Disclaimer: I'm not saying that all liberals are ungenerous, many of them are more generous than I am. I'm just looking at the statistics and reporting. Don't shoot the messenger.
Further disclosure: One mitigating factor in the disparity between "liberals" and "conservatives" giving is that "liberals" normally live in areas where cost of living is higher (urban areas) than in more rural areas where people are more conservative. However, I don't think this makes up for the 30% difference.
A lot of people think that liberals are more caring, and more concerned with the poor and the welfare of society than conservatives. As I have said before, it simply is not true. Conservatives are MORE concerned about the betterment of society than liberals, at least, our checkbooks, our time, and our blood says so. This study was between principled conservatives and principled liberals. It compared the 30% of society that calls themselves liberal, versus the 40% of society that calls themselves conservative. The 30% of society that calls themselves "centrist" or "moderate" was excluded from this study. Conservative families give 30% more to charities, and lest you think the conservative families have higher incomes, they didn't in this study, the liberal families made 6% more income, yet gave 30% less to charity. In addition, the conservative group were 51% more likely to volunteer and conservative volunteers spent 12% more hours volunteering than liberals in any given year. If liberals and moderates gave as much blood as conservatives we would increase our blood supply by 45% (meaning that conservatives give about twice as much blood as liberals.)
In addition to conservatives being more generous, the things that they do to help the poor are more effective, and more personal than what liberals do for the poor and downtrodden. The bottom line is the "common knowledge" that liberals care more about the poor and downtrodden than conservatives is a myth.
I got these statistics from Arthur C. Brooks' book "Who Really Cares?" You can find it on Google books for free here. If you don't want to wade through the book read this article.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Who Really Cares?
Posted by JB at 9:43 PM
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8 comments:
Jon, here's a snippet from "God's Politics" by Jim Wallis:
After the 2002 midterm elections, I attended a private dinner for Harvard Fellows in Cambridge. Our speaker was a Republican political strategist who had just won all the major senatorial and gubernatorial election campaigns in which he was involved. Needless to say, he was full of his success and eager to tell us about it. This very smart political operative said that Republicans won middle-class and even working-class people on the "social" issues, those moral and cultural issues that Democrats don't seem to understand or appreciate. He even suggested that passion on the social issues can cause people to vote against their economic self-interest. Since the rich are already with us, he said, we win elections.
I raised my hand and asked the following questions: "What would you do if you faced a candidate who took a traditional moral stance on the social and cultural issues? They would not be mean-spirited and, for example, blame gay people for the breakdown of the family, nor would they criminalize the choices of the desperate women backed into difficult and dangerous corners. But the candidate would decidedly be pro-family, pro-life (meaning really want to lower the abortion rate), strong on personal responsibility and moral values, and outspoken against the moral pollution throughout popular culture that makes raising children in America a countercultural activity. And what if that candidate was also an economic populist, pro-poor in social policy, tough on corporate corruption and power, clear in supporting middle- and working-class families in heath care and education, and environmentalist, and committed to a foreign policy that emphasized international law and multilateral cooperation over preemptive and unilateral war? What would you do?" I asked. He paused for a long time and then said, "We would panic!"
Now back to me:
I read this every now and then to remind myself why being "non-partisan" is so important to me. I don't want to fight for a candidate or a party. I want to fight the issues. I think anything else would be divisive. There are Christians in both the Republican and Democratic parties and we are called to unity. So how do we accomplish unity?
Also, many of the things I've written on my own blog have been divicive and hurtful. So I'm not saying that I act in a way I that is right. I don't. I'm silly.
However, I did want to share those thoughts with you. I'm not who I want to be, but I press on. :)
Also, last night I dreamed that the Baird's and the Dunn's rode to church together in a Winnebago.
Yeah. Let that permiate your brain for a while!
Also, I am really commenting it up here, aren't I?
Scott and I rarely document what we give (which honestly isn't much) but when we do it's usually cash to a person who has a serious need. That doesn't show up on our tax return.
On another note, we should discuss tithing to churches at another time...
that's a bunch of bull crap!
Kristen,
Good point about being non-partisan, and I will reword my conclusion.
Thanks.
As far as the Winnebago, that sounds like a lot of fun.
I'm glad you are commenting it up. I wish everyone would. Yes, tithing would be a good topic. I may post about it later.
Ashley,
Ok, please let me know how this is crap. I can say, "that's not a lot of bull crap!" Show me the statistics that go against Dr. Brooks' research and I will recant, but to go against the facts is neither safe nor right. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.
And who is outspending whom in this presidential campaign? Who has the money?
Speaking for myself: I hope our "liberal" friends understand this is not an attack. It's a defense against what we view as a widely held, "common knowledge", unfair and inaccurate portrayal of "conservatives". Forgive my redundancy (sp?). The record needs to be set straight. And how better to do it than the facts?
Well it's happened again. First we got to see Obama's Tax Return and found out the man who thinks we are our brothers keeper, doesn't think that principle applies to him. Then today we found out that his limited charity doesn't even start at home! Reports surfaced today from the London Times of all places that Barack Obama's dear aunt, who he wrote so highly of in his first book, has been living in a Boston Slum. Now, couple this with the fact that his half brother is living in Kenya on $12 dollars a year, and you get a very telling account of Sen. Obama. The man that says he cares for all and that America's biggest problem is that we don't live by the principle that "whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do also to me," doesn't see the need to take care of his own family members. These types of inactions on Sen. Obama's part causes me to once again doubt very serioulsy any of his claims to be looking out for any one in our country let alone those who are the most in need.
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