Empathy and conservatism

I don't think any of what you said is true. No doubt you believe it, but frankly it just isn't true that conservatives care less about other people than other political orientations.

 

Even allowing for a language barrier, your logic escapes me. You say Conservatives do not have empathy but when it is demonstrated that Conservatives are 30 to 40 per cent more generous in the support of their fellow man, you say charity is bad, regardless of whether that generosity is empathic.

In asserting that feeding the hungry, not just contributing money, but actually cooking and serving, is bad, you contend that establishing a huge bureaucracy to provide food stamps is good, even though it delivers, at best, 20 cents on the dollar.

Are you aware that the polio vaccine came as a result of charitable donations to a guy name Jonas Salk, a conservative who refused to patent it because he believed it should be available to all? Are you aware that the new malaria vaccine was made possible by a charitable donation from the Bill Gates foundation, a Conservative 1%er if there ever was one? And you say this is bad, in spite of the fact that government funded research for 120 years produced one thing - mosquito netting and that came from an arch conservative by the name of Theodore Roosevelt.

And what about giving blood? Is that not charity? I give it freely, go out of my way to do so, not because there is a law, but because I don't want some poor individual to die when they don't have to. But empathy is bad.

People who reject charity in favor of social programs do so because they want control, they want government bureaucracy and forms and, above all else, a record of who got what. And they don't want to dirty their hands with having to actually come in contact with "those people."

This Thanksgiving do something selfish, get an education, and volunteer to help serve dinner to the homeless. It will cost you nothing, you will get a free turkey dinner and your eyes opened....if that's possible.

 

Y'know, I was gonna argue against kilgram's theory. Now I think I'll wait and see.

 

Leftists do like charity- but only charity they can give out of other peoples pockets.

 

My observation is that conservatives tend to help out those in need personally. We don't talk about it. We don't think the government should do it. We do it.

Studies show that conservatives give more time (volunteer hours), money and even donate more blood to charity than do moderates or liberals.

 

Conservatives also give more in time (more volunteer hours) as well as donate more blood than do liberals.

 

Ahhh Kilgram? Hello? Are you still with us?? You have some splainin to do...

 

The issue is that liberals don't want to feel like they owe somebody. When you receive personal charity you have to feel grateful and indebted. Liberals want big government to make forced redistribution part of society so they can feel entitled and owed the handouts they get.

 

Charity is directly helping the poor. You are against the poor?

Most conservatives go by the saying "Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime."

However, you are confusing in your answer. Are you saying liberals don't want money to go to their causes? (boldface above)

 

I LOVE the generalizations here. This is just grand. My take is that apparently...

ALL conservatives are loving, caring, giving people that donate all of their wealth to charities...

...and ALL liberals are welshing money grubbing greedy dopes that spit on the poor and do nothing at all to help them.

Glad thats cleared up here because some statistic (that can't be proven or possibly represented outside of an ACTUAL census) show a few percentage point advantage for "conservatives" over "liberals".

My question is, is something like "focus on the family" a charity given to by conservatives? How about Jimmy Swaggarts ministries? That all counts as giving too right?

I'd like to REALLY see the REAL numbers of who gives directly to the poor in the ways they need it most. Who is on the ground, in the slums, working with people, not who is writing a check to their local church or charitable "organization" that actually only uses 10% of its funds to do its work. No one here has that so it is NOT provable. So please stop trying to indicate to me who does and does not do "all" or even "more" of the work.

That doesn't make your ideology better than someone else's.

 

Oh, my God. I can't believe some of the things you guys have written, here. Teach a man to fish you expect to see, now and then, no matter how little the metaphor applies any more. But that bit about the baby birds being nudged out of their nests? Shameless. Absolutely shameless. Bravo. I was feeling a little embarrassed about my Superman essays for a while there, but not any more.

Anyway, kilgram, it's not true. Conservatives are just as compassionate as any other kind of human being. There are certainly conservatives that are utterly lacking in empathy, but there are also liberals that are lacking in empathy. Whether or not a person is actually a conservative just because they say they are (or even think they are), that's another thread.

I'd rather have an empathetic conservative government than a heartless liberal government. The whole point of the government is to help the people, not a political ideology. If a conservative government is what the people need, then they should have one ... though these days, I would say that means voting democrat, not republican. But that's another thread, too.

But that 'teach a man to fish' thing. Good grief. Besides, IT ONLY WORKS IF THERE ARE STILL FISH. But that's yet another thread.

 

Yeah...you all just extract your charity via the CEO type tactics, take what you want and pat yourself on the back for being great "business" people. You don't take it out of anybody's pockets. You just never allow anything to get into anybody elses pockets in the first place. Crapitalism....I got news for you sir. Crapitalism has failed....big time. Keep stroking yourself though. It makes you easier to identify.

 

I assume that you've known only one conservative in your life and he was a real heartless jerk.

