One Minute Book: Give give give til it hurts? The answer may surprise you!
Today's tome: Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism by Arthur C. Brooks:
Epigraph:
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
1 Corinthians 13:13
Foreword by James Q. Wilson, page viii
…Brooks suggests a different and more fascinating possibility: it may be that charitable giving helps improve the economy.
Page 1:
"Regime Change Starts at Home," read one sign, overtly comparing President George W. Bush to the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who had recently been ousted by American forces under a policy dubbed "regime change."
Page 2:
These are, perhaps, the most common stereotypes in our modern American political discourse: The political left is compassionate and charitable toward the less fortunate, while the political right is oblivious to suffering.
Page 4:
"The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind."
Page 8:
If we look at party affiliation instead of ideology, the story remains largely the same—if anything, it makes the political left look less charitable, not more so.
Page 16:
Conservatives think that donations to the Heritage Foundation are better than those to the American Civil Liberties Union; atheists believe donations to churches are a waste of money (or worse), and so on.
Page 32:
But is it true that the religious right is an unparalleled force in American politics?
Page 64:
The unexpected part of Mr. Dawson's story is this: He gave nearly all his money away.
Page 128:
We have already discussed the effects of the European "baby bust" on the financing of pension systems, but the economic maladies go deeper than just this.
Last page (180):
There should not be "two Americas" when it comes to charity.
Appendix:
Percentage who believe that we have become a society of haves and have-nots:
Liberals 92% | Conservatives 51%
