FrankRep
02-26-2010, 11:43 AM
Studies have consistently shown that conservatives are giving significantly more as good Samaritans to charity than liberals. by Selwyn Duke
Killing Charity (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6021-killing-charity)
Selwyn Duke | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
26 February 2010
“Outsourcing” charity to the government is not only inefficient, it’s not charity. Worse still, it’s evil.
A while back I read about a woman whose college professor had told her not to give to charity. His reasoning?
It’s the government’s job.
I wonder, would the good professor maintain this perspective were he stuck by the side of a lonely road on a wintery night without cell phone service? Well, I suppose that’s when Situational Values Man comes to the rescue.
But his attitude isn’t unusual among leftists. Studies have consistently shown that conservatives give significantly more to charity than liberals. As columnist George Will wrote (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html), citing Syracuse University research, “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).
And Americans are far more charitable than the socialist Europeans. As the American Enterprise Institute reports (http://www.american.com/archive/2008/march-april-magazine-contents/a-nation-of-givers):
in 1995 (the most recent year for which data are available), Americans gave, per capita, three and a half times as much to causes and charities as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times as much as the Italians. Similarly, in 1998, Americans were 15 percent more likely to volunteer their time than the Dutch, 21 percent more likely than the Swiss, and 32 percent more likely than the Germans.
Not surprisingly, these patterns manifest themselves in every aspect of liberals’ lives. It has been observed that they don’t tip waitstaff as well as conservatives. And, according to research (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026442/Dont-listen-liberals--Right-wingers-really-nicer-people-latest-research-shows.html) cited by Peter Schweizer in the Daily Mail, they’re less likely to believe that you derive happiness by placing other people’s happiness before your own, that you should care for an ailing parent even if you don’t want to, or that “parents should sacrifice their own well-being for those [sic] of their children.” In fact, writes Schweizer, billionaire and avowed socialist Ted Turner “publicly regrets that he had five children” and said, “If I was doing it over again, I wouldn't have had that many. But I can't shoot them now [sic] they're here.”
Wow, nice guy. No wonder liberal kids want to push the old folks into a home after the first box of Depends.
But worse than liberals’ reluctance to give of their wallets and themselves is that their policies make it harder for others to render charity. The most obvious example of this is confiscatory taxation and big government. This model not only leaves people with less money to give, it also engenders the attitude that “The government is supposed to do it.”
Then, certain regulations pose the danger of legislating charity out of existence. For instance, when Michigan mom Lisa Snyder (http://www.sltrib.com/parenting/ci_13448975) would help three of her neighbors by watching their children for an hour before the school bus arrived, she never thought she could be identified as an unlicensed daycare provider. That is, until the Michigan Department of Human Services learned of her charity. There is a state law, it seems, prohibiting residents from caring for unrelated children for more than four weeks annually.
But while government officials were ultimately sympathetic to Snyder, the same was not true in the case Oregon man Ben Bond, arrested (http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=28583) just last month. His offense?
He fed other people’s parking meters.
And to see what may lie ahead, we need look no further than rather un-jolly old England’s attitude toward good Samaritans. It was on full display with Steve Kink, a businessman (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084487/Good-Samaritan-makes-citizens-arrest-yob--suffers-month-court-ordeal-HE-accused-assault.html) who detained a thug he found vandalizing a store and for his trouble was dragged through the courts for five months. Then there was train passenger (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076183/Good-Samaritan-threatened-arrest-organising-whip-round-pensioners-115-penalty-fare.html) Tom Wrigglesworth, who was taking up a collection for a weeping, 75-year-old widow who had boarded the wrong train and been ordered to buy a £115 ticket. He was told that he’d be arrested if he didn’t cease and desist.
While these are extreme cases, the fact remains that some want to see as many responsibilities as possible devolved to government. In response to this, two points are generally made. One is that the state doesn’t administer charity; it merely robs Peter to pay Paul. The second is that the public sector doesn’t deliver aid as effectively as the private. Yet a more significant point needs to be made.
Imagine transferring your childrearing duties to government. A social worker would teach your son how to tie his shoelaces, a different one would play catch with him, and yet another would read to him at night. When the boy wanted an allowance or help with his homework, he’d go to a government agency, fill out a form and wait for a bureaucrat to call his number. If all his needs and wants were thus attended and your contact with him, as a consequence, was limited, would there be a great bond between you? A child can’t know he’s loved if you have no opportunity to demonstrate love.
It’s no different with those who aren’t blood relations. There’s nothing more beautiful than when one person voluntarily helps another without expectation of reward. When we give, we enjoy that almost ineffable, soul-enriching experience of showing love to another. As for the recipient, he knows that someone has sacrificed for him even though he didn’t have to; love is being showered upon him. And when the charity is direct, the two can look each other in the eye. It’s an experience that reminds us we’re all brothers.
But the government isn’t only incapable of administering charity, it can’t even fake it well. The person delivering it is not a donor but a bureaucrat, and the recipient is a case with a number. Both know that the bureaucrat gives nothing and wouldn’t even be there were he not getting paid. The recipient knows there is no donor, as the money was extracted from people who, almost invariably, didn’t want to give it. The aid is generally delivered in a cold, antiseptic, assembly-line fashion. Thus, while the government can become a nanny state, it can never nurture. Its charges will at best feel like neglected children.
This is why, even in authentic charity, there should be as few intermediaries as possible. It is also why purposely replacing charity with government redistribution is evil: To whatever extent you kill charity, you kill bonds among the citizenry.
Of course, the state can provide food, shelter and many other things. But there’s something it can’t provide.
Love.
In all the debates about how best to aid the needy, it’s forgotten that man does not live on bread alone. True charity is an ethereal transaction. Love is given — and love is received.
