A new study produced by the Chronicle of Philanthropy shows that 14 out of the top 20 states in charitable giving are red, or Republican states, while 12 of the bottom 15 are blue, or Democrat states.
“The nation's sharp political divide can provide a clue to fundraisers,” writes the Chronicle. “The eight states that ranked highest in The Chronicle's analysis voted for John McCain in the last presidential contest while the seven lowest-ranking states supported Barack Obama.”
The study also found that the more religious states- which also happen to be more Republican- tend to give more than the less religious states.
But wait.
No, no, no: This can’t mean what we think it means.
It can’t mean that liberals are just cheaper than conservatives, despite outward appearances.
Let’s disregard what the data tells us, and go to that bastion of deconstructing EVERYTHING, white, liberal academia- with just a hint of Native American to satisfy a quota- so they can tell us what the study REALLY means.
So to make that point – in other words to make the point that liberals AREN’T really cheap- we need to cue the liberal social scientist whose job it is to explain to us that the results of the study don’t really say what they say.
We'll let Professor Running Mouth explain it.
From USAToday:
Alan Wolfe, a political science professor at Boston College, said it's wrong to link a state's religious makeup with its generosity. People in less religious states are giving in a different way by being more willing to pay higher taxes so the government can equitably distribute superior benefits, Wolfe said. And the distribution is based purely on need, rather than religious affiliation or other variables, said Wolfe, also head of the college's Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life.
Wolfe said people in less religious states "view the tax money they're paying not as something that's forced upon them, but as a recognition that they belong with everyone else, that they're citizens in the common good. … I think people here believe that when they pay their taxes, they're being altruistic."
In other words: You can’t build private charity efficiently-or anything else- without the government being involved.
Because, yes, we all know that government bureaucracies are so much more efficient at delivering “superior” charity.
I mean gosh, look at Medicaid.
All it takes is a village and another tax increase to keep it from going bankrupt.
Thank goodness for the vast improvements social scientists have made in our lives over the last hundred years.
And thank goodness for liberals who can be so liberal with other people’s money and so stingy with their own.
Without them, people like you and I might actually believe that Abraham Lincoln was on to something when he said “In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.”
Or perhaps we’d fall under the charms of Thomas Jefferson who said “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
Or this pearl from James Madison: “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”
But of course, now we know, thanks to social scientists like Alan Wolfe, how imbecilic guys like Jefferson, Lincoln and Madison were.
What oafs!
They are just more Dead White Guys who we can safely ignore as the government racks up more debt.
Thank goodness for the study.
But our heartfelt thanks must be reserved for those academics who have prevented us from believing that the results of the study mean that liberals are miserly when it comes to charity- which of course is what the untrained, non-academic might infer from the study.
Because we are all citizens of the cosmic good, man. And we belong to each other, dude.
To put it another way: pay taxes = good; private charity = bad.
And without guys like Professor Wolfe making those feeble arguments, people might actually take liberals seriously.
Seriously?
No. Still not seriously at all.
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