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Right wingers will deny it but the truth is that at the heart of their perspective is their belief that the only path forward for themselves is by trudging over the backs of others. From a practical standpoint, it may or may not be true, but what the right wingers fail to understand is that even if it is true, it isn't moral. Inhumanity is a grievous, indefensible failing. By comparison, impracticality (assuming that is even the only alternative) is a minor, and forgivable, error.
Dumbing it down, for those who feel that nuanced explanations are condescending toward them: Right wingers are selfish and that is evil. Liberals, by comparison, are at worst idealistic, but either way moral.
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Originally Posted by pknopp
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Stop assuming facts not in evidence. If you have a question, prove the assumptions in your question first, then ask the question. No one is being fooled by your craven and juvenile rhetorical tactics.
Society should be structured so that a living wage job is available to all willing to work. There can surely be much greater rewards for superlative contributions to society, but flushing people down the toilet, depriving of the ability to afford the basics of life out of right-wing greed, is indefensible. Where society fails to do what it should, society bears the obligation to make up for its failing through whatever means necessary to make those people society fails whole, at least to the extent that they can afford the basics of life, as a matter of simple, basic human decency. You can try to dance around these essential matters of morality as much as you want, but I'll call you out on it every time.
As a courtesy, I have clarified the actual factual content of the blog entry you linked to. I do respect the fact that it may be impossible to acknowledge that reality if one is beholden to the corrupt right-wing fantasy that right wing perspective is somehow moral.
This happens to touch on the matter I raised in another thread this morning:
However, it is interesting to see how often right wingers try to hide the craven nature of the self-centeredness they favor behind the guise of compassion that they throw up via contributions they make to institutions that spend so much money on luxurious palaces of worship, especially given how much Jesus abhorred such extravagance at the expense of the poor. That isn't to say that fundamentalist churches don't do some good for the poor, but just imagine how much more they could do for the poor if those that have wondrous sanctuaries instead had chosen to worship in simple, basic structures. Just imagine how much more they could do for the poor if they adorned their walls with the art created by their children rather than by purchased art. Just imagine how much more they could do for the poor if they took the money and resources they devote to edu-duping weak-minded sycophants into believing ridiculously internally-inconsistent dogma and turned that money toward feeding, clothing, sheltering, healing and educating the poor.
Regardless, the whole charity issue is a red herring, because the focus on it just underscores another craven nature of right wing perspective: That lording the money they have over others is somehow more valuable than crafting a society within which economic injustice is not tolerated. I suppose this is just a reflection of how the right wing's nonsense grew out of the most offensive aspects of aristocracy. They apparently derive massive amounts of self-worth from deigning to make a charitable contribution and seemingly feel no compunction about going ahead the next day and making decisions and taking actions that exacerbate the injustice visited upon the most vulnerable in our society.
It is a shame you acted out the frustration you must feel from having no legitimate response to the moral repudiation of the perspective you favor, which I posted, rather than keeping it to yourself. I know it is hard to see what you prefer exposed for the moral turpitude it represents, but in the future try at least to defend it with a moral defense rather than just posting evasive blathering.
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Originally Posted by momonkey
I`m glad you asked...
Q. But aren’t they just giving to religious charities and houses of worship?
A. These enormous differences are not a simple artifact of religious people giving to their churches. Religious people are more charitable with secular causes, too. For example, in 2000, religious people were 10 percentage points more likely than secularists to give money to explicitly nonreligious charities, and 21 points more likely to volunteer. The value of the average religious household’s gifts to nonreligious charities was 14 percent higher than that of the average secular household, even after correcting for income differences. Religious people were also far more likely than secularists to give in informal, nonreligious ways. For example, in 2000, people belonging to religious congregations gave 46 percent more money to family and friends than people who did not belong. In 2002, religious people were far more likely to donate blood than secularists, to give food or money to a homeless person, and even to return change mistakenly given them by a cashier.
Who gives the most in America: conservatives or liberals?
A. There is a persistent stereotype about charitable giving in politically progressive regions of America: while people on the political right may be hardworking and family-oriented, they tend not to be very charitable toward the less fortunate. In contrast, those on the political left care about vulnerable members of society, and are thus the charitable ones. Understanding “charity” in terms of voluntary gifts of money (instead of government income redistribution), this stereotype is wrong.
