The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently published an article discussing an economist's recent book claiming that religious people give more than liberal people, and thus, conservatives actually give a greater share of their income to charity than liberals. Here's the article: "Charity's Political Divide"
The general idea:
"In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books), Arthur C. Brooks finds that religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others."
This is encouraging because people who support small government need to give to the poor. After all, if it's not the government's job, someone else needs to do it. Hopefully that somebody else will be the Church. Not that this means we have done enough. No, I agree with Ralph Nader, quoted in the article above,
"Everyone should be giving more to charity."
3 comments:
I heard an interesting theory about the democratic relationship with the black community. The idea is that the democratic party purposefully makes things too easy for black people so they remain dependent on the democrats and always vote for them. While I'm sure this isn't true for all democrats, it does make sense to me.
I also am not too keen on just giving money away to poor people. While there may be cases where this is the only way you can help them, I think the far better alternative is to empower the poor so they can strike out on their own. I've heard that an entreprenuer in India has had alot of success doing micro-financing for poor people. He gives them really small loans that they then use to start small businesses. Apparently this approach has begun to turn heads in the business world. Hopefully it will catch on.
I agree that the small business kind of plan is really good. I also think it's important to help people help themselves. But it seems there must be a place for helping those who are currently down and out to meet their necessities, in food, health, etc. Private charities, like churches, should be able to help people meet those needs.
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