You gotta have faith

Whatever happened to the concept of voting for the right person for the job???

I was taught that concept as a child, and to accept the different opinions and views of others.

Just because I do not agree with someone on certain issues does not mean that person is not capable of doing his or her best to representative their employer, the voters of their constituency, who elect them into office.

Being far away from home in Afghanistan, I will still cast my ballot in the upcoming Canadian election.

Making a choice from this place will be difficult, but will be done through research to determine which candidate, regardless of political party, will earn my vote.

It seems to me one of the problems with the current debate about how we ought to treat the poor and even the laboring class has been our unnecessary characterization of the issue as a binary. If you only look at party platforms, one side says taking care of the poor is up to private individuals alone, while the other side tends to call for larger social movements and government action while often neglecting individual initiative.

As if either of these things are bad, and as if we are required to choose between them! It’s a ridiculous political ploy made by both sides in order to distance themselves from one another during elections, and it confuses the issue.

Yes, of course private individuals should serve the interests of the poor and needy. But certainly the government is responsible for certain very broad aspects of how our society works, and it should make an effort to protect the little guy against those who would use and abuse. I’ve been that little guy, and believe me, there is using and abusing going on out there.

Certainly a just government tries to help any of its citizens who are in need. Certainly we have all kinds of stories criticizing the kings of old for neglecting the poor, or have we forgotten them? Certainly the great move to democratic government came about partly because it was thought that aristocracies tended to oppress the needy rather than helping them, and it was supposed that a democratic form of government would be more just and more helpful in times of need toward all people, regardless of social standing. Or is this not what we meant by “all men” having the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”?

Make no mistake, a democratic society in all its varied facets can be every bit as oppressive as a lone tyrant whose tyranny is obvious. The difference is, in this society we are free not only to act individually, but also to speak out and change the system where it needs to be changed for the good of all.

Tom Faranda, I don’t know who is right about Massachusetts and neither, it seems, does anyone else. I know there are people who post here who would like Massachusetts to be last. Why the rancor?

Mr. Lilley, I must be getting old. I was too busy checking my spelling to check the names. But you did make the point that conservatives were more generous than liberals. You said “Who Really Cares looks at giving patterns and finds the conservative minded, and voting people, give much more to charity in terms of time and money than their liberal counterpart.”. And then you say, in your last post “He does say religious liberals are giving and secular conservatives are the stingiest of the bunch.” So I’m a little confused too.

Hey, haven’t you ever gotten a name wrong? OK, I got it wrong with two different names. I plead age.

Mr. Page, I am confused by your last post. You mention Prof. Brown and Prof. Smith when I think you mean Prof. Brooks but I can’t be sure. Read more of him. He does say religious liberals are giving and secular conservatives are the stingiest of the bunch. However I think his point in writing was to show that those who often call for the government to provide social justice (those of the left) are less willing to act on their own to ensure social justice comes about than those on the right who oppose the government being the main actor to bring about social justice but don’t mind donating or volunteering their own time to bring that about.

I don’t raise any of this to say, look this side is better than the other, but rather, to counter some of the posts that implied or directly claimed that conservatives or Republicans don’t give a tiinkers cuss about the poor. Again it comes down to world view. Who is better able to provide for need. One side says a compassionate government, the other a compassionate citizenry. It is a disagreement about methods not about whether the poor need help but rather how best to help them and who should do it.

David, et al. Ever heard of the “Generosity Index?” A study ongoing since about 1995, put together in Massachusetts, by Massachusetts people to try and determine why the charitable giving level was so low in their state. in fact, in 2005 they rated MA as 49th out of 50.

A pretty poor showing for a “liberal” state with a Catholic population around 50%.

I’d be curious as to which professors at BC “a Jesuit college” (and i’m a Jesuit college grad) did their study elevating MA. to 4th place.

Could be pandering to the locals.

incidentally, McCain last night said that a quality education is the “civil rights battle of the 21st century.” See my prior post in school choice and who is against it.

Mr. Lilley, I’ve done some reading on professor Brown’s research on charitable giving. According to his numbers, religious people give $88 more to non-religious charities than secular people do. $730 dollars as opposed to $642. The numbers that exist for charitable giving come from itemized tax returns. In Mississippi 17% of tax returns are itemized, while in Massachusetts the figure is 39%. It simply isn’t enough information. I haven’t read his book but he doesn’t seem to be separating liberal religions from conservative ones. I’m a Unitarian. In Professor Smith computations I would be included in the religious group and, by your implication, classified as a conservative. I can assure you, I’m nothing of the sort.

