The bleak (for some) facts

Why should it be such a surprise that it's the church-going , family-oriented folk who donate more money, and not the blue-staters known for their tendency to lecture conservatives for being stingy and unfeeling to the unfortunate?

This has been out for a while now (and I did link to this story about a week back), but as I reread Bleak House, I can't help but be struck by how aptly Dickens pegged so many types of folks whom we still bump into today. 

Apropos of Mrs. Jellyby, whose children and husband have to fend for themselves while she dashes off letter after letter for her schemes to aid the poor in Boorioboola-Gha; Harold Skimpole, who condescends to let others support him on the assumption that they should be grateful for the chance to bask in their own charity; and Mrs. Pardiggle (a rival of Jellyby), who mandates that her youngsters give up their pennies to various charities; we have this:

We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs Pardiggle became the subject of conversation: and that it invariably interrupted  Mr. Jarndyce, and prevented him going any farther, when he remarked that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.

Comments

[rachjak]

"Tendency to lecture". As Archie Bunker once said, "that's the Black calling the Kettle 'Pot'."

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/162/story_16252_1.html

[kb]

Tanuki smuggingly said:

"Why should it be such a surprise that it's the church-going , family-oriented folk who donate more money"

Yes, why should it? Folks who go to church, and who are family oriented are both Republicans and Democrats. Why should it be a surprise? Who is surprised? Just as poorer people donate more than rich folks do percentage wise.kb

"and not the blue-staters know for their tendency to lecture conservatives for being stingy and unfeeling to the unfortunate?"

"Blue-staters" do this? I was under the impression that it was only the wealthy tight-asses who were being lectured, and this goes for the wealthy on both sides of the asile.kb

"Apropos of Mrs. Jellyby, whose children and husband have to fend for themselves while she dashes off letter after letter for her schemes to aid the poor in Boorioboola-Gha"

Who do you "bump into today" which Mrs. Jellyby represents? Are you saying that there are hardworking conservative men and children whose money is just being passed out by the bleeding heart liberal wife? Or are the working men the liberals? Or are the wives conservatives taking what little money their husbands make and are willing to even sacrifice this for the people? I don't understand who you're referring to. Please enlighten me. I mean, you have skipped the previous questions which were to do this, but maybe you can on this one.kb

"Harold Skimpole, who condescends to let others support him on the assumption that they should be grateful for the chance to bask in their own charity"

Same question here. Harold sounds pretty much like most of the wealthy who assume that "their workers" should be grateful that "they have been given the chance" to support him. Perhaps his last name was really "Lay". He basked a little too much though. And given that the primary beneficiaries of taxes, welfare, and most other social programs are the wealthy, by FAR, I'll assume this is who you are referring to.kb

"Mrs. Pardiggle (a rival of Jellyby), who mandates that her youngsters give up their pennies to various charities"

Are you saying that you think this is a good thing or a bad thing? And who do you think is doing most of this giving?

Anyway, over at Reason there is some good commenting on the Brookes findings, including this by joe:(regarding conservatives giving more)

"This premise was disproven two years ago, when the methodology of the "Index of Charitable Giving" was reviewed. Because these researchers look at % of overall income donated, rather than available income, the results are skewed towards low-cost-of-living areas, which tend to be more conservative than the high-cost, liberal coastal and urban areas. Once costs like housing and energy were factored in, the results showed a slight advantage for "Blue" states."

He goes on to logically note:

"And why, exactly, should a willingness to pay more taxes in order to help the poor not count as evidence that one is willing to pay more to help the poor? You might as well argue that Ronald Reagan was no more supportive a strong military, because he only worked to spend tax dollars on it, rather than donating money to fund a private militia."
http://reason.com/blog/show/116945.html

Now, joe, whoever he is, could be 100% wrong. It's now up to us to investigate and check it out. Then, if we find out that he IS correct, we can drop Brookes's findings and be slightly closer to the truth. This is how science works. It's quite logical. What we DON'T do is to get something as blatently fraudulent as the study last year which the conservatives felt to be the holy grail remember, the one where the two professors, one from Princeton, supposedly had "proved" that the media were liberal, only to have it smashed about 24 hours later in about 500 places, and start peaching it as fact. Anyway, let's keep looking. I noticed the Brookes findings were being pushed quite heavily in the "liberal media" and conservative blogs all over the place by John Stossel who is surely up on his facts and research as one can see here:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1701

kb