The fact is that self-described “conservatives” in America are more likely to give—and give more money—than self-described “liberals.” In the year 2000, households headed by a conservative gave, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed by a liberal. And this discrepancy in monetary donations is not simply an artifact of income differences. On the contrary, liberal families in these data earned an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families.
These differences go beyond money. Take blood donations, for example. In 2002, conservative Americans were more likely to donate blood each year, and did so more often, than liberals. People who said they were “conservative” or “extremely conservative” made up less than one-fifth of the population, but donated more than a quarter of the blood. To put this in perspective, if political liberals and moderates gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the United States would surge by nearly half.
One major explanation for the giving discrepancy between conservatives and liberals is religion. In 2004, conservatives were more than twice as likely as liberals to attend a house of worship weekly, whereas liberals were twice as likely as conservatives to attend seldom or never. There are indeed religious liberals in America, but they are currently outnumbered by religious conservatives by about four to one.
If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:
-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
It seems that at this point in your reply you had forgotten what you were trying to prove.
To add some value to your reply, at least respond to this portion of my comment:Explain why the way you're defending is more compassionate (using the actual definition, rather than your ridiculously nonsensical, corrupted definition) than the way I suggest these palaces of worship should operate.
So in other words you tried to prove part of your point by defining compassion in such a way so as to equate it with an aspect of your own personal political perspective instead of defining compassion as the actual compassionate human attitude toward others.
You presumably now having read what I wrote, do you understand the failure of your logic? Or does the reason why your logic fails still elude you?
"it is interesting to see how often right wingers try to hide the craven nature of the self-centeredness they favor behind the guise of compassion that they throw up via contributions they make to institutions that spend so much money on luxurious palaces of worship"
These "right wingers" give more to secular charities as well.
"These enormous differences are not a simple artifact of religious people giving to their churches. Religious people are more charitable with secular causes, too. For example, in 2000, religious people were 10 percentage points more likely than secularists to give money to explicitly nonreligious charities, and 21 points more likely to volunteer. The value of the average religious household’s gifts to nonreligious charities was 14 percent higher than that of the average secular household, even after correcting for income differences.
Religious people were also far more likely than secularists to give in informal, nonreligious ways. For example, in 2000, people belonging to religious congregations gave 46 percent more money to family and friends than people who did not belong. In 2002, religious people were far more likely to donate blood than secularists, to give food or money to a homeless person, and even to return change mistakenly given them by a cashier"
Possibly not, but nothing is stopping them from starting a business. Do you realize how many businesses in this country are started on bootstrap budgets? When I started my handyman business, I was working full time at my regular job and hauling paint supplies in the trunk of a compact sedan. I bartered a painting job for a work van, and 90% or more of the tools I bought as I needed them came from pawn shops. I didn't buy a tool unless I needed it for the next job, and I never so much as talked to anyone about a business loan. Every expense I had was paid in cash, many times out of the deposit that the customer gave me when they booked the job.
There are hundreds of businesses that can be started with little or no money and can be grown into successful money makers. It just takes a little creativity and the desire to do it.
Anyone who stays at minimum wage for more than a few months has issues particular to their situation that cannot be resolved by simply mandating an across-the-board minimum wage hike.
This.
If you make a career out of minimum wage, the problem is not how much minimum wage is.
So if it is not enough to live on why even have a min wage why not let businesses pay what they want. The whole purpose of a min wage is to prevent businesses to pay sub standard wages. Do you really think that when min was created only teenagers were working those jobs?
How about telling your President instead of wealth redistrubtion, how about lowering the capitol gains taxes do businesses can reinvest and hire people at wages above the minimum?
Sorry that that is so hard for the left to understand.
Lowering housing requirements? Gee seems like we tried that in the early 2000's. How'd that turn out?
wtf is the word moral doing in a thread about government.
Anything else you want to add?
Lowering lending standards is NOT the same as lowering housing requirements.
Less government intervention + more property rights = moral policy.
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