Do liberals earn less money that conservatives? Nope - liberal's family income averages 6 percent MORE than conservative families.
Do conservatives give less of their income to charity than liberals? Nope again - on average, conservative headed households give 30% MORE!
This surprising (to me) statistic throws new light on our ongoing L/C discussion. For the details, see Washington Post columnist George Will's recent column at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/26/AR2008032602916.html
Perhaps "compasionate conservative" is not an oxymoron? Perhaps liberals like to talk about helping the poor and downtrodden, but when they take action it is by taking higher taxes from the rich and giving it to the poor while keeping a bit for themselves in the form of bigger government with more social services jobs for them and more votes "bought" with government help programs paid for by us taxpayers?
The data in Will's column are from a Syracuse University professor's book and include the following:
- Conservatives give more blood and donate more time.
- Do you REJECT the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality"? If so, you belong to a group that give FOUR times more than those who accept that statement!
- People who live in the reddest states give nearly twice the percentage of income to charity as those in the bluest states.
Also mentioned is the strong correlation of altruism with being associated with an organized religion. Perhaps religious belief is the "The God Delusion" (Dawkins) http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/2008/03/god-delusion.html and "god is not GREAT" (Hitchens) http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/2007/12/god-is-not-great.html, but that type of faith leads to actual, personal giving while the opposite leads to talking about it and getting "good vibes."
Ira Glickstein
