Score one for Fairweather

[StevenSeagal]

HEY!!!!!!! HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[underworld]

holy crap dude.. ease up! this is all in response to cj's earlier statement... i'm not saying any of the above is fact. if that is his excuse - it's a selfish one. geeez!!

 

 

i will say this as fact tho -

putting money into a lavish home that one lives is is in fact more self centered than putting that money towards helping others

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

holy crap dude.. ease up! this is all in response to cj's earlier statement... i'm not saying any of the above is fact. if that is his excuse - it's a selfish one. geeez!!

 

 

i will say this as fact tho -

putting money into a lavish home that one lives is is in fact more self centered than putting that money towards helping others

 

 

OK, Merry Christmas, then. I'm from California, and believe me, even the shitty houses are expensive. Hard to argue with your last statement, though. By definition, it's true.

[cj001f]

Unless you are a member of a church that requires you to give, then I don't think that religious giving should be completely discounted here. The key element here involves making a choice to give away your money.

 

JayB-

most churches "highly suggest/require" tithing of their members (you know, the people who attend more than Christmas and Easter) - for the mormon church it's 10%. My earlier point with the picture of the Gulfstream was that many churches have much higher overhead than other charities (and that overhead is subject to much less scrutiny - witness the head of the Getty Trust who was fired because the Getty purchased him a $100k SUV. Apparently $10 million Gulfstreams are ok for preachers).

 

No, the key element isn't giving away your money; if that were true we'd be lauding patrons of stripclubs who give exorbitant tips in the hopes of some action.

 

underworld -

I suggest you look at the average workers "lavish" home in a coastal megapolois. Perhaps they don't want to commute 4hrs a day from some cheap Central Valley shithole.

 

Some people have to pay the taxes in this country - you'll note that the Blue States receive less than they pay out in taxes, where the Red States receive more than they pay out (headed by Alaska!). Perhaps the blue states wish for more federal government spending because they see so little of it?

[tvashtarkatena]

Unless you are a member of a church that requires you to give, then I don't think that religious giving should be completely discounted here. The key element here involves making a choice to give away your money.

 

 

I agree. Giving to a church is no more dicey than giving to, say, Ralph Nader's election campaign. That argument becomes a rathole without a bottom.

 

Oh, shit, I forgot to send that check to Wicca of Washington! Gotta go....

[dt_3pin]

underworld -

I suggest you look at the average workers "lavish" home in a coastal megapolois. Perhaps they don't want to commute 4hrs a day from some cheap Central Valley shithole

 

No shit. I guess my decision to purchase a (((lavish))) house in Ballard so I could spend less time commuting and more time with my son makes me a self-centered prick . . .

Edited December 13, 2006 by dt_3pin

[JayB]

Unless you are a member of a church that requires you to give, then I don't think that religious giving should be completely discounted here. The key element here involves making a choice to give away your money.

 

JayB-

most churches "highly suggest/require" tithing of their members (you know, the people who attend more than Christmas and Easter) - for the mormon church it's 10%. My earlier point with the picture of the Gulfstream was that many churches have much higher overhead than other charities (and that overhead is subject to much less scrutiny - witness the head of the Getty Trust who was fired because the Getty purchased him a $100k SUV. Apparently $10 million Gulfstreams are ok for preachers).

 

No, the key element isn't giving away your money; if that were true we'd be lauding patrons of stripclubs who give exorbitant tips in the hopes of some action.

 

underworld -

I suggest you look at the average workers "lavish" home in a coastal megapolois. Perhaps they don't want to commute 4hrs a day from some cheap Central Valley shithole.

 

Some people have to pay the taxes in this country - you'll note that the Blue States receive less than they pay out in taxes, where the Red States receive more than they pay out (headed by Alaska!). Perhaps the blue states wish for more federal government spending because they see so little of it?

 

True - but how much you give is entirely up to you unless you belong to a sect that stipulates a given amount as a religious duty.

 

I was going to add "giving without the expectation of recieving any tangible benefit in return," but I figured that'd be obvious enough so I left it out. You and I would probably agree that if their objective was to help the needy, there's more effective places to send their donations, but I wouldn't dispute the claim that a charitable impulse is what drives most religious tithing. This is consistent with what I think will be one of the few claims that Brooks advances that will withstand scrutiny, which is that religious folks give a greater percentage of their income - even to secular charities - than non-religous folks do. Where I think Brooks engages in a kind of rhetorical sleight-of-hand is conflating religious observance with a conservative political orientation. That may be statistically more likely, but there's a significant number of religious folks out there who self-identify as liberal, so I don't think the religious = conservative grouping that Brooks has put forward is accurate.

