Just in time for the holidays, Nicholas D. Kristof reminds us of who gives what in terms of charity: Bleeding Heart Tightwads The New York Times Nicholas D. Kristof http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?_r=2 Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates. Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals. Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.
Well, looks like the actual difference comes down to funding of Sunday entertainment and heaven insurance.
Cut and paste...Cut and paste. Perhaps if you removed your dead arse (and brain) away from your computer you could have joined us in the snow yesterday outside the local market collecting food and money for the food bank. You and your sneering friends are probably in your local "Christian!!" church right now donating your money to the charity of preventing same sex marriage to child molesters and speaders of aids.
Odd, you omitted the very next sentance... If measuring by the percentage of income given, conservatives are more generous than liberals even to secular causes. And this a few paragraphs later: Conservatives also appear to be more generous than liberals in nonfinancial ways. People in red states are considerably more likely to volunteer for good causes, and conservatives give blood more often. If liberals and moderates gave blood as often as conservatives, Mr. Brooks said, the American blood supply would increase by 45 percent. One only need look at the tax returns of our politicans to see evidence of these demographic trends. Anyway, Merry Chirstmas to all (Liberal and Conservative)! Now go out an donate a little blood and make sure to drop a few shillings into the Salvation Army kettle.
All "measuring by the percentage of income given" means is that that conservatives are poorer. More total good is being done from liberal giving.
Yes you are correct, poor people give more generously and rich liberals who "can afford to give" absolve folks like you and Joe Biden… but in the spirit of the season do give blood, it costs nothing.
This had the potential to be a very interesting discussion, and I suppose it still could be, but like many threads begun in this forum it starts from a partisan persepctive that is less than flattering to one group over another, and away we go on a way-off-the-mark argument. Don't like what Kristoff wrote? Just find some nonpartisan scribe - or a think tank report or university study or even the book Kristoff used to write his column - and look at it. Don't pretend that religious groups don't do some remarkable things that have nothing to do with an anti-homosexual agenda. I am continually impressed, for example, by Lutheran Immigrationa and Refugee Services and all they have done for people I know who resettled from UNHCR-run refugee camps to the US at the behest of the US government. And I occasionally stumble across things these little old nuns are doing at the Monastery of St. Gertrude's south of where I live in Cottonwood, ID - these "little old ladies" are serious about social justice, including serving those with AIDS, combating human trafficing, and combatting gang violence. They rely 100% on charitable donations to do their work. And on the other side, there's some interesting questions raised by something like the blood donation rate. Wonder why, for example, the blood donation rate amongst people who served in the US military between 1986 (or 87, I can't remember) and 1997 is lower than it is today? It isn't because they are worse people, it's because anyone who spent more than a few months living on a military base in England, Germany, or Italy, or who lived off post but bought regularly from the PX, are prohibited from donating blood due to fears of being tainted by mad cow disease (contanimated meat). I was not in the military but fall into that category. Many of my friends are denied from travel to certain places, and there are other reasons as well. So we became marrow donors instead. There's lots to discuss here. I know this is probably the wrong place for it, but I for one would appreciate a legitimate discussion of some of these issues. I am not intentionally singling out the thread starter here. This has been on my mind for awhile now, and a thread about charity just struck me as a place where we might discuss things, I don't know, more charitably than in other places. Rant off!
In deference to Ismitje. I have a feeling that a lot of these reports are based on tax returns. If you claim 10% or less you won't get grief from the IRS.
That is an unfair comment. Christian churches do a lot of great work, helping the poor, the sick, the homeless and people with needs. For example, the Catholic church runs some outstanding orphanages that rescue children off the street and give them love and an education. My daughter came from one such orphanage in Thailand. Such places are supported by the charity that church members give. That is where much of the money goes, when people donate to the Catholic church. The protestant churches also are involved in similar endeavors. A friend of mine has an orphanage in Baja California, that I am supporting, and he is primarily backed by evangelical churches. Do you think that helping orphans is not a worthy cause?
Well I guess it eases conservative guilt for starting unnecessary wars and pillaging the treasury, which is nice.
But the Catholic church took a position against the war, and they consistently take sides against war. I am sure you can come up with other reasons why they are feeling guilty, in order to rationalize the fact that they do good in the world. Can't you accept the possibility that maybe they actually do honestly want to do good in the world? That they help the needy because they genuinely want to help the needy, not because of some guilt issues? I can only speak for myself. It gives me satisfaction to do my little part to help those in need. I don't do it because I feel guilty over anything. I adopted a little girl because I wanted to give love to a child who needed it. I can say I received in return from her much more than I've given. But we shouldn't give expecting to receive. We shouldn't give out of guilt. We should give because we want to and because we can. And because if we were the unfortunate ones, we would be thankful if somebody gave to us.
