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.