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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: manalagi who wrote (55529)	6/7/2009 3:53:46 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 149317

The thing about people getting more conservative as they grow older is a myth, IMO. Even though THIS older generation is more conservative than say the 18 to 34 year old, it is not that the old have become more conservative. It is that the society has become more liberal as we evolve. Teh wrold is becomign more liberal, not more conservative. It is easy to see. Just look at the cultural milestones: 1776 we gain democracy 1865 we end slavery 1919 we allow women to vote 1964 we end segregation And look at how marginalized the right wing has become. A few southern white males are all that is left of the Republcian party and they are making fools of themselves. And we can all see one day all countries wil be democracies. Democracy is a liberal idea, not a conservative idea.

To: manalagi who wrote (55529)	6/7/2009 4:51:27 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 149317

IOW becoming responsible for oneself? But that doesn't make people less compassionate. In fact, when it comes to active compassion, there are studies that show conservatives (principally because they're more likely to be religious) are far more compassionate in action than liberals. See Albert Brooks - Who Really Cares. Conservatives and liberals are equally likely to give and to volunteer their time. But there is a significant difference in the amounts given and time spent. For instance, conservative households give over 30% more money to charity while earning an average 6% less than liberal families. Conservative families give more actual dollars in every income class (poor, middle class, rich). This is also reflected in blood donation. If liberals and moderates donated blood at the level conservatives do, the blood supply in the U.S. would increase 45%. Young liberals (< 30) belong to 33% fewer community organizations than young conservatives. Compared to young conservatives, young liberals are also 12% less likely to donate money and 33% less likely to donate blood. The average family in San Francisco gives the same dollar amount ($1,300) as the average family in South Dakota. But the San Francisco family earns 78% more. The average religious person (any faith) is 25% more likely to donate money than a secularist and gives 350% more total dollars. The religious person is also 23% more likely to volunteer and volunteers twice as often. ..... In the year following 9/11, there was a 5% increase in the number of Americans who donated money to charity. But among those calling themselves “extremely liberal,” giving actually fell from 70% to 60%. Among “extremely conservative” people, giving rose from 84% to 95%. .... When you compare non-religious French with religious Americans, 27% of Frenchmen will volunteer for charitable causes as opposed to 83% of Americans. ..... Brooks sums up his findings by making several observations, of which I’ll list two: It would be entirely appropriate for liberals to—at least—stop saying that conservatives aren’t as compassionate as they are or that they don’t care for the less fortunate. Given all the research into charitable giving, the depiction of liberals as caring and conservatives as stingy is, at best, extreme ignorance. Liberal groups should encourage charity within their ranks. Even if you agitate for systemic change (which is inadvisable), it doesn’t help if charity is not being given now. And given the fact that charity correlates with happiness, giving is simply a lifestyle choice that should be encouraged as meeting the self-proclaimed agenda of increasing well-being among all Americans. Charity is good for both the giver and the receiver. My reaction to this book was similar to when I hear Ann Coulter: anger at liberals, and then a knee-jerk reserve from thinking that maybe I haven’t gotten the whole story. But it’s really hard to argue with Brooks’ data. Even in reading many of the reviews on Amazon, no one disagreed with his data or even the interpretation of it. He was pretty thorough. Like Brooks said, he began his research as a liberal and tried every way to Sunday to examine the data for loopholes or flaws. But each reconfiguration or filtering yielded the same results: religious people give more in every area, from religious donations to non-religious donations to volunteering. And religious people tend to be conservative. ... rootsrain.com BTW - I'll add a personal opinion to the above, I expect if liberal Jews (who though a minority probably account for a disproportionate giving by liberals)were excluded from the analsyis, liberals would look a whole lot stingier than Brooks numbers show. JMO Also IMO raising kids and seeing the negative impact on the younger generation of liberal social policies in schools and the media have a lot to do with developing a more realistic outlook too.