In an effort to salvage something from this thread, this is an excellent point. I am in the exact same boat. I tried to give blood many years ago and found that I was on the permanent ban list because I lived in england for more than three months back in 1996 at the height of mad cow. I also registered for the Bone Marrow National Registry at that time, and they are more than happy to have us banned people on that list. I guess mad cow marrow is better than no marrow at all. We recently had this conversation in the Fire thread in an effort to find a match for former Fire midfielder Andy Williams' wife who has been diagnosed with leukemia. I got a little sappy in that thread in my call to action, so I won't go quite as far here, but here comes some sap nonetheless because I want to inspire at least one of you to go register. When I was in junior high, my oldest brother was diagnosed with leukemia. It was the particularly nasty kind and he didn't stand a chance. After spenidng about a year and a half in a hospital (with a brief, wonderful six week remission in the summertime) the doctors approached me and my other brother about a daring new treatment called a bone marrow transplant. They explained the procedure and explained how we would have to be tested to see if we were a match. As we were making the arrangements, he took a turn for the worse, and it was too late. He died just a month shy of his high school graduation and six weeks shy of his 18th birthday. In the subsequent years, I have met a handful of leukemia survivors. Most were diagnosed as children and were matched with marrow donors. My brother would now be about 3 months older than Barack Obama and I often wonder what he would have become, but it isn't really necessary to know because I already knew what a strong character he had. Fast forward to today. If you register as a potential donor, the sad reality is that you will likely never get called as matches are a tough thing. BUT, if you do get the call, it will take a half a day out of your life and will leave you with what will feel like a bruised hip for a couple of days. In return, you will quite literally save someone's life. At this time of year, take just a moment to think about that . . . an entire family somewhere crying tears of joy because someone they love will be around to celebrate many, many more holidays and one less family crushed by the incredible sadness of losing a child, brother, sister, cousin, nephew, niece far too soon. It's an awesome opportunity that asks so very little of the donor. Registering is very easy. Just google "bone marrow registry" and the name of your town, and you should be able to find a blood center near by. In Chicago, it was Lifesource. In addition, there are drives organized in cities to get a bunch of people registered at once. Back in the day, they were planning on drawing marrow from our hip bones to see if we were matches. Now, it is as simple as a little swab on the inside of your cheek. That's it. Many places will then ask for a small donation to cover the cost of typing your marrow to add you to the registry. Ok, I lied. I got way too sappy. Now, I'm going to pour it on. As you tuck in your kids tonight give them an extra little squeeze thanking God they are healthy, or if you are talking to other family members on the phone during the holidays, think of this and be thankful for what you have . . . then do a quick google and go register. Then, if anyone on here ever gets called to be a donor, tell us about it! P.S., this is a completely non-partisan request on my part as conservative marrow apparently works about the same as moon bat marrow. Sorry to veer from the partisan nature of the original post. Merry Christmas. EDIT -- to add just a little more sap. My brother was WAY ahead of his time as a very good soccer player from Kansas and was the assistant coach of my team. He was also my confirmation sponsor -- the person you look up to the most -- and we had to do the confirmation with the bishop in his room wearing masks because he was too sick and too susceptible to bugs due to his crazy white blood cell count to leave the hospital despite the valiant effort of the doctors to get him out that weekend. Ok. That's enough.
There's a mission church in Oklahoma City that the past three churches I have attended heavily support with financial and volunteer assistance. This mission church serves primarily the homeless and the very low income residents of the area that it's in and operates emergency homeless shelter rooms, transitional housing, ESL classes, tutoring, food pantry and clothing assistance as well as a dental/vision/health clinic, low cost prescriptions, social service & employment referral. They also have their own type of Habitat for Humanity program whereby they tear down the burnouts and abandoned homes in the neighborhood and replace them with 1 & 2 family homes that one of the families gets, as well as rehabbing a small building across the street into a before/after school youth/teen alternative to gangs & hanging out to get into dumb stuff that gets you put in jail. They have access to tutors, computers, assistance with filing financial aid applications for college & vo-tech as well as recreation programs. If you'd like to make a donation, I can arrange it, if that sounds like the type of thing you could get behind. PS: When you were collecting food and whatnot, were there any Christians there, or was this some local Atheists for Action group?
I don't see anywhere int he article where the amount of time donated to a cause is listed. I would be curious to know how this is factored in, if at all.
Interesting post by the original poster. I believe it is in the Christian position to use the time and money spent to help the less fortunate as a bludgeon to belittle others who might not give as much. Wasn't it Jesus who said, "make sure to rub thy holiness in other people's faces, as it pleases the Lord thy God." No, it wasn't. All the major religions, and even some Atheists, do what they can to help the less fortunate. While a survey like this does raise some interesting questions, it should not be used as an excuse to ridicule those who don't have time to volunteer or the extra money to send a check. Perhaps the truth is that people distrust some of these organizations, or spend time helping rather than just sending a check to assuage guilt. Perhaps they spend time working in local government to bring government assistence where needed. Who knows? Who are you to judge others?
I don't know if donations to churches are really charity. To my mind, they're more of a user fee, at least in normal amounts. If some guy is rich and he donates $10K a month, obviously the bulk of that is what I would consider charity.
It is hard to gauge. For example, mormons donate 10% of their income to their church, and they do so at a phenomenally high rate compared to other churches. But the majority of that money is used for church purposes...however on the tax return, it is counted as a charitable contribution. There is however, major donations in fast offerings, which are itemized separately by the church, and are 100% used for charitable purposes. But they count exactly the same on a tax return. I wish it were easier to measure, because this topic really is interesting. It has commonly been asserted by liberals that conservatives are greedy and hate the poor, and it has commonly been asserted by conservatives that liberals want to help the poor but they only want to do it if they can use someone else's money. If we had a better way of measuring charitable contribution, then we could see which idea has more merit. As it stands right now, this "study" is worthless.
I think we should each give according to what we think in our heart that we can give, to whoever we think it will help, and stop comparing it with what others do, and especially stop tying it to whatever people's ideology may be.
So you're in favor of a flat tax then, I take it?? After all, more total good is being done by a rich person paying X% of their income in taxes than a poor person paying X%.