Are liberals cheap when it comes time to give money and their time to charity? I mean the party of FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society would indicate that the democrats, liberal with the government's money, should surely also be charitable with their own money, right? A political party that sticks their collective chests out and bellows how they are the champions of the down trodden must also champion giving to charities until it hurts, right?
Think again.
Arthur Brooks, Syracuse University professor and author of Who Really Cares: the Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism, found that:
•Liberal families earn 6% more than conservatives yet the conservatives give 30% more to charities.
•Conservatives give more blood
•People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of FOUR TIMES more than people who accept that philosophy.
Good God, this can't be true! Conservatives more charitable? Jeez, liberals have been telling Americans that the religious right are zealots out to "Christianize" the entire planet yet give more so that the less fortunate can make do. FDR must be turning in his grave.
Nicholas Kristof, a liberal columnist, admits in one of his pieces entitled Bleeding Heart Tightwads that, "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."
So, liberals are shown to be cheap with their own money. They then must make up for that by donating more of their time, ala Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity, right? Wrong again. Brooks' study also found that red states are more charitable than blue states. In fact, "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, the American blood supply would increase by 45 percent."
Okay. I know what most of the liberals are thinking, "Yeah, well, this is just one study." Fair enough. Let us look at the results of Charles W. Dunn, who, in 2004, studied who was more generous: a John Kerry voter or a George W. Bush voter. His findings?
•Red state voters are more generous than blue state voters.
•Seven most generous states are: Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, South Dakota (red states)
•Seven least generous: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Connecticut (blue states)
•All of the top 25 states are red; while only six of the 25 least charitable states are red
What does this all mean? Well, for one thing, this means that once the lies of conservatives being mean-spirited, Satan worshipers are repeated incessantly, the lies morphs into the truth. Except in this case, the truth is that the liberal is much stingier with their own money and time while they spend like a Kennedy during $.25 beer night with our tax dollars. Secondly, the next time you work for a project like Habitat for Humanity, the guy or gal next to you, is more likely to be a conservative. Lastly, these studies show that if you need blood, you'd better live in a red state or you might end up dead.
Sources:
http://www.regent.edu/general/regent_response/election04/schgov.cfm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?_r=1&em
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html