Boston College, a Jesuit school, has concluded that the current way of calculating charitable giving is unworkable. They said that, by there calculations, Massachusetts is the fourth most generous state. If you accept Professor Smith’s numbers, then we are number 44 on the list. So who knows. I’m reminded of Disraeli’s famous comment about “lies, damnable lies, and statistics”.

adebowale, thank you for your kind words. I’m a proud liberal. I even called myself a liberal in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when it was very unpopular to do so.

Even Dr Susan Reibel Moore who often ticks David Page off for writing ‘above his head’ had to admit that he has contributed some of the most intelligent and interesting comments to this topic. At least it shows that there is more to the so-called ‘liberals’ - a word unnecessarily sullied by wingnut Americans and Australians - than immorality and ethical freewheeling.
As an African living in the UK I still don’t get how and why the word ‘liberal’ has been made into a synonym for sinfulness and sinners, morbidity and morbid-minded decadents in America. We haven’t sunk to such obscurantist depths here.
Even so, the lexical meaning of liberal has not really changed; just like the meaning of illiberal. The latter is more revealing: To be illiberal is be narrow-minded, blinkered, parochial, stingy and so forth.
(David, sorry if you would rather not call yourself a liberal, but I guess that’s what I’d call you.)

I agree with you, Mal, just not completely.

Even though Americans were being attacked constantly by terrorists for many years, I believed that the use of force to fight these terrorists was not the right option. However, I wonder how many of those making a big noise - and rightly so - about the lives lost due to Iraq conflict are equally concerned about the American lives lost due to abortion. As long as Americans see nothing morally wrong in terminating the lives of their own why would they bother about the lives of others. I believe it is time for everyone to value human life at whatever stage of development or of whatever nationality.

Very quickly: very interesting and intelligent observations, and some of the best ones by David Page in his last email that I’ve ever seen by him. 
Since John James is in my life, of course I am going to borrow Fr Chaput’s book from him; but, as I’ve said, the term Life Issues covers more than Catholics are usually ready to discuss.  Need I reiterate what numerous commentators have pointed out implicitly: that ‘Render unto Caesar’ covers MORE than the bedrock Life Issue of abortion? 
Too close to home for comfort, in my personal life, I’ve prevented four abortions.  I also happen to have two adult children, one male and one female, adopted as infants thanks to the Right-to-Life Movement.  Their mothers were in a category often classed as Right-to-Abortion.  It is certainly true, as an excellent reader pointed out, that many American liberals ‘don’t get it’ on this bedrock issue.  I find this more distressing than I can convey in this forum.
So: all of us have got to keep up to date on this campaign, talk with one another, and--somehow--vote as best we can.  I have dual citizenship, so I will be voting in NJ.  I also voted in the last Australian federal election.  Lucky me?!  Not exactly.  On the world of politics, Machiavelli said it all--almost!--centuries ago.

I must say I’m intrigued by the charge that the Republicans are the party for those who are rich and exploit the poor. Looking from the outside, it seems as though the wealthiest areas of the country, the Northeast and California, vote Democrat while the poorer Midwest and the South vote Republican.
If the Republican brand is in tatters and its the ‘Abortion” issue that is keeping McCain in the hunt then why are the Democrats making such a hamfisted effort at handing McCain more votes.
The Democrat machine seem to be handing McCain the opportunity to convince the Evangelicals and the Catholics that its “business as usual” for the Democrats as far as the Life issues are concerned. They singlehandedly have helped galvanise the Republican heartland with Obama and Pelosi’s comments and now this terrible assault on the VP nominee, suggesting that her disabled baby is not really hers and attacking her pregnant 17 year old daughter.
The Left liberal elites are handing the Republicans ammunition by the bucket full!

Mr. Page, please don’t take anything I’ve written here as a defence of the Republican Party, they have people they pay for that.
You wrote
“Brian, those figures are skewed by how much ‘conservative’ charity goes to paying pastors, proselytizing, and building and maintaining church buildings.”

First I would respond by saying those are all thigns any committed Christian should do, but as to the charge....

Not so, not according to the findings of Professor Brooks who admits he did not believe the results when he first read the data. Instead he checked, rechecked, used different source data and came to the same conclusion.

It comes down to worldview - How should we respond to those in need? What is loosely called liberal these days or Democrat in party terms believes we should collectively respond through taxes, programs and government. People who we loosely call conservative or in party terms Republican generally favour responding through charity, community groups and private initiative. Both paths can show positive and negative results. I’ve been around politicians in an up close and personal way to believe any of this “those people don’t care about the poor” garbage. Both sides play that game and it is simply not true

Brian Lilly said: “There are a number of responses on this thread that seem to be saying, if it wasn’t for abortion, there would be no need to vote for those mean Republicans.”

My born-again Baptist sister says if it wasn’t for abortion she would vote for Obama. The Republican brand is is tatters.