This Thanksgiving I am grateful for that quintessentially liberal virtue: generosity.
I am grateful for Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and the other billionaires who have pledged half their fortunes to philanthropy.
I am grateful to the "Patriotic Millionaires" who have written an open letter to President Obama, calling for higher taxes on those, like themselves, who earn more than a million dollars a year. (You can read their letter here.)
Perhaps most of all, I am grateful for the liberal generosity of the poor and working people. As impressive as it is for Mr. Buffett and his band of billionaires, Jesus taught that the widow who gave but two coins gave more than anyone, for it was all she had.
Even as the Great Recession swept millions of Americans out of work, left 11.3 million families underwater on their mortgages and hammered the savings of nearly every American family, the Giving USA Foundation reported that charitable donations fell just 3.6 percent in 2009, and the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College projects that donations will be back up -- between 3 to 4.5 percent higher -- in 2010.
Turns out that poor people, like the widow in Christ's parable, give a larger percentage of their income to charity than the rich. As Judith Warner wrote in the New York Times Magazine in August:
A number of other studies have shown that lower-income Americans give proportionally more of their incomes to charity than do upper-income Americans. In 2001, Independent Sector, a nonprofit organization focused on charitable giving, found that households earning less than $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes; those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.
This is remarkable. And it is important to remember the liberal generosity of most Americans, especially when we are confronted with such hateful examples of the worst in us: Like the ugly image of Tea-Party activists hurling dollar bills and invective at a man with Parkinson's Disease who was calling for health-care reform. Or when Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck mocked a woman who was forced to wear her dead sister's dentures because she couldn't afford proper dental care. Or the conservative Republican Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina who compared poor people to "stray animals" who should not be fed. "You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce... "
Those conservatives are the outliers. Most Americans give and give liberally. It's in our cultural and religious DNA. Those of us who are Christians worship a Savior who taught us, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Jews are commanded, in the Book of Deuteronomy: "You shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks." Muslims know that almsgiving is one of the five pillars of Islam.
And of course there are millions of generous atheists and agnostics and skeptics -- women and men who voluntarily give some of their hard-earned money to help total strangers who are less fortunate.
So this Thanksgiving, in addition to pounding down the turkey and cheering on my beloved Texas Longhorns, I'm going to take time to donate to the poor. It's the most liberal -- and, therefore the most American -- thing I can do.
Shane Claiborne: A Season for Mischief and Conspiracy: A New Take on Christmas Charity
Julia Moulden: New Radical Profile #5: Slow Change Is Good, Too
It was a dialectic for swindlers, scoundrels and leeches..!
I sususpect there are few, if any, righties on this comment thread this time. I'd think they'd be too embarassed to respond.
The adage that you "become what you hate" says more about one's perceptions than about reality. Maybe it's best not to imagine hatred in those who disagree with your politics.
Do studies like that make that distinction?
That said, now that you mention it, the "religious left" is inherently political. Case in point, Liberation Theology (Obama's "Church" of 20 years):
"liberation theology, which holds that the church must stand on the side of the impoverished and the downtrodden, and that it must, if necessary, support the overthrow of social systems -- especially capitalism -- that contribute to their oppression;"
http://discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catId=19&type=group
The answer to Indon's question is, no; those studies don't differentiate between charities - whether they help the poor, pay the pastor's salary, buy another $multi-million painting for the gallery. Some measures of charitable giving also measure money given over to children/grandchildren's education, and to poorer family members. It's all good giving to be sure, but stretches the definition of charitable giving.
Speaking of Americans in general:
".... contrary to what one might think, it is not true that American giving goes all - or even mostly - to churches. About a third of individual gifts go towards religious activities, such as support for houses of worship. The rest goes to secular activities such as education, health and social welfare."
http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compasionate-Conservatism/dp/0465008216
Also, nice book plug. Gotta love how much money conservatives make by making people buy - literally - the arguments they make, before ever knowing if those arguments have any truth or validity to them.
The simple facts are - conservatives donate more to charity than liberals.
A simple, unspinnable fact. Deal with it.
There's got to be some catch to the "conservatives give more" numbers, because most people who work in the non-profit sector are very progressive. And most conservatives I know do not care for the poor or minorities very much. I've heard plenty say things like, "the poor are lazy" or "I'm tired of hearing about the blacks and the mexicans."
There are many other churches near us that we partner with to make our community a better place. if churches are not doing these things at a minimum, they are not following Christ.
Your first paragraph, I believe is somewhat true. There is always a 'need' for facilities, and that seems to be the motivation of many churches. But it is not constrained to 'conservative churches', it comes from churches that do not do the thigns Christ has commanded.
Other than your obviously stereotyped quotes and/or unfortunate choice of conservative acquaintances, how do you know that "most conservatives", in general, "do not care for the poor or minorities very much"?
WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic nominee for vice president, and his wife reported giving a fraction of 1 percent of their income to charity during the past decade, below the national average, tax records show.
In his book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservativism (Basic Books, 2006), [Arthur] Brooks discovered that approximately equal percentages of liberals and conservatives give to private charitable causes. However, conservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families. This greater generosity among conservative families proved to be true in Brooks' research for every income group, "from poor to middle class to rich."
But do tell. How does paying to send your kid to camp enrich anyone at taxpayer expense?
When you go and join a conservative think tank not long after publishing a book that finds a way to use a survey to praise conservatives...well, most of us find the resulting conclusions pretty darn suspect.
Correlations were not based on a single "survey", but many cold hard facts from various (and many) government, university and independent social-political research. His basic objective was to address the rising rhetoric that America is a "selfish" nation - and to help identify the attitudes and behaviors that characterize American generosity - defined as time or things of monetary value given for the benefit of others.
Sorry if his conclusions don't match your stereotypical and judgmental talking points about religious people of any political orientation (both liberal and conservative) and conservatives in general. Yes -gasp! - religious liberals and non-religious conservatives do exist. And considering that a big part of his conclusions was a series of recommendations as to how conservatives might better communicate the values and beliefs that correlated positively with greater charity and social harmony, it may not be so smart to keep your head in the sand.
Citizens of Red States give far more, as a percentage of their income, to charities than do citizens of Blue States.
Mr. Bagala should really point that out if he intends his article to be civil and not just an attack piece on his political opponents.
Another source I found (I posted the link earlier--cant' remember it now) discovered that the category that receives the most charitable gifts (some 45% according to that particular source) is EDUCATION. And guess who gives more for THAT purpose? Liberals.
And you say that "most churches are not involved in direct aid to the poor and needy." Statistics, please. Also, I highly recommend you read this, published in this very Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-howard-merritt/church-charity-in-the-21s_b_673254.html
There can be many reasons why you don't see conservatives at the places you donate your time. Could be they donate money instead of time. Could be that culturally they support other charities. Could be that the demographics in your church/neighborhood/region skew liberal.
But you don't really care about that, do you? Your spin, which is truly spin, is that liberals give more than conservatives and the big piece of information to the contrary is because you don't consider the entity to which conservatives donate (the church) is not valid. Not very fair.
"Brooks became AEI's eleventh president on January 1, 2009." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Brooks