien, rich or poor) with their hand outstretched.

If pigs could vote for swine herder, they would elect the guy with the slop bucket every time.

We should support the disabled, elderly, and orphans, not the lazy, thieving, and able-bodied.

So now Thomas Sowell is pretending to be Noah Webster? Su-weeet - and, oh, by the way; as everyone surely knows, 'empathy' is the use of a toothbrush and 'God is Love'. Hell, let's just reduce all nouns to one while we're at it. I mean, who needs all of that variety in language anyway? 'Poetry' has little value in economics.

I thought that Sowell was quoting Ambrose Bierce.

Compassion is using Fundie pubs to buy votes.

Well, it is certainly easy to see whose votes have been bought and paid for around here! By the way, as has been pointed out a plethora of times, forced charity is no charity at all. Government robs us not only of our wealth (to buy votes), but of our opportunity to demonstrate our compassion for those in need. It also eliminates the necessity for the recipients of charity to be good members of society as well. Their government checks will come whether they're loving and compassionate or the worst SOB's in town..

Ken, - "Government robs us not only of our wealth (to buy votes), but of our opportunity to demonstrate our compassion for those in need".

How easy and convenient it must be for you to be 'robbed' of your ability "to demonstrate (your) compassion for those in need". Perhaps that's the definition of a 'good member of society' - a definition you're clearly familiar with.

Just another example of the mindset of the libertarian branch of the free market religion--people are scum and we shouldn't reward scum, and on top of that, there's a inverse correlation between affluence and scumminess. Or, as JK Galbraith knew so well, there is no end to the number of "philosophers" and, nowadays, "commentators" willing to devote their lives to justifying greediness and selfishness as the highest of human virtues. Or, as Wislawa Szymborska said in her poem, No End of Fun, "he uses his reason to pick holes in reason." A pox on Sowell, O'Rourke, and all their ilk.

The occupying statist theocracy infesting this land does buy votes with what is falsely packaged as compassion. The religion of atheistic socialism is unlawful, destructive and forcefully antagonistic to compassion.

Oh how compassionate our rulers are when using someone else's money.

I agree with Terry Berg

Public servants: Persons  chosen by the people to distribute the graft. Mark Twain.

Compassion is the constant reminding oneself that your fellows are terribly mentally disordered and trying more and more to understand their ordeal.