What is the difference between sympathy and empathy? Well, sympathy deals with feeling and empathy deals with understanding.
 One of the reasons our government is not helping as many people as it should is because many of our leaders and the mainstream press are full of sympathy and not empathy.
 I think most of them mean well, it is just they don't have the understanding of how to help.
  Let's say we have a family who is in desperate need of our help.
 We go to their house and we cry with them.
 That's fine in the very beginning.
 But after six months we are still crying with them.
 We are still saying things like, "Oh, I feel so bad for you!   The children are starving! You are going to be homeless! I feel your pain!" Now, let me ask you a question.
 Are we truly helping this family? The answer is no.
 It is time to move from sympathy (feeling) to empathy (understanding).
 We need to make tough decisions to help people.
   Let's take welfare.
 Is it helping people? For a few, yes.
 For many, NO! Is it hurting them? For many, YES! How is it hurting anybody? Because it is making them dependent on the government.
 Because it is helping people to be lazy (we have people watching soap operas not trying to get a job while you and I through our tax money pay for them to do this - THIS IS WRONG).
 Because it is not helping people believe in themselves and the God-given abilities that they have.
   We have to toss the current welfare system out the window and create a brand new system which truly helps through empathy not sympathy.
   Some of you might be saying, "Okay, I agree with you.
 But I am not in government so what does this mean for me and my family?" Well, let's say your daughter comes home with a big problem.
 She asks for your help.
 How are you going to help? Will you just sit and cry with her? Or will you maybe do a little crying, seek to truly understand, and with God's help come up with a solution? The answer is you will probably choose the second approach to help your daughter.
  The point I am trying to make is that sympathy and empathy are both good emotions.
 But to truly help we have to move through sympathy to empathy where solutions are born.
 This is the responsibility of every American.
The government's responsibility is to provide programs that truly help not hand cuff individuals.
 And how does the government do this? In most cases, by staying out of it and allowing the free market and individuals to provide the solutions.
 And that is where we find solutions and success.