Score one for Fairweather

[JayB]

"BROOKS: For me, it was a surprising truth. And the reason for that is I was under the stereotype about charitible giving in America, which is that those who are most charitiable are the people who say that they care the most about the needy in America—and that typically involves the political left. And what I found when I started doing analysis on this some years ago was that actually the opposite is true: that political conservatives, or at least declared political conservatives, give more of their resources, even proportionate to their incomes, than liberals do."

 

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/12/12/PM200612126.html

 

From the Author's Website:

 

"The political stereotypes break down even further when we consider age: “Anyone who is not a socialist before age thirty has no heart, but anyone who is still a socialist after thirty has no head,” goes the old saying. And so we imagine crusty right-wing grandfathers socking their money away in trust funds while their liberal grandchildren work in soup kitchens and save the whales. But young liberals—perhaps the most vocally dissatisfied political constituency in America today—are one of the least generous demographic groups out there. In 2004, self-described liberals younger than thirty belonged to one-third fewer organizations in their communities than young conservatives. In 2002, they were 12 percent less likely to give money to charities, and one-third less likely to give blood. Liberal young Americans in 2004 were also significantly less likely than the young conservatives to express a willingness to sacrifice for their loved ones: A lower percentage said they would prefer to suffer than let a loved one suffer, that they are not happy unless the loved one is happy, or that they would sacrifice their own wishes for those they love.

 

The compassion of American conservatives becomes even clearer when we compare the results from the 2004 U.S. presidential election to data on how states address charity. Using Internal Revenue Service data on the percentage of household income given away in each state, we can see that the red states are more charitable than the blue states. For instance, of the twenty-five states that donated a portion of household income above the national average, twenty-four gave a majority of their popular votes to George W. Bush for president; only one gave the election to John F. Kerry. Of the twenty-five states below the national giving average, seventeen went for Kerry, but just seven for Bush. In other words, the electoral map and the charity map are remarkably similar.

 

These results are not an artifact of close elections in key states. The average percentage of household income donated to charity in each state tracked closely with the percentage of the popular vote it gave to Mr. Bush. Among the states in which 60 percent or more voted for Bush, the average portion of income donated to charity was 3.5 percent. For states giving Mr. Bush less than 40 percent of the vote, the average was 1.9 percent. The average amount given per household from the five states combined that gave Mr. Bush the highest vote percentages in 2003 was 25 percent more than that donated by the average household in the five northeastern states that gave Bush his lowest vote percentages; and the households in these liberal-leaning states earned, on average, 38 percent more than those in the five conservative states.

 

People living in conservative states volunteer more than people in liberal states. In 2003, the residents of the top five “Bush states” were 51 percent more likely to volunteer than those of the bottom five, and they volunteered an average of 12 percent more total hours each year. Residents of these Republican-leaning states volunteered more than twice as much for religious organizations, but also far more for secular causes. For example, they were more than twice as likely to volunteer to help the poor.

 

Surely Jimmy Carter would have been surprised to learn that the selfish Americans he criticized so vociferously were most likely the very people who elected him president."

 

And a fitting summary from Thomas Sowell:

 

" 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."

 

It'll be interesting to see how well these stats hold up to the furious cross-checking that will no doubt ensue as the word of these finding lights up the righteous-indignatiometer on campuses all across the US. I hope this guy was smart enough to secure tenure before shopping this manuscript around, and has plenty of friends outside campus, as I imagine that he will be feeling the lack of personal altruism that he identifies amongst self-professed leftists in a very personal way quite soon.

 

 

 

 

[ZimZam]

1. Liberals don't make enough money to donate.

 

2. Liberals have to work two jobs to make money, so consequently don't have free time to donate.... well this liberal anyway.

[pink]

liberals are to busy bitching about the trunks to make money. i just got done working for a liberal that makes more money than everybody on this site. there are people who make money off other people who care about people. how old are you? have you ever owned your own business? i would say you are in your mid twenties and never owned a business.

[JayB]

"1. Liberals don't make enough money to donate.

