I think so. The strongest correlating factor might be religiousity. The Libertarian wing of the Republican party might donate much much less relative to income than the average Democrat. I know some secular Republicans and while they are my friends they certainly don’t seem like the Good Works and Charity types.
While this would make the conservatives more donating than liberals (altho I’m not convinced of that,) it would be a sideeffect of more conservatives being religious rather than a pure artifact (ha!) of their conservatism qua conservatism.
I was going to mention that too. But to be fair, some churches do do charity work as a substantial part of their income. But of course some, while “charities” in the sense that they are tax-writeoffs, just exist to further an intolerant agenda.
Most liberals are religious so this is pretty much a meaningless statement. What do 'secualr" conservatives do?
I suspect most of the “charity” given out goes to churches and that all this really means is that religious people give more money to churches. Who gives a shit?
The weasel word in that whole article is “secular.” The word “liberal” is a complete red herring. I bet you could find just as easily that religious liberals give more to charity (especilaly if we’re counting churches as charities) than areligious conservatives. The whole thing is tendentious as hell.
I am also curious if it was based on a percentage of income or not. For example, Person A gives 10 dollars to charity a week, but they only make 200 a week. Thus, they give 5% of their income. Person B gives 100 a week to charity and they make 10,000 a week. Thus, they give 1% to charity. Who is more generous?
If there is anything to this thesis, perhaps it is because liberals perceive the truth that private charity, while nothing but admirable, is a suboptimal devotion of one’s money, time or other resources. IOW, it does not get at the root causes of poverty. Relying on the “thousand points of light” to deal with America’s poverty problems is like relying on morphine to treat cancer. Whereas something like the New Deal, the Fair Deal or the War on Poverty can actually help.
The Generosity Index is a well-known index for giving by percentage of income. It doesn’t fare all that well for the typically liberal states over the traditionally conservative ones.
Top 5:
Mississippi
Arkansas
South Dakota
Oklahoma
Alabama
Bottom 5:
Minnesota
Massachusetts
New Jersey
Rhode Island
New Hampshire
What that mainly suggests to me isn’t that the northern states aren’t giving. It is just that the amounts are more flat rather than proportional to their average income. I am not sure if that is an excuse or not.
It’s interestting how some people interpreted this article. I didn’t read it as conservatives give more in a dollar amount or gave more as a percentage. I read it as more conservatives give to charities than liberals do. In other words it’s not that you have 100 liberals giving a million each versus 100 liberals giving a thousand each. I read that more conservitves with a six figure income gave to charity than liberals with a six figure income. Or that more religious conservatives gave to charity than religious liberals. Scr4 and Ferret Herder gave me the kinds of answers I was looking for. If you consider yourself a liberal, whether you are religious or not, wealthy or not, I would like to know if you donate to charities through money or time and if not, why you don’t. Do you work with Habitats for Humanities? Do you volunteer at a “soup kitchen” or shelter? Do you actually work for a not-for-profit charitable organization? Any of these I would consider a donation to charities.
I don’t care if you give $1 or $1 million. Do you give anything?
Normally, when I tell someone “fuck you,” I’m not caring if that’s the response they were looking for.
It’s too bad you started with that “in your face” attitude, because this is an otherwise interesting debate that could be in GD. I do think the government should be doing more to help people in need, but that doesn’t have any impact on my charity giving. They’re complementary options, not alternatives.
As noted by many, you’ll even notice that it compares religious conservatives with secular liberals. From what I read there, and considering that Brooks is an Op-Ed dude from the WSJ, I’m guessing that I’d be less impressed with his research than you. If you actually want to debate this, let’s see the methodology used by Brooks, where he gets his data, etc.
Since it’s pretty obvious from your OP (“Take that libs!”) that you just wanted to use some article to attempt to make liberals look bad (sorry that it didn’t work out so well), perhaps you’ll get lucky and partisanship will turn out to be the ticket to heaven. Then you could save your money and time (although you wouldn’t be able to regale us with tales of your wonderful deeds) and still get there.
Yes, I even donate blood, I thought the point was to give until it hurts. In any case I really don’t think many rich folk are giving until it hurts, a point then can be made that even if the book is correct, well to do conservatives are really not giving enough. And IMHO the whole point of the book is diminished when one takes into consideration that conservative states get more money than liberal ones (For every dollar that a Red state pays in taxes, they get back an average of 1.12; on the other hand, for every dollar a Blue state pays in taxes, they get back an average of only .87.)
To be clear, I do think if charities were as effective as they are assumed to be, there would never had been a need for Social Security and other government programs.
So BrainGlutton (you really should think about a name change. At least for the first half or add something in the middle),
You are saying that if I know a poor family down the street that has had serious misfortune and can’t buy winter clothing or have a happy holiday season, I should send the money to X (you tell me the name) Washington action committee to help an eventual revolution rather than just give the money to my church and tell them what exactly to do with it to help them (100% of the money goes where you ask in this case)? This is based on several real cases by the way.
Someone call the police. BrainGlutton is exposing himself in public again.
Castro isn’t doing well these days. My condolences in advance.
Nice bunch of straw there, I also contributed a few months ago to a family whose father died recently and had no money for the funeral. Point being that it does not follow that just because liberals contribute more to causes and taxes we are not blind to critical needs in our community.