The difference between Conservative empathy and Liberal Empathy is this:

Conservatives want to be able to use their money the way they want, and more often than not, yes, donate to charities. Giving to charity out of free will is our argument.

Liberals (at least, from what I've seen, and feel free to correct me) would like the government to take a more active role in helping others, by forcing people to give to charities, or in other words, forcefully sharing the wealth.

Everyone I know who has a right leaning does something charitable, and if it's not money, than it's helping out a friend, or even a complete stranger if it looks like they need help.

 

Funny you say that, because what I see is conservatives saying, don't teach our kids about sex, just make sure they don't ever have it. Thats pretty much the opposite stance you are claiming, isn't it?

- Don't talk about homosexuality, just oppress it.
- Don't talk about racism, just engage in it.
- Don't talk about the poor, just blame them for their status.
- Don't educate about Science, just follow our God.
- Don't debate political policy, agree with us or suffer our obstinence.

Yeah, I really see the pattern of "education" first in the position of conservatism. Why didn't I think of that.

The correct statement about Conservatism in regards to the fish statement is this-

"Give a man a fish, and he must be a lousy, undeserving worthless piece of crap. If he wants to fish, he must buy a permit from the owner of the lake, buy equipment necessary to fish, and than be acceptable to us culturally and socially in order to have a spot near our lake. If they can't fulfill all of those loopholes now, then clearly they don't deserve a spot at our lake, and I will do absolutely nothing to help them get a spot here and will in fact work diligently AGAINST letting them near our lake. After all, I earned my spot at this lake, and just because we are collectively holding others down from getting here doesn't mean that they shouldn't somehow buck this impossible system and luck their way in."

That's the conservative stance that I see in this world.

 

I would hate to have to take charity. I would feel like a failure, I might feel that I was being judged by the giver and maybe like I was undeserving. My answer to that discomfort would be to avoid it by doing without what I couldn't provide for myself and working harder to meet my own needs. The liberal reaction to the discomfort caused by needing charity, is to remove the discomfort by turning it into an entitlement.

I think its human nature that causes the receiving of charity to be loaded with the shame of needing it and the felt responsibility to use the charity as a means to escape the need for it. Human nature also allows a person to take an entitlement without any need to change behavior or even to recognize that any change might be desireable.

 

^That is not conservatism, that is socialism with a Rightwing label. Don't know if you noticed, but there is no such thing as conservatism in the government anymore, real conservatism(if that name even applies anymore) is smaller government and less control. You want to do drugs, your body, want to spout racist comments, go for it, want to give your money to charity, awesome.

Don't be tricked by what the republican party is right now, the democrats and republicans are just one party now trying to appeal to all the votes by pretending there are 2 parties.

 

Whoa, cowboy. It's a metaphor. How about, instead, we say it's better to train and give a person a job rather than food stamps?

Will that ease your pain?

 

Well, the point is we were defending ourselves against a baseless assumption by Kilgram.

Re-analysis of some data, taking out money given to church ministries (some of which, at least in the Catholic church are going to the poor (95+% to the poor)), show that conservatives, if adjusted for income give more to charities which benefit the poor.

 

Nicely said....and just in case the people on welfare may be the faintest bit still embarrassed (we couldn't have that) let's remove that as well...

No need to cash those embarrassing checks, or use those obvious food stamps any longer.



I do remember a time when people could not wait to get off public assistance, because of the shame. They picked themselves up and got off of it as soon as possible. It is no longer a problem, the government has made sure of that.

 

I don't know. I see one party wanting to cut education. I see one party wanting to profit from peoples illnesses (while the other party wants to remove profiteering from that equation). I see one party oppressing free thought. I see one party trying to support progress and small business development, while the other one wants full control in the hands of mega corps. Someone here is foolish, and I think its the ones not looking at the picture the right way.

 

Conservatives don't want others teaching our kids about sex. That's our job.

Can't oppress without talking about it.

Racism is non-partisan. Robert "Grand Dragon" Byrd being a chief example.

No, we help the poor, why talk about it?

Never heard anything but a small part of science being rejected by conservatives. At least for K-12 students, evolution can be ignored. It's a nice theory (and yes, I believe it), but it's hardly necessary for most high school level biology (which I taught for 5 yrs).

Pot calling kettle black.

Love your assumptions. They are as warped as kilgrams.

Also, it was kilgram who was claiming that liberals are the ones who would rather teach than fix things.

 

Yes. Well. Most of the people on food stamps are children, I believe. But other than that.

 

What he means is the population are a bunch of fish, and he'll show you how to hook 'em all. aka.......step on their heads to become a success. To take. Capitalism.
Everybody can be rich...don't you know? If they aren't, well, they're losers. Republican disconnect 101.

 

It appears the PO has abandoned the thread.

 

nothing about capitalism has failed. big government has failed. keep eviously thinking society owes you.