What love is not, ever, is redistributed.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6021-killing-charity
Killing Charity (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6021-killing-charity)
Selwyn Duke | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
26 February 2010
“Outsourcing” charity to the government is not only inefficient, it’s not charity. Worse still, it’s evil.
A while back I read about a woman whose college professor had told her not to give to charity. His reasoning?
It’s the government’s job.
I wonder, would the good professor maintain this perspective were he stuck by the side of a lonely road on a wintery night without cell phone service? Well, I suppose that’s when Situational Values Man comes to the rescue.
But his attitude isn’t unusual among leftists. Studies have consistently shown that conservatives give significantly more to charity than liberals. As columnist George Will wrote (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html), citing Syracuse University research, “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).
And Americans are far more charitable than the socialist Europeans. As the American Enterprise Institute reports (http://www.american.com/archive/2008/march-april-magazine-contents/a-nation-of-givers):
in 1995 (the most recent year for which data are available), Americans gave, per capita, three and a half times as much to causes and charities as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times as much as the Italians. Similarly, in 1998, Americans were 15 percent more likely to volunteer their time than the Dutch, 21 percent more likely than the Swiss, and 32 percent more likely than the Germans.
Not surprisingly, these patterns manifest themselves in every aspect of liberals’ lives. It has been observed that they don’t tip waitstaff as well as conservatives. And, according to research (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026442/Dont-listen-liberals--Right-wingers-really-nicer-people-latest-research-shows.html) cited by Peter Schweizer in the Daily Mail, they’re less likely to believe that you derive happiness by placing other people’s happiness before your own, that you should care for an ailing parent even if you don’t want to, or that “parents should sacrifice their own well-being for those [sic] of their children.” In fact, writes Schweizer, billionaire and avowed socialist Ted Turner “publicly regrets that he had five children” and said, “If I was doing it over again, I wouldn't have had that many. But I can't shoot them now [sic] they're here.”
Wow, nice guy. No wonder liberal kids want to push the old folks into a home after the first box of Depends.
But worse than liberals’ reluctance to give of their wallets and themselves is that their policies make it harder for others to render charity. The most obvious example of this is confiscatory taxation and big government. This model not only leaves people with less money to give, it also engenders the attitude that “The government is supposed to do it.”
Then, certain regulations pose the danger of legislating charity out of existence. For instance, when Michigan mom Lisa Snyder (http://www.sltrib.com/parenting/ci_13448975) would help three of her neighbors by watching their children for an hour before the school bus arrived, she never thought she could be identified as an unlicensed daycare provider. That is, until the Michigan Department of Human Services learned of her charity. There is a state law, it seems, prohibiting residents from caring for unrelated children for more than four weeks annually.
But while government officials were ultimately sympathetic to Snyder, the same was not true in the case Oregon man Ben Bond, arrested (http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=28583) just last month. His offense?
He fed other people’s parking meters.
And to see what may lie ahead, we need look no further than rather un-jolly old England’s attitude toward good Samaritans. It was on full display with Steve Kink, a businessman (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084487/Good-Samaritan-makes-citizens-arrest-yob--suffers-month-court-ordeal-HE-accused-assault.html) who detained a thug he found vandalizing a store and for his trouble was dragged through the courts for five months. Then there was train passenger (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076183/Good-Samaritan-threatened-arrest-organising-whip-round-pensioners-115-penalty-fare.html) Tom Wrigglesworth, who was taking up a collection for a weeping, 75-year-old widow who had boarded the wrong train and been ordered to buy a £115 ticket. He was told that he’d be arrested if he didn’t cease and desist.
While these are extreme cases, the fact remains that some want to see as many responsibilities as possible devolved to government. In response to this, two points are generally made. One is that the state doesn’t administer charity; it merely robs Peter to pay Paul. The second is that the public sector doesn’t deliver aid as effectively as the private. Yet a more significant point needs to be made.
Imagine transferring your childrearing duties to government. A social worker would teach your son how to tie his shoelaces, a different one would play catch with him, and yet another would read to him at night. When the boy wanted an allowance or help with his homework, he’d go to a government agency, fill out a form and wait for a bureaucrat to call his number. If all his needs and wants were thus attended and your contact with him, as a consequence, was limited, would there be a great bond between you? A child can’t know he’s loved if you have no opportunity to demonstrate love.
It’s no different with those who aren’t blood relations. There’s nothing more beautiful than when one person voluntarily helps another without expectation of reward. When we give, we enjoy that almost ineffable, soul-enriching experience of showing love to another. As for the recipient, he knows that someone has sacrificed for him even though he didn’t have to; love is being showered upon him. And when the charity is direct, the two can look each other in the eye. It’s an experience that reminds us we’re all brothers.
But the government isn’t only incapable of administering charity, it can’t even fake it well. The person delivering it is not a donor but a bureaucrat, and the recipient is a case with a number. Both know that the bureaucrat gives nothing and wouldn’t even be there were he not getting paid. The recipient knows there is no donor, as the money was extracted from people who, almost invariably, didn’t want to give it. The aid is generally delivered in a cold, antiseptic, assembly-line fashion. Thus, while the government can become a nanny state, it can never nurture. Its charges will at best feel like neglected children.
This is why, even in authentic charity, there should be as few intermediaries as possible. It is also why purposely replacing charity with government redistribution is evil: To whatever extent you kill charity, you kill bonds among the citizenry.
Of course, the state can provide food, shelter and many other things. But there’s something it can’t provide.
Love.
In all the debates about how best to aid the needy, it’s forgotten that man does not live on bread alone. True charity is an ethereal transaction. Love is given — and love is received.
What love is not, ever, is redistributed.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6021-killing-charity