the difference between cats and dogs

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDkzYjQ0NTZiYmI1YjM0ZjAyZDhiZjlhZjdhOWYxMjM=

This is a very interesting article written by Jonah Goldberg, Editor-At-Large of National Review Online. In this article, Goldberg discusses the book Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, written by Arthur C. Brooks, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Prof. Brooks' book examines the charitable giving habits of conservatives and liberals, and the religious and the non-religious. You can go to the above link (the Goldberg column contains a link for an NRO interview with the author, so check that out too) and read for yourself, but I will summarize the findings here, as well.
1. The further to the left a person is--particularly the secular left--the less likely a person is to donate their time or money to charity. Brooks found that conservative-headed families give about 30% more money per year than liberal-headed families on average while earning about 6% less income.
2. Brooks identifies four areas of our culture that lead people to give, or not, to charity: religious faith, attitudes and beliefs about the proper role of government in our lives, the source of one's income, and family. The biggest of those four areas, by far, is religion.
3. People who attend church at least once a week are 25% more likely to give to charity each year than people who never go to church, and give about 4 times as much money.
4. SURPRISING FACT (at least to me, anyway)---The secular conservative is the least charitable of all of the groups surveyed. They rank below secular liberals and way below Christian conservatives. Because Christian conservatives outnumber secular conservatives by about 3-1, the poor charity habits of the secular conservative don't have much of an effect on the overall conservative numbers.
5. Charitable giving stimulates personal property, strong communities, good citizenship, and a healthier nation. This should come as no surprise to the Christian conservative, because this is a lesson that is repeated over and over again in the Bible.
6. Excellent quote from the interview absolutely dripping with irony: According to the popular lexicon, “bleeding hearts” are those who most want to raise taxes and redistribute income from the rich to the poor. Yet the data show that these folks are actually less likely to give away their own money than are those whose hearts apparently don’t bleed quite so much. For example, people who disagree that “the government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality,” privately give away, on average, four times more money than people who agree. And speaking of bleeding, one survey in 2002 asked people about their views on government welfare and how often they gave blood. It showed that, if everyone gave blood like “hard-hearted” opponents of government welfare spending, the nation’s blood supply would rise by about 30 percent. I won’t say which side is right about welfare spending (that’s a different question), but I will note that some may find irony in the link with private giving.
7. Charity is almost exclusively an American phenomena. Not counting government aid (which really isn't charity, is it?), we Americans give, per capita, three and a half times more than the French, seven times more than the Germans, and 14 times more than the Italians.

There is much more contained in the article and the interview, so I encourage you to read both. Before I end, however, I do want to make a point about what this information says to me. I don't really like the phrase "compassionate conservatism", and I never have. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the phrase was originally used by the Bush family, and it caught me the wrong way as soon as they uttered it. In my opinion, this term implies that "regular conservatism" isn't compassionate, and that it needs to be "fixed." Hogwash! This is the kind of silly stuff you expect to hear from liberals, but I never believed it to be true. Principled, Christian conservatism is naturally infused with compassion. It's in the DNA of the true Christian conservative, put there by God's Holy Spirit. Believe me, there is nothing at all compassionate about what liberals call "progressive tax rates". I call it "socialism" or "wealth redistribution" and it causes pain, suffering and misery on a nation-wide scale. Remember the last half of the 1970's? Our "national malaise?" How about double-digit inflation, high unemployment, oil shortages and a stagnant economy? That's what you get when secular progressives control all three branches of government and both houses of Congress. True Christian conservatism is compassionate to its very core!