 

With regards to the blue-state/red-state tax imbalance, it'd be interesting to see what the political affiliation of the folks who are paying most of the blue-state taxes happens to be. Given the breakdown of total federal taxes paid by income level, I suspect that the most of this "tax-charity" that Democrats claim to be handing over to Red State Republicans would go away.

 

 

[counterfeitfake]

Writing a book in itself affords an author not one ounce of credibility. There are millions of books filled with absolute garbage...

 

OF COURSE I don't think that just because you wrote a book you are credible. But it's a sign that you've put in effort. He has done work and put it into a format that you can read, and come to an opinion about. This alone buys him more cred, in my eyes, than random sniping internet anonym.

 

I've pointed out some possible flaws in this study.

 

Right, possible. But, they either were or weren't flaws in the study. And you don't know, you haven't tried to find out, all you're doing is muddying the waters. And, I postulate, that's all you want to do, since the study rubs you the wrong way.

 

As for you succinct, pat, and outdated definition of liberal...

 

Was not a definition, it was a summary of two viewpoints on one issue. And I will stand by it. I used the words "liberal" and "conservative", not "democrat" and "republican". If you really think I'm wrong, come up with a more accurate summary. Tell me how I am wrong. How do liberals and conservatives differ in their opinions of how social issues should be addressed? You get bonus points if it doesn't boil down to "liberals rule conservatives suck".

 

I think that basically what I said IS the entire conclusion of the survey.

 

Do you want to know what I think of the study?

 

... oh yes please.

 

I'd wager that 6% is well within the error margin

 

You keep saying "error margin". What does this mean? Where does it come from? Are you using this in any kind of real statistical way, or is this just the colloquial "we aren't sure" meaning?

 

 

What I am sprayguing about (arguspraying?) is what I hate about political discussion here (and everywhere else)- people have views they have come to based mostly on emotion, without much actual thought. Whenever a topic comes up they want to take potshots at the other side, pick out some small and inconsequential piece of the issue and yell loudly about it, take potshots at the other side. Few seem willing to actually put the work in, analyze situations, consider the different viewpoints, and come to an educated conclusion, or even try to change anyone else's mind. Everyone just wants to post a link to some news article and say "SEE??" because it happens to fall in line with their poorly-thought-out position. So we get more polarized.

 

In the wake of the last election everyone's saying we're tired of name-calling, finger-pointing, partisan politics... I say yeah, right, I'll believe it when I see it. From what I see we'll never be tired of it.

[StevenSeagal]

How many billionaires do you know, H?

 

[underworld]

underworld -

I suggest you look at the average workers "lavish" home in a coastal megapolois. Perhaps they don't want to commute 4hrs a day from some cheap Central Valley shithole

 

No shit. I guess my decision to purchase a (((lavish))) house in Ballard so I could spend less time commuting and more time with my son makes me a self-centered prick . . .

 

why do you live in seattle instead of the midwest? i'm guessing you like it here, or you like your job.

 

i'm not calling you a prick - i havne't heard you use your ballard house as an excuse for not giving to charity...or whether or not you give to charit. you went straight to the defensive on that one.

[cj001f]

or you like your job.

 

i'm not calling you a prick - i havne't heard you use your ballard house as an excuse for not giving to charity...or whether or not you give to charit. you went straight to the defensive on that one.

 

Give it up underworld. People live in the coastal megapolises because that's where employment is. If everyone live in the Midwest the job market would be so depressed nobody would have money to donate to charity.

 

JayB-

I disagree that religious donations are done without a tangible benefit, or at least parse tangible differently. Christian religions (a vast majority of the US donations) offer eternal redemption - this provides a tangible mental benefit to many.

 

Notice the bulge around the middle there?

[counterfeitfake]

His point is "I can't give to charity because my house is too expensive" is a selfish excuse. I don't see how you can argue with that. If that is an excuse someone uses, they are saying that they prioritized spending on their own home higly enough that it eliminated money in their budget for charity. People who place a high enough priority on giving to charity will do so regardless of other factors.

Edited December 13, 2006 by counterfeitfake

[dt_3pin]

underworld -

I suggest you look at the average workers "lavish" home in a coastal megapolois. Perhaps they don't want to commute 4hrs a day from some cheap Central Valley shithole

 

No shit. I guess my decision to purchase a (((lavish))) house in Ballard so I could spend less time commuting and more time with my son makes me a self-centered prick . . .

 

why do you live in seattle instead of the midwest? i'm guessing you like it here, or you like your job.

 

i'm not calling you a prick - i havne't heard you use your ballard house as an excuse for not giving to charity...or whether or not you give to charit. you went straight to the defensive on that one.

