TOTALLY GEEKED!

Dona Worry Be Happy wrote:

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And yet, I manage to both donate my time and money AND be proud that my country is working to better the lives of people all over the world with my tax dollars. Funny, not many of the conservatives seem to be managing that. . .

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 HAHAHAHA!  You really believe that don't you....

Ahhh...the naivety of youth. I was once a young liberal.

Lawyerlady wrote:

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flan327 wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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Dona Worry Be Happy wrote:

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Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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Dona Worry Be Happy wrote:

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Gaga, have you ever been to a third world country? It is a different planet.

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Because of piss poor governments who won't let people help themselves. So, yeah, if the Govt was run by men and women with Christian ethics and morals , they wouldn't be third world countries.

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 But until then, half the kids can die of malnutrition and malaria and HIV. Because who gives a flip?

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 You have a lot of damn nerve.  I can tell you that just about every conservative I know puts their money where their mouth is - supporting pregnancy centers, missions overseas that provide healthcare and education and food, and I personally support all those things plus an orphan in Uganda.  Charity is supposed to be personal - not government mandated. 

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 And every LIBERAL I know does the same thing.

flan

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 Well, then, you most know the generous ones, because just about every study will tell you that conservatives consistently give more to charity.

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 Ridiculous.  

 As two MIT political scientists determined in a 2013 paper, the inclination to give appears to have virtually no relationship to one's partisan or ideological views. There are distinctions, however, in the kind of giving between the two poles. 

First, some context. The received wisdom, at least in the media, is that conservatives are more giving. The prevalence of this view may result from its irresistibly counterintuitive flavor -- you know, how curious that conservatives are against spending on social programs and liberals say they care about the poor, but conservatives are generous in their private lives and liberals are skinflints. Conservative pundits like George F. Will ran with this ball because, as he put it, the mismatch "subverts a stereotype." (One that makes his conservative readers look bad, it might be added.)

The source of the notion that conservatives are more generous is the 2006 book "Who Really Cares," by Arthur C. Brooks, who later became president of the pro-business American Enterprise Institute.

The book was a brief for "compassionate conservatism," but its claim raised a lot of skepticism, and not only among liberals. One problem noted across the political spectrum was Brooks' reliance on the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey to distinguish "liberal" from "conservative." The problem was that the survey didn't seem to accurately measure those categories and didn't distinguish well between social conservatives or liberals and fiscal conservatives or liberals. 

What the MIT researchers did find, however, was that conservatives give more to religious organizations, such as their own churches, and liberals more to secular recipients. Conservatives may give more overall, MIT says, but that's because they tend to be richer, so they have more money to give and get a larger tax benefit from giving it. (One of the things that makes social scientists skeptical of the benchmark survey Brooks used, in fact, is that it somehow concluded that liberals are richer than conservatives.)

The degree of religious contribution is important, because a 2007 study by Indiana University found that only 10% to 25% of church donations end up being spent on social welfare purposes, of which assistance to the poor is only a subset. In other words, if you think of "giving" as "giving to the poor," a lot of the money donated by conservatives may be missing the target.  

An extreme case may have been that of Mitt Romney, whose tax disclosures during his 2012 presidential campaign indicated that he gave a higher percentage of his income away than his Democratic opponent, President Obama, 29.4% to 21.8%. Of course he was richer, so he gave away a lot more dollars. But fully 80% of Romney's donations went to the Mormon church; and a large further chunk went to a family foundation that also funneled much of it to the church.  

The Obamas' contribution mostly went to humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross and the United Negro College Fund. In 2011 there weren't any general church donations, though $5,000 was listed to the Sidwell Friends School, which educates the Obama daughters.

The bottom line, according to the MIT study, was that "liberals are no more or less generous than conservatives once we adjust for differences in church attendance and income." 

MyNameIsJoe wrote:

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I just tried to post an mit study thst disputes your claim but it was flagged as spam. How convenient.

If anyone is interested,

articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/31/business/la-fi-mh-conservatives-or-liberals-20140331

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 This is down right insulting and stupid.  It actually usually takes me a bit of time to see these spam comments, and sometimes not until I log in as admin.  I have NO CONTROL over what is flagged as spam.  I approved it as soon as I saw it.  But be aware - I will not bother to approve your spam comments again because of your insinuation.  If they are flagged as spam, there is a reason, which is spelled out fairly well in the rules section. 

Lawyerlady wrote:

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MyNameIsJoe wrote:

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I just tried to post an mit study thst disputes your claim but it was flagged as spam. How convenient.

If anyone is interested,

articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/31/business/la-fi-mh-conservatives-or-liberals-20140331

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 This is down right insulting and stupid.  It actually usually takes me a bit of time to see these spam comments, and sometimes not until I log in as admin.  I have NO CONTROL over what is flagged as spam.  I approved it as soon as I saw it.  But be aware - I will not bother to approve your spam comments again because of your insinuation.  If they are flagged as spam, there is a reason, which is spelled out fairly well in the rules section. 

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 You are so powerful! 

MyNameIsJoe wrote:

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Agendas are funny things aren't they?

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  Yes.  And you obviously came here with one. 

just Czech wrote:

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I'm pretty sure I know which board this person is very active on..

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 We all do...

lilyofcourse wrote:

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Yeah. I think we all do as well.

Question for the mods, if a banned member comes back under a different screen name, how is that handled?

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 AS soon as I confirm it, the person will be deleted and their IP banned.

MyNameIsJoe wrote:

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I've never been banned from here. Never. Never even had my hand slapped.

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 I don't think you've been banned from here - but you are not a "stranger", either.  You came in with too much of a chip on your shoulder and directly started in on certain posters without so much as a howdy -do. 

I actually think I've figured it out, but in accordance with the rules, I shall not say.

Ohfour wrote:

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just Czech wrote:

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I'm pretty sure I know which board this person is very active on..

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 We all do...

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 I don't.