"Bleeding-Heart Liberal" is a Misnomer

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


I'd have to look over the study. But young people are most definitely poorer as a class than other age groups, the study didn't add the qualifier that income had been factored out as they did with liberals in general, so I can't necessarily say what the facts are here.

Also in question is what their definition of "young" is. 18-30? 11-18? Because I do know that youth volunteerism rates are higher than adults. (i don't know the political breakdown):

# Out of 13.3 million youth, 59.3% volunteer an average of 3.5 hours per week, versus 49% of the adult population volunteering an average of 4.2 hours. (Independent Sector/Gallup, 1996)
# 74.2% of high school seniors volunteered in 1998. (UCLA/Higher Education Research Institute Annual Freshmen Survey, 1999)
# 70% of young people ages 15-21 have participated in activities to help strengthen their community at some point in their lives. (Do Something/Princeton Survey Research, 1998
# Youth volunteering is up 12% over the last 10 years. (UCLA/Higher Education Research Institute Annual Freshmen Survey, 1999)

Yeah, donating money isn't something I would expect the youth to do (in raw ammount) as much as adults. Youth make so much less...

JM

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Caligastia


Pwn3d. Taxes /= charity.

WTF? you were the one to claim that they want to DONATE the others' money.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
An entire 6%?

You're right it isn't a large difference, but significant enough to show how ridiculous the claim that libruls want the rich's money is.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Arrian


As noted in the article, liberals are generally more affluent than conservatives. Liberals support the progressive income tax system, which taxes richer people at a higher rate.

Thus, it's not like liberals are somehow exempt from the consequences of a tax increase, which I have to assume was the basis for your little quip about liberals "donating other people's money."

-Arrian

Any way you slice it, they still want to control the taxes of others and direct them to charitable causes.

[Arrian]

So, to recap:

Liberals (generally) think that the poor, sick and otherwise needy should be cared for (to a greater degree) by the government, which is funded by taxation.

Conservatives (generally) think that the poor, sick and otherwise need should be cared for (primarily?) by charity, funded by private donations.

Yet conservatives pay taxes into a system that redistributes wealth via government (liberal idea), and liberals donate to charity (conservative idea). The difference, of course, is that there isn't much choice re: taxes, whereas donation to charity is entirely voluntary.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Caligastia

Any way you slice it, they still want to control the taxes of others and direct them to charitable causes.

Um, since taxation effects us all, anyone setting tax policy is "controlling the taxes of others." Further, a liberal would perhaps argue that the things they want to fund shouldn't be considered "charity" but rather basic services. You see them as charity b/c you're a conservative.

Meanwhile, I note that conservatives appear rather fond of spending other people's money too. Recently, the trend has been to borrow ****loads of money so they can spend what they want without running high taxes, so the "other people" are future generations (or perhaps us, but when we're older). And yes, I'm aware that this trend has been led by a bunch of people who claim to be conservatives, but may not really qualify.

-Arrian

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
# Out of 13.3 million youth, 59.3% volunteer an average of 3.5 hours per week, versus 49% of the adult population volunteering an average of 4.2 hours. (Independent Sector/Gallup, 1996)
# 74.2% of high school seniors volunteered in 1998. (UCLA/Higher Education Research Institute Annual Freshmen Survey, 1999)
# 70% of young people ages 15-21 have participated in activities to help strengthen their community at some point in their lives. (Do Something/Princeton Survey Research, 1998
# Youth volunteering is up 12% over the last 10 years. (UCLA/Higher Education Research Institute Annual Freshmen Survey, 1999)

How much of that is actually volunteer vs. voluntold? I know tons of schools where community service is part of the program, and not exactly voluntary. I'd also be curious if that removes any fundraising done on behalf of school or school programs, which could quite easily be considered volunteer work (and again, often not particularly optional).

[Arrian]

Liberals like to donate other people's money to charity. How generous.

Pwn3d. Liberals make on average 6% more than conservatives yet they approve of higher taxes.

Pwn3d. Taxes /= charity.

Any way you slice it, they still want to control the taxes of others and direct them to charitable causes.

So you were saying that (liberal-backed) taxes = charity. I won't get into whether or not you "pwnd" yourself, but you appear to be having trouble with consistency.

-Arrian

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


WTF? you were the one to claim that they want to DONATE the others' money.

The 'donate' part was sarcastic.

[OzzyKP]

Well once you start splitting hairs like that we'll be here all day. When teachers raise money for school or volunteer their time, are they really volunteering or are they obeying their unions? Or church goers. Or anyone else really.

As for compulsory so-called volunteering, I think most of the above stats were from before that really caught on. So I think they are fairly reliable.

[Arrian]

It might also be far easier to volunteer when you're in highschool or college than it is when you have a full-time job (let alone kids). Having said that, I did a piss-poor job of volunteering for stuff in HS and College. I'm better at it now, though of course there is always room for improvement. That's a maturity issue. Maturity =! age, of course, though experience (age) helps.

-Arrian

[Sandman]

I'm surprised at how accepting everyone is of this person's conclusions. The Hoover Institution is one of those neocon/libertarian thinktanks dedicated to churning out stuff like this.

[Dr Strangelove]

It would be interesting to see how the figures break down if you seperate charity dedicated to services for the poor and needy from charities dedicated to maintaining religious institutions. Remember also that donations to arts foundations, hospitals and schools, even those schools athletics programs are considered charity. I could see trying to break down charitable giving into 3 categories: (1) services to the poor, even if through schools or religious institutions, (2) charities primarily serving religious institutions, (3) charities not serving religious institutions or the poor.

I find it difficult to believe that liberals have a higher income than conservatives when you consider that blacks and Hispanics tend to vote liberal. How were these two groups defined?

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Sandman
I'm surprised at how accepting everyone is of this person's conclusions. The Hoover Institution is one of those neocon/libertarian thinktanks dedicated to churning out stuff like this.

Sowell is the one commenting on the study, he isn't the one who did the study. As his column mentioned, the guy doing the study expected the opposite result and was surprized by the outcome. Nice try.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Sandman
I'm surprised at how accepting everyone is of this person's conclusions. The Hoover Institution is one of those neocon/libertarian thinktanks dedicated to churning out stuff like this.

Everyone isn't really . Recall that rah, not exactly a commie, pointed out that tithes are counted as charity, but are more like a membership fee for a church than actual voluntary charity... and that money goes to maintaining the church as well.