Political analysis
Where Is A Good Liberal When You Need One?
- By Guest Writer
- September 19, 2007
I believe compassion is a desire to help other people that is so overwhelming that you cannot help but go and help yourself.
All my life I have heard about how compassionate liberals are and how greedy conservatives are. I have spent years looking for compassionate liberals. I am here to tell you that they are hard to find. Yet everywhere I turn I find compassionate conservatives. In fact it seems that almost every greedy person I meet is a liberal. It seems that the definition that the media and liberal organizations for compassion is the willingness to force other people to give. They are compassionate because they support higher taxes from everyone to do those jobs that they are not willing to do themselves. I have a different idea of compassion. I believe compassion is a desire to help other people that is so overwhelming that you cannot help but go and help yourself.
Where is a good liberal when it comes to helping a sick child?
To hear liberals talk, you would think that if there were one place where they would be motivated to action it would be helping sick children. Of course they are willing to use our money to help them but if they were truly compassionate wouldn’t they be out helping sick children themselves. I have spent a lot of time working with sick children and I can to tell you that it is hard to find a good liberal who takes their time to work with sick children. Here are some examples.
My little brother, John, was born with maximum brain damage. When John was two they started working with this program to try and teach the part of the brain that was there to do the things that the things that the part that was not there was supposed to do. The program needed 20 volunteers. So my parents wrote the local newspaper that wrote an article about John and the need for volunteers. The response was great and they had enough volunteers to run the program. Before I get to the punch line let me explain something about where we live. We live in the great state of Washington. One of the most liberal states in America. It is also one of the most unchurched sates in America with less than one out of ten people going to church on a regular basis. So it would figure that most of the volunteers would be secular liberals. That was not the case. Not only were the majority of the volunteers conservative Christian, but rather all of the volunteers were conservative Christians. Yes, not one single liberal person responded to this article in a liberal newspaper in a liberal area.
I found the same thing when I was a volunteer at a children’s hospital. I knew several of the paid staff who considered themselves liberal. It is one thing to get paid well to do something compassionate but I think the real compassion is shown by those people who are so driven to help that they are willing to do it on a volunteer basis. This children’s hospital was located in one of the most liberal areas of our liberal state. Here I found the same thing. Almost all the volunteers I met along the way were not only politically conservative they were Christians as well. Hmm, is there a pattern here?
My wife and I did respite care for years. For those of you who are not familiar with this, respite care is state program where you take severely disabled children for a certain amount of days a month to give the parents a break. These were children like my brother, John, who need 24 hour care. Over the years we got to know many other people who did respite care. By now you can guess it. Most of the people we met were conservatives.
Where is a good liberal when it comes to working with the elderly and the poor?
Currently my job is as an Activities Director at a local senior center. We are unique in that not only do we work with the seniors in our area but we also have one of the largest food banks in our area. We have over 30 volunteers who work at the center. When I started this position at a community senior center filled with retired seniors from a liberal community I thought that I would find different results. Well, I was wrong. Even here almost every single volunteer we have is a conservative. I know the people who at several other senior centers and food banks. It seems that that is the pattern here is this liberal state. Conservatives do the giving and liberals do the taking.
It is also interesting to note that of all the major relief agencies around the world they were all started and are run by conservative Christians. With the exception of the Red Cross, by the way, is an organization that was started by Christians. The nation’s largest food supplier for food banks is Second Harvest, which happens to be another Christian organization. I cannot speak for other states but it happens to be that the majority of the food banks in our state are run by conservative Churches.
Where is a good liberal when it comes to taking care of AIDS patients?
When you listen to the media talk about AIDS, you would think that this is a place where only a liberal would tread. One of the charities I give to is one that works with children who were orphaned by the AIDS crisis in Africa. Many of whom were born with AIDS themselves. As with most of us, I have been concerned about the millions of people in Africa who are dying of AIDS. So when I was introduced to this organization I jumped on the opportunity to support it. I assumed that it was one of the few Christian organizations doing this kind of work in Africa. I was wrong. The people with the mission tell me that most of the organizations across Southern Africa that are working with AIDS victims are Christian organizations. In preparing for this article I did some research and I found that almost all the organizations that are working with AIDS in Africa are sponsored by Conservative Churches.
Conclusion
The purpose of this article is not to suggest that liberals do not have compassion. It is to dispel the commonly held notion that conservatives are not. In fact the most conservative person running for President in the next presidential election is Ron Paul. Ron Paul is a MD who has gone to Africa each year for many years to provide free medical services for the poor of that continent. Still the truth is, if you need help sometime in your life it will probably come from the hands of a conservative and in site of what the liberals in the media tell us each day, Christian conservatives are most likely to show compassion.
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Christians are compassionate by definition. You cannot be a Chrstian without being compasisonate. Sure, there are plenty of so called “Christians” who are profit mongers of the worst kind, or turn thier backs to panhandlers of all kinds, but those are not christians by practice but rather only by name.
And modern era Buddhists, now there is a compassionate group of religious human beings.
339 days ago by nichole
I don’t give to panhandlers. I don’t give away money foolishly nor do I just donate to any cause without careful research. I won’t donate to any charity that spends more that 20% on overhead, which is why I donate to children of the night (www.childrenofthenight.org) and the Salvation Army (you know their website).
Furthermore, you should remember 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (KJV):
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
As a matter of fact, I’ve offered to give food to panhandlers who then outright refuse it and ask for cash instead…
Do your homework.
338 days ago by JP
www.charitynavigator.com is a great site for determining who to donate your $$ to. They have stats on how your money is spent and the salaries of the administrators of that charity. Check it out
337 days ago by Stalin
While I find your anecdotal evidence of liberal greed to be entirely unconvincing and heavily tainted by your own conservative bias, I have an excuse for you…
As a liberal, I am so overwhelmed by the amount of suffering the world – much of it brought about by so-called compassionate conservatives like our dear leader – that I don’t see the point in trying to intervene in individual cases. I want the government to do this work. I want my taxes spent on helping people like your brother rather than pissed away in Iraq. I’m too friggin’ busy trying to provide for my own family (uninsured – $3000 root canal for me; $5000+ eye surgery for my 11-month old son; etc.) to worry about your brother, whom any compassionate person would have aborted in order to spare him a lifetime of suffering and uselessness.
You only see the kind of compassion you want to see, my friend. Your mind is no doubt impaired by your religious beliefs and incapable of comprehending what I mean, but I thought I’d try…
331 days ago by CP