 

I try to put my money where my mouth is, but my mortage-to-income ratio prevents me from making the levels of charitable contributions that I'd like to.

 

I live in Seattle because I have a family here and a job with tremendous potential. Certainly, I could find a job and move to the midwest, but I seriously doubt I could make the same relative earnings and have the same potential for income growth, debt elimination, and future disposable income to direct towards charities.

 

I concede that you didn't call me a 'prick' . . . I think you used the phrase 'self-centered' to describe coatal metropolians.

[cj001f]

His point is "I can't give to charity because my house is too expensive" is a selfish excuse.

 

If you don't have any money, how can you donate it to charity? It's not selfish, it's reality.

 

Climbing is selfish, but he seems to think that important

[rbw1966]

for the mormon church it's 10%.

 

Not that it matters, but it was 6% of gross income a few years ago. Did they raise it?

[dt_3pin]

His point is "I can't give to charity because my house is too expensive" is a selfish excuse. I don't see how you can argue with that. If that is an excuse someone uses, they are saying that they prioritized spending on their own home higly enough that it eliminated money in their budget for charity. People who place a high enough priority on giving to charity will do so regardless of other factors.

 

Good point counterfeit. I'll sell my house pronto, move to the burbs, get a second job, and raise a latch-kid key to avoid your definition of selfish.

 

Is owning a home at my financial limit selfish? Sure. Do I feel guilty that I have a warm, dry, and safe home while millions (billions?) don't? Absolutely. Is home ownership simply self-serving or is it part of a long-term financial plan designed to allow me to give a larger portion of my income to those who aren't as fortunate? I'll let you take a guess at that one.

[StevenSeagal]

I'm just saying, when it comes down to it, you have to rely only on yourself.

 

[cj001f]

for the mormon church it's 10%.

 

Not that it matters, but it was 6% of gross income a few years ago. Did they raise it?

 

perhaps - could well be inconsistencies. I was told 10% gross by a former member recently.

[ClimbingPanther]

JayB-

I disagree that religious donations are done without a tangible benefit, or at least parse tangible differently. Christian religions (a vast majority of the US donations) offer eternal redemption - this provides a tangible mental benefit to many.

 

If you're defining Christian religion as one based on the Bible, then that's not true. Nowhere is redemption offered by way of a bribe. Redemption is characterized as a free gift and faith is the only pretence for obtaining it.

Now you still have an argument that the gifts are often given in hopes of some heavenly reward, but redemption is not offered on those terms.

[underworld]

I think you used the phrase 'self-centered' to describe coatal metropolians

 

i don't think i did. however, the motivations for most people to live where they live contain the word "I" in them. but i don't believe that is totally evil or wrong either. we got to live for ourselves to some degree.

 

i moved here becuase i like it. i like to climb. i make money that i spend on myself. all my choice. the reason i don't give more to charity is because i do all that for myself. i take that responsibility and whatever judgement that goes along with it. i can't say i wish i did more. once i do that then i play the victim. if i truly wanted to do more i'd not spend so much on myself, my condo, my car etc.

 

those that chose to live in the midwest do so for probably a lot of the same reasons (minus the mountains)(but they have their own hobbies) their excuse for not being more charitible might be different than those that use the mortage excuse.

 

either way it all comes down to priorities.

[tvashtarkatena]

What I am sprayguing about (arguspraying?) is what I hate about political discussion here (and everywhere else)- people have views they have come to based mostly on emotion, without much actual thought.

 

No irony there.

 

I think you're wrong, by the way. This has been a decent debate with some well thought out arguments, not just spray. I'm not sure how you're delineating the two, frankly, because you haven't, well, thought it out, maybe.

 

PS: You can look up 'margin of error' on the internet.

[tvashtarkatena]

I also think giving to charity has nothing to do with income. There are a hell of a lot of folks out there with not much money who give their time instead. It's not how much you make, it's whether you care or not. That's the difference.

[tvashtarkatena]

Nowhere is redemption offered by way of a bribe. Redemption is characterized as a free gift and faith is the only pretence for obtaining it.

 

Well, I'm screwed.

[underworld]

I also think giving to charity has nothing to do with income. There are a hell of a lot of folks out there with not much money who give their time instead. It's not how much you make, it's whether you care or not. That's the difference.

 

fqin exactly man! it's PRIORITIES....not excuses.

 

there are a bunch of dirtbaggers that somehow afford really expensive climbing gear. (no, not trying to make a charity point...just that money seems to work out and be where you WANT it to be)

[tvashtarkatena]

Stop agreeing with me. It's freaking me out.