A few days ago, liberal columnist Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote of a supposedly surprising fact that anyone who works with charitable organizations has long known – political conservatives give much more of their money and time to charitable causes than their liberal counterparts.
While “bleeding heart liberals” are all for big government paying for a homeless shelter or after school education program, they are not as likely to willingly spend their own money on these projects than conservatives who oppose big government but have the heart to help out themselves. Shouldn’t we all expect the opposite? Shouldn’t the people asking the government to fork over tax dollars fork over their own dollars? It’s just not the case. According to a study done by Google, the average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.
Liberals will argue than most of the money conservatives donate goes to their churches, but conservatives give a higher percentage of their income to secular charitable causes than liberals do as well. Conservatives don’t just out-give liberals in financial terms, they donate more blood, and volunteer more hours. Whatever way you choose to look at it, traditional conservatives are more generous in helping the less fortunate than the traditional liberals who think it’s the government’s job to take care of the less fortunate.
It would be great if the Republican Party could harness this spirit of volunteerism, not just for campaigns but for good works. We did a little of this during Hurricane Gustav and the first day of the 2008 Republican Convention and not only did we do some good, but let’s face it, we got some good P.R. We’ve been saying for years that faith-based organizations are great sources of volunteers, and they did a much better job of handling problems during Hurricane Katrina than FEMA did. Now Democrats have learned that faith-based organizations aren’t as First Amendment-killing as they thought.
Imagine if being part of the Republican Party didn’t just entail a certain political philosophy, but a civic one, a belief than in order for individual rights and small government to persevere, we as citizens need to voluntarily give what we can. Conservatives know this, but the rest of the country doesn’t recognize our generous nature because we don’t have a famous conservative group, outside of religious ones, to be the public face of what we do. Imagine if we did. Imagine if conservatives had an umbrella organization or network that helped connect those of us who want to do some good with the organizations and places that needed our help. I’d love for someone in the conservative movement to start one. We could do a lot of good while showing the rest of Americans that there are alternatives to government solutions, that big government isn’t the solution at all but better citizenship is.
Last 5 posts by Abel S. Delgado
- Let’s Support the Cantwell-McCain Bill - January 6th, 2010
- Deeds Gets Dirty, Doesn’t Win Anyway - November 2nd, 2009
- Obama & The Berlin Wall - October 25th, 2009
- The Nobel Prom King - October 11th, 2009
- Bureaucratizing Interrogations a Horrible Idea - August 28th, 2009
