Practice What You Preach

To advocates of redistributive justice, fairness means taking from those who have and giving to those who do not have (as much). The implicit assumption here is that individuals would not provide material assistance to the less fortunate by their own accord. The idea of philanthropy and goodwill never comes into the equation. Moreover, it assumes that government bureaucrats have bigger hearts and bigger brains than the rest of us, for only they know how to direct the assistance to where it's truly needed. The idea that individuals, who go into their own pockets to fund a charity that they think worthy, could bring about the best use of their alms does not even cross the minds of those who wish to show their compassion with government largesse.

Perhaps these advocates of redistribution - people coming almost exclusively from the left - advance such a doctrine because they know all too well that their own disposition is to keeping instead of giving. So, the same people who tell the rest that we must be taxed by the government on behalf of the less fortunate are unwilling to dig into their own pockets to effect that end. Don't believe me?



This chart, taken from the Catologue for Philanthrophy website (via Michelle Malkin's site) ranks the 50 states based on how much they donate to charity per annum. One can't help but notice a clear trend. The red states dominate the first half of the chart.

Mississippi? Arkansas? Oklahoma? Aren't these the same thumb-sucking, brain-dead, bigoted rednecks that liberals love to mock? Aren't these the gun-toting, homophobic, xenophobic, simpletons that Monsieur Obama (French is so much more elegant than English) meets in the small towns he visits while he crosses the country? So much for the idea that the more educated, more wealthy, intellectual elites in New York, California, and Massachusetts have a monopoly on compassion. Rather, it's these 'backwards' bumpkin states that show the greatest generosity. Do these facts matter at all to the people who call conservatism an ideology of greed and avarice? Perhaps the people who clamor for the rich to bear the burden of lifting up the little people ought to look in the mirror before they keep making such claims and demands.