Posted on 12/16/2006 10:31:51 PM PST by Ronald ReaganROCKS
Liberal or conservative? The myths and facts
By Thomas Sowell
More frightening than any particular beliefs or policies is an utter lack of any sense of a need to test those beliefs and policies against hard evidence. Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts, but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision. One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring. It is liberals who advocate "forgiveness" of loans to Third World countries, a "living wage" for the poor and a "safety net" for all. But these are all government policies — not individual acts of compassion — and the actual empirical consequences of such policies are of remarkably little interest to those who advocate them. Depending on what those consequences are, there may be good reasons to oppose them, so being for or against these policies may tell us nothing about who is compassionate or caring and who is not. A new book titled "Who Really Cares" by Arthur C. Brooks examines the actual behavior of liberals and conservatives when it comes to donating their own time, money or blood for the benefit of others. It is remarkable that beliefs on this subject should have become conventional, if not set in concrete, for decades before anyone bothered to check these beliefs against facts. What are those facts? People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.
(Excerpt) Read more at deseretnews.com ...
But a liberal would argue that they want to TAKE more for the poor than people want to give willingly, thus making them more generous in their warped vision.
I have lost many liberal friends when I pointed to their multiple cars and their jobs with big corporations; I dumped my car and have worked at a homeless shelter and now a residence for in-crisis kids. For some reason they don't like being reminded of that. :)
I have noticed that those who have benefited from liberal programs are not grateful and are not motivated to help others. A man I met explained it this way. When everyone has their hands out, there is no one available to give a hand up. Once a victim, always a victim.
And the thing is, that idea perpetuates itself. Even here on FR, I've seen people demanding "their" programs get Federal money because "I'm paying a lot of taxes and my pet project should get some"--never realizing that this is the whole post-FDR entitlement trap: Make EVERYONE demand money for THEIR project--just one--and we've got trillions in "just my" projects needing to be funded.
Another thing about the lib/conservative gap in compassionate giving... I think part of the "perception" problem is that a lot of conservatives like us, do our charitable things and we do it quielty. The liberals tend to jump up and down and proclaim how charitable they are to anyone who will hear, go on Oprah and talk about all their good works--for all the wrong reasons of course--so people just think they must be doing it all the time. There are some celebs who don't go around talking about what they do, but the vast majority seem to do it just to get awards and accolades. I was raised not to boast about my giving and there's a good chance that most people wouldn't guess that I did do charitable things.
GREAT point--you hit the bullseye, my friend.
When I do a charitable work it's because I think it's my responsibility--imposed by MY CHOICE--not because I "have" to but because I want to contribute to the well being of people, just because that's how I think we should be. If we all took care of our neighbors and didn't think "that's why we need a big government program," we'd live in a nation that was far closer to what it should be.
When some liberals do such works, they do it in large part to show how much "better" they are than those who don't do such things...and then they hop in their gas-guzzler and toss their kids money to watch crappy movies, and expect you and I to pay higher taxes to foot the bill for "their" display of wonderfulness.
Conservatives think you're supposed to do good works because that's how you should just be--and we don't expect to pay for someone else to do it for us.
liberals think you're supposed to do good works, but most people suck, so they should be punished with high taxes to pay for the things they aren't doing.
Are you paying any attention to social entrepreneurs? I have read two very interesting books about young CA me who set out to build schools in Afghanistan and Nepal. Three Cups of Tea is positive and inspiring. Then I saw a Sandy Weill interview and he referenced an org that has 450 inner city schools with 80% of students going to college. These are people who are attacking and solving problems themselves going around government and soliciting private financing.
Conservatives are charitable with their own money. Liberals believe in taxing everyone to provide for the poor. THey are charitable with other peoples' money because they have none of their own to give.
Liberals don't need facts, just believers (suckers).
See my tag line below.
I'm glad this was published in the desertnews but it needs to be on the front page of the NYSlimes, WashPost, LASlimes etc...
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