Christ was not a socialist

Nowhere in the Bible is there a passage similar to this:

Madonna's homeless brother

We don’t know the details of the relationship between Madonna and her homeless brother. We can be fairly certain that they do not get along and that Madonna does not believe that he is a proper recipient of her charity.

The interesting thing about this situation is this: Madonna is a fairly typical Liberal who advocates government programs to help the poor and down-and-out, like her brother. Government programs, unlike private charity are not allowed to differentiate between what was once called the “deserving” poor and the “undeserving” poor. When our tax dollars are used by government to spend money on people like Madonna’s brother we are not allowed to ask if he deserves our support; he simply gets it because he qualifies. The government is not allowed to get as granular as that. And, frankly, I don’t trust the government employee to make those distinctions. But to the Liberal, the government program is “good” and ever more of it is demanded.

On the other hand, Madonna has determined that her homeless brother does not deserve her help for some reason. Getting fired from a family business gives us a clue, but is not definitive. Madonna is using her knowledge of her brother to decide whether to support him or not. She is familiar with the details of his situation; her decision is based on her determination that he does not deserve her charity.

This is a fascinating case of the Liberal mind. The inability to see that there are no “people” only persons. Each has a story and a problem. For some, a helping hand financially may be the answer. For others the gift of faith may be worth more than all the money in the world. The old adage about not being able to see the forest for the trees, can also be turned around; many cannot see the trees for the forest.

Charity Hucksters: Bono and Mortenson

In Do We Want To Be Fooled? Bruce Bawer discusses the case of the Greg Mortenson fraud which collected millions of dollars based on lies about building schools in Afghanistan, all to enrich a self-promoting con-man.

And speaking of self-promoting con-men there is no bigger one than Bono whose charity ONE collected £9.6 million but paid out only £118,000 (1.2%) to good causes. The rest goes to salaries and keeps Bono in the headlines. I have never understood why high government officials wanted to be lectured by the lead singer of a band. I do understand why Bono does it; it’s good, profitable business if the suckers want to play. I just don’t understand the suckers.

Who are your going to believe? The Henrietta Hughes story.

Bleeding Heart Tightwads

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF points out that Conservatives are more generous with their own money than Liberals. So he spends his column in the NY Times trying to shame Liberals into become more generous with their own money.

It won't work.

Liberals are stingy with their own money for ideological reasons. This is a corollary from the Liberal belief that the answer to any problem is a government program. If there are poor people, people in need, Liberals demand that the government needs to help. And so the existence of government is a reason for not reaching into their own pockets.

But Kristoff is wrong when he says:

Of course, given the economic pinch these days, charity isn’t on the top of anyone’s agenda. Yet the financial ability to contribute to charity, and the willingness to do so, are strikingly unrelated. Amazingly, the working poor, who have the least resources, somehow manage to be more generous as a percentage of income than the middle class.

The fact is that contributions to the poor and needy by conservatives has remained steady during this downturn. Every Salvation Army kettle I pass gets a contribution from me. My contributionto my church this year was larger, and is going to help those in need, not the building fund.

Give generously when times are bad, that's when it's most needed.

Street Kids Raid Poverty Summit

The wealthy poverty summiteers were having themselves a party but didn't invite the starving children of Kenya's mean streets.

So the kids came and took the food.

Dozens of street children have invaded a five-star hotel food tent and feasted on meals meant for sale at the World Social Forum in Kenya's capital.
The hungry urchins were joined by other participants who complained that the food was too expensive at the annual anti-capitalist get together.

The police, caught unawares, were unable to stop the free-for-all that saw the food containers swept clean.

The gathering in Nairobi is discussing social problems, including poverty.

A plate of food at the tent being operated by the prestigious Windsor Hotel was selling for $7 in a country where many live on less than $2 a day.

Who's Generous? Conservatives

The book's basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.
Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone's tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don't provide them with enough money.

[L]iberals give less than conservatives in every way imaginable, including volunteer hours and donated blood.

Liberals tend to specialize in giving away other peoples' money.