 

2. Liberals have to work two jobs to make money, so consequently don't have free time to donate.... well this liberal anyway."

 

Not true. From what I understand the author controlled for incomes, and looked at giving as a percentage of total income. The same data set indicates that self-declared liberals on average make more 6% more money than self-declared conservatives do, but donate less money both in dollar terms, and in "percent of income" terms as well.

 

 

 

 

[ZimZam]

please you're killing me... notice I said this liberal. Naive realism rules.

[cj001f]

Not true. From what I understand the author controlled for incomes, and looked at giving as a percentage of total income. The same data set indicates that self-declared liberals on average make more 6% more money than self-declared conservatives do, but donate less money both in dollar terms, and in "percent of income" terms as well

 

The author did, however, consider churches and other religious organizations charities

 

There are plenty of mormons tithing 10%, I don't consider that charity.

[pink]

please you're killing me... notice I said this liberal. Naive realism rules.

 

well la de da. i noticed that you classed yourself with other liberals. the difference is that you put your disclaimer at the end of your thought. i would never kill a liberal, stupid people will kill themselves off. what's funny is that i have met more liberals that are republicans and they don't even realize it nor want to admit to it... sorry for being realistic, next time i just send some fake ass idealistic liberal bullshit your way. wish i could say that i agreed with one side, but things just appear to be grey in my world.

 

perhaps you are still in school or just graduated and you just got brainwashed by some liberal proffesor.

 

when jesus was hanging from the cross he looked up and said forgive them for they know not what they do.

Edited December 13, 2006 by pink

[cj001f]

please you're killing me... notice I said this liberal. Naive realism rules.

 

well la de da. i noticed that you classed yourself with other liberals. the difference is that you put your disclaimer at the end of your thought. i would never kill a liberal, stupid people will kill themselves off. what's funny is that i have met more liberals that are republicans and they don't even realize it nor want to admit to it... sorry for being realistic, next time i just send some fake ass idealistic liberal bullshit your way. wish i could say that i agreed with one side, but things just appear to be grey in my world.

 

perhaps you are still in school or just graduated and you just got brainwashed by some liberal proffesor.

 

when jesus was hanging from the cross he looked up and said forgive them for they know not what they do.

 

you know, you are ruining porn for me pink.

[pink]

who is your favorite porn star?

Edited December 13, 2006 by pink

[cj001f]

I really liked Dennis Hasterts tits

[pink]

porn, cc.com, porn cc.com, porn .cc.com, porn, cc.com i can't decide.

 

spray, masterbate, spray, masterbate, spray, masterbate spray sucks i think i'll go beat off now.

[pink]

I really liked Dennis Hasterts tits

 

to many up and cuming starlets these days to decide. that wasn't a fair question. ron jeremy is my hero, big fat ugly guy hittin with little hotties. people will do anything for money, wonder if old ron is a liberal. he sure has a weener like a donkey.

[pink]

I really liked Dennis Hasterts tits

 

by the way, do you know other girls named DENNIS?

[cj001f]

The author did, however, consider churches and other religious organizations charities

 

 

And that picture is from Benny Hinn the Charlatan himself

[JayB]

As I said it'll be interesting to see how the stats hold up under the kind of scrutiny that his claims will generate. He's claimed that people with some kind of religious affilition donate more money to non-religious charities than non-religious folks, which seems plausible to me, but the blurbs don't indicate how well the self-described "religious" category matches up with the self-described liberal/conservative categories. The other claim that the working poor are the most generous people in the country in terms of the percent of their income that they generate also seems plausible, and I imagine that finding will stand.

 

My personal hunch is that the more passionate someone is about using the state as a means to compel maximal income redistribution, the less likely they are to voluntarily distribute any of their own income, but I'm not sure if there's any data out there to confirm or refute this.

[cj001f]

Yes, there is something to that, but there's also something to many liberals living in high cost of living areas and therefore having less disposable income. San Francisco, Washington, New York, none of these are cheap - especially compared to conservative heartlands like Texas.

