28 March 2008
Conservatives are More Compassionate
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: Judaeo-Christian Values Under Attack .
The following op-ed piece is a real eye opener. Again we can the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. Liberals talk about compassion but conservatives are more likely to actually practice it. I shared my favorite parts but the whole column is great:
Bleeding Hearts but Tight Fists
By George F. Will
Residents of Austin, home of Texas’s government and flagship university, have very refined social consciences, if they do say so themselves, and they do say so, speaking via bumper stickers. Don R. Willett, a justice of the state Supreme Court, has commuted behind bumpers proclaiming “Better a Bleeding Heart Than None at All,” “Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty,” “The Moral High Ground Is Built on Compassion,” “Arms Are For Hugging,” “Will Work (When the Jobs Come Back From India),” “Jesus Is a Liberal,” “God Wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts,” “The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans,” “Republicans Are People Too — Mean, Selfish, Greedy People” and so on. But Willett thinks Austin subverts a stereotype: “The belief that liberals care more about the poor may scratch a partisan or ideological itch, but the facts are hostile witnesses.”
Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.” The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.
If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:
• Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
• Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
• Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.
• 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 proposition.Brooks demonstrates a correlation between charitable behavior and “the values that lie beneath” liberal and conservative labels. Two influences on charitable behavior are religion and attitudes about the proper role of government.
The single biggest predictor of someone’s altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks’s book says, “the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have ‘no religion’ has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s.” America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least charitable cohort is a relatively small one — secular conservatives.
In 2000, brows were furrowed in perplexity because Vice President Al Gore’s charitable contributions, as a percentage of his income, were below the national average: He gave 0.2 percent of his family income, one-seventh of the average for donating households. But Gore “gave at the office.” By using public office to give other people’s money to government programs, he was being charitable, as liberals increasingly, and conveniently, understand that word.
6 Comments so far...
Sharon Anderson Says:
28 March 2008 at 8:41 am.
Reflections on compassionate conservatism: I think that we have all observed that as the attacks on traditional religion continue and faith declines, government grows bigger and bigger. It seems that the religious, as a group, are more willing to accept responsibility and accountability for their own decisions and their own lives. They are personally more willing to “lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees.” I believe they would do even more if they had more discretionary income and weren’t taxed “to death.”
I am reminded that it is not right for the government to do things that are illegal for us to do as individuals. If I noticed that one neighbor had no car and another had three cars, and felt so sorry for those who were without a car that I stole one of those cars and gave it to the carless people next door, I would be arrested. Yet this is the kind of thing the government does all the time. When we are forced to be compassionate, we loose the blessings that come from exercising our agency to help those less fortunate.
Great article, Joy.
Jan W. Says:
28 March 2008 at 10:21 am.
This shouldn’t surprise me if I really thought about it but the left is always saying how compassionate they are and how cold and uncaring the right is so I find this amazing and encouraging.
Sharon, I love what you wrote. Yes, forced compassion kind of defeats the purpose.
America is still a great place.
CindyL. Says:
28 March 2008 at 12:09 pm.
This doesn’t surprise me. When people want the government to do the act of compassion for them it is usually because they are looking for a way out of having to do it themselves. It’s called socialism.
Saddened Says:
28 March 2008 at 1:24 pm.
Wow, so the non-religious conservatives are the least giving. Maybe they are the ones that are giving us a bad reputation. I’m no surprised that the religious are the most giving since we see everyone as God’s children and believe that what we do to the least is the same as doing it to Jesus. This was very enlightening.
Hank Says:
28 March 2008 at 8:45 pm.
Hah, this might start a fist fight tomorrow night at the bar. My buddies are conservative like me but there is another group that razes us that are bleeding heart liberals. Maybe I should print this off so I have the proof.
Cavetrollhead Says:
31 March 2008 at 8:55 pm.
Good point there saddened. None of this article surprised me, including the fact that non-religious conservatives are the least charitable. I have always observed that non-religious conservatives tend to lack compassion. They are usually social Darwinists.
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