Scrooge Was A Liberal
By Ann Coulter
AnnCoulter.com
It's the Christmas season, so godless liberals
are citing the Bible to demand the redistribution of
income by government force. Didn't Jesus say,
"Blessed are the Health and Human Services
bureaucrats, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"?
Liberals are always indignantly accusing
conservatives of claiming God is on our side. What
we actually say is: We're on God's side,
particularly when liberals are demanding God's
banishment from the public schools, abortion on
demand, and taxpayer money being spent on Jesus
submerged in a jar of urine and pictures of the
Virgin Mary covered with pornographic photos.
But for liberals like Al Franken, it's beyond
dispute that Jesus would support extending federal
unemployment insurance.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible,
but it does nicely illustrate Shakespeare's point
that the "devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
What the Bible says about giving to the poor is:
"Each of you should give what you have decided in
your heart to give, not reluctantly or under
compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." (2
Corinthians (9:7)
Being forced to pay taxes under penalty of prison is
not voluntary and rarely done cheerfully. Nor do our
taxes go to "the poor." They mostly go to government
employees who make more money than you do.
The reason liberals love the government
redistributing money is that it allows them to skip
the part of charity that involves peeling the
starfish off their wallets and forking over their
own money. This, as we know from study after study,
they cannot bear to do. (Unless they are guaranteed
press conferences where they can brag about their
generosity.)
Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks' study
of charitable giving in America found that
conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than
liberals do, despite the fact that liberals have
higher incomes than conservatives.
In his book "Who Really Cares?" Brooks compared the
charitable donations of religious conservatives,
secular liberals, secular conservatives and
"religious" liberals.
His surprising conclusion was ... Al Franken gave
the most of all!
Ha ha! Just kidding. Religious conservatives, the
largest group at about 20 percent of the population,
gave the most to charity -- $2,367 per year,
compared with $1,347 for the country at large.
Even when it comes to purely secular charities,
religious conservatives give more than other
Americans, which is surprising because liberals
specialize in "charities" that give them a direct
benefit, such as the ballet or their children's
elite private schools.
Indeed, religious people, Brooks says, "are more
charitable in every measurable nonreligious way."
Brooks found that conservatives donate more in time,
services and even blood than other Americans, noting
that if liberals and moderates gave as much blood as
conservatives do, the blood supply would increase by
about 45 percent.
They ought to set up blood banks at tea parties.
On average, a person who attends religious services
and does not believe in the redistribution of income
will give away 100 times more -- and 50 times more
to secular charities -- than a person who does not
attend religious services and strongly believes in
the redistribution of income.
Secular liberals, the second largest group coming in
at 10 percent of the population, were the whitest
and richest of the four groups. (Some of you may
also know them as "insufferable blowhards.") These
"bleeding-heart tightwads," as New York Times
columnist Nicholas Kristof calls them, were the
second stingiest, just behind secular conservatives,
who are mostly young, poor, cranky white guys.
Despite their wealth and advantages, secular
liberals give to charity at a rate of 9 percent less
than all Americans and 19 percent less than
religious conservatives. They were also
"significantly less likely than the population
average to return excess change mistakenly given to
them by a cashier." (Count Nancy Pelosi's change
carefully!)
Secular liberals are, however, 90 percent more
likely to give sanctimonious Senate speeches
demanding the forced redistribution of income.
(That's up 7 percent from last year!)
We'll review specific liberals next week.
Needless to say, "religious liberals" made up the
smallest group at just 6.4 percent of the population
(for more on this, see my book, "Godless").
Interestingly, religious liberals were also "most
confused" of all the groups. Composed mostly of
blacks and Unitarians, religious liberals made
nearly as many charitable donations as religious
conservatives, but presumably, the Unitarians
brought down their numbers, making them second in
charitable giving.
Brooks wrote that he was shocked by his conclusions
because he believed liberals "genuinely cared more
about others than conservatives did" -- probably
because liberals are always telling us that.
So he re-ran the numbers and gathered more data, but
it kept coming out the same. "In the end," he says,
"I had no option but to change my views."
Every other study on the subject has produced
similar results. Indeed, a Google study of
philanthropy found an even greater disparity, with
conservatives giving 50 percent more than liberals.
The Google study showed that liberals gave more to
secular causes overall, but conservatives still gave
more as a percentage of their incomes.
The Catalogue for Philanthropy analyzed a decade of
state and federal tax returns and found that the red
states were far more generous than the blue states,
with the highest percentage of tightwads living in
the liberal Northeast.
In his book "Intellectuals," Paul Johnson quotes
Pablo Picasso scoffing at the idea that he would
give to the needy. "I'm afraid you've got it wrong,"
Picasso explains, "we are socialists. We don't
pretend to be Christians."
Merry Christmas to all, skinflint liberals and
generous Christians alike!
COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106