 

All in all, as reported, this looks to be one of those studies where the author found what he wanted to find.

[tvashtarkatena]

Has anyone mentioned yet that a 6% difference is probably well within the error band of determining whether a person was 'liberal' or 'conservative', which are two overly broad categorizations in themselves?

 

It seems to me that this is the type of study that proves nothing to anyone but a limited audience seeking a particulary result.

 

The much more relevant question is this: how much do each of us, right here on this forum, give back?

 

No doctored studies or manufactured statistics required.

 

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Yes, there is something to that, but there's also something to many liberals living in high cost of living areas and therefore having less disposable income. San Francisco, Washington, New York, none of these are cheap - especially compared to conservative heartlands like Texas.

 

All in all, as reported, this looks to be one of those studies where the author found what he wanted to find.

 

And you refute facts that are, um, "inconvenient" to your world view.

 

Speaking of categorization of charity, let's exclude contributions to art museums, ballets, symphonies, and the like - all favorite places for rich liberals to dump their cash.

 

[crackers]

it would be interesting to see the contributions of the two richest liberals versus the rest of America.

 

I'd like to know what percent of total giving are represented by the tens of billions given away by Gates and Buffet. Bill gave $200 million to my wife's non-profit alone this year.

[tvashtarkatena]

Yeah, fuck art and all that shit. Fuck literature. We're here to shop, dump, drink, and hump.

[JayB]

Both seem rather moderate to me, but I can see why both sides would want to claim them as their own.

 

This still seems like one of the most salient and most overlooked points in the "Who's Better" debate:

 

"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."

 

 

[counterfeitfake]

I don't understand any of your points.

 

Has anyone mentioned yet that a 6% difference is probably well within the error band of determining whether a person was 'liberal' or 'conservative', which are two overly broad categorizations in themselves?

 

No, it's really simple, he asked them to self-identify. The data in the first paragraph is based on what categorization the people in the study considered themselves to fit.

 

It seems to me that this is the type of study that proves nothing to anyone but a limited audience seeking a particulary result.

 

Well it's a study, which I usually think carries more weight than some random anecdotal evidence or poorly-thought-out opinions. If you think he's biased, demonstrate his bias.

 

The much more relevant question is this: how much do each of us, right here on this forum, give back?

 

Why is that more relevant? There are lots of confounding variables built into the group that's reading this website. How is this going to be more relevant?

 

If you're saying it's more relevant because we kind of know each other, then I could agree with that.

 

No doctored studies or manufactured statistics required.

 

It is pretty easy, and pretty weak, to just suggest this is doctored without showing any evidence whatsoever. It seems like you're just saying it beacuse you don't like the results.

[underworld]

Yes, there is something to that, but there's also something to many liberals living in high cost of living areas and therefore having less disposable income. San Francisco, Washington, New York, none of these are cheap - especially compared to conservative heartlands like Texas.

 

this falls in line with saying liberals are self-centered. they would rather put their, would-be, disposable income towards living in a ritzy area than live a more humble means and put that money towards helping others.

[Mr_Phil]

it would be interesting to see the contributions of the two richest liberals versus the rest of America.

 

I'd like to know what percent of total giving are represented by the tens of billions given away by Gates and Buffet. Bill gave $200 million to my wife's non-profit alone this year.

 

Just curious, why do you identify Gates and Buffett as liberals?

[dt_3pin]

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.

 

The author seems to imply that governmental policies, as opposed to traditional charities, do not have individual costs. Of course, debt forgiveness, living wages, and social "safety nets" are government policies rather than individual acts of charity. The financial burdens of those policies, however, are transferred to individuals via taxes. If you support such policies, you are also accepting the concominant individual financial burden associated with them.

 

I understand that the financial burdens of such policies are distributed to both the individuals who support and oppose them. However, isn't it a ((charity))if I'm willing to accept a greater tax burden to facilitate a policy I believe is socially beneficial, such as debt forgivenss or subsidized food for low income mothers?