Wrong versus Stupid

I had a boss once that we called “The Crazy Man,” because he would lose his temper for no apparent reason and end up in an apoplectic rage. Moreover, if you disagreed with him, you weren’t just wrong, you were stupid. He’s no longer with the company, but a recent blog I read got me to thinking about that concept.

In his December 20 column in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?ref=opinion), Nicholas Kristof made the interesting observation that self-described liberals give less to charity than self-described conservatives. He then invited readers to offer their thoughts on why at his blog, http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/ and did they ever!

The first thing I immediately noticed was the rage. Kristof had been straightforward in his purpose: “a transparent attempt this holiday season to shame liberals into being more charitable.” My immediate thought was, “Good for you!” Encouraging one’s own group to live up to its ideals always seems like a good goal to me. Alas, Mr. Kristof and I were alone in that opinion.

There were 685 posts when I first looked, and I stopped reading after about 100. By then, the trend was pretty clear, and interesting in about three ways. First, many of the posters were clearly very angry at the notion they should do more. Some insisted that they gave of their time, so that was better than “simply dashing off a check.” While I’m glad they’re giving their time, economics don’t really care who’s doing the work, so I don’t grant them a special moral position. Some insisted that giving to political causes would do more good than giving to charity, because that would restructure the country. Here, again, I admire their dedication, but that seems just a bit too convenient. There’s a reason some organizations have tax exempt status and others don’t. But the largest portion seemed to insist that they had no obligation to give to charity—they paid their taxes, and aiding the poor was a communal duty, period. They had absolutely no obligation to pay more, because that just meant others would take advantage of their generosity.

That seems completely absurd to me. The very people who insist we should care more about our fellow man also insist that they don’t have to do one iota more until everyone else has paid their fair share? (However that’s defined?) So much for leadership by example!

To be fair, a lot of conservatives seemed pretty put out by the other posters, but that makes sense based on the subject of the Op-Ed. I think I could sum up their position as, “We give more but get called selfish and greedy. Who are the hypocrites here?” And, to be fair, some liberals pointed out that they give personally, which never gets counted. That’s legit—I have helped out several relatives, and that isn’t counted by anyone as charitable giving. By the way, the second time I checked, it was at 858 posts.

What struck me as the most interesting, however, was the liberal argument that having government provide charity services is “more efficient” than relying on private charity—one poster called it more “professional;” another called charities “bureaucratic;” a third praised government bureaucracy for being able to avoid the need for donor mailings. Having worked for government, and being able to read, I know that the government spends more on overhead than any charity would ever be permitted. I don’t know how these posters arrived at their conclusion, other than that’s what they wanted to believe.

I suspect that is, in fact, the case—they simply want to believe that government is a better solution. My first evidence is the posters’ words—that they don’t think charity should exist at all, because it won’t assure that the money goes where it’s truly needed. My second evidence for this is the number of posters who insisted that conservatives should pay more, because they had higher paying jobs. The problem with that assertion is that Kristof was quite clear that he had corrected for income, and the conclusions didn’t change—in fact, the poorest conservatives gave the most, percentage-wise. So, either the liberal posters couldn’t read, or they simply didn’t register an inconvenient truth. They didn’t want to believe it was true, so they didn’t.

And anyone who disagreed with them wasn’t just wrong. They were stupid.