Selfish Colbert Helped to Raise Money for Charity: The Monster

[evildevil]

There is an article at NoFactZone by DB that needs to be read. The short of it is that Bill O'Reilly was piss off with Colbert because of
this. O'Reilly didnt waste time on attacking the poor while attempting to defend his willfully ignorant, borderline heretical, self justification of being a Christian Grinch during the Christmas Season.

So Bill

Comments

[policraticus]

I don't know much about either of these men nor do I know anything about their personal charitable donations. Colbert seems like an honest, upright kind of guy and I don't really have anything negative to say about him. The numbers cited are very creditable and should be honored. O'Reilly is who he is, but before we get all judgmental, remember he also supports a lot of charities: http://www.billoreilly.com/pg/jsp/billsfavorites/billscharities.jsp How much each gives is unknown, but I'd be curious to see.

And, not for nothing, while Colbert has funneled a lot of money to charity, on average, over the whole population, it is well documented that conservatives donate much more both as a percentage of income and in absolute terms.

http://reason.com/archives/2006/12/19/the-giving-gap

Brooks finds that households with a conservative at the helm

[devil_ad_vocate]

How about anonymous contributions?

[policraticus]

I don't know the specifics about the methodology. The reported difference is 30%, that seems like a big gap to close with anonymous contributions. The split between anonymous liberals and anonymous conservatives would have to gigantic.

[telemann]

WesWilson pointed out the other day, a lot of those figures for conservative donations are for churches. You remove that, and liberals and conservatives are pretty even. Wes was pretty articulate in explaining why church donations and charity maybe seen differently by some.

[policraticus]

Why remove that? The money I give to my church goes much more directly to poor people in my community than money given to larger charities that operate with much less transparency. I know some of the beneficiaries of my charity personally. In any case, as the study shows: Religious donors give significantly more to non-religious causes than do their secular counterparts.

[yes_justice]

The money I give to my church goes much more directly to poor people in my community

Only AFTER you pad the pastor...

[policraticus]

I can't speak for every giver or every church, but in our congregation you can direct your gift pretty specifically. If I write, "For the poor of the parish," or "For the food pantry," then 100% of that money goes directly to those uses. If I write, "For the general fund," or "For the building committee," it goes there. As for our pastoral compensation, that money comes mostly from our endowment and from the larger church. We have a rectory, so our pastor doesn't get a large "housing allowance." He also doesn't have an equity in his home, when he retires he can't sell the rectory and move to Del Boca Vista. Hopefully, he's putting his surplus housing funds into savings.

[dreadfulpenny81]

Actually, whether it's religious or secular donations, Conservatives give more in both categories.

Here's a visual for you: http://www.mint.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/CharityWhoCares2.jpg

There's also a source for the information at the bottom of the image (I believe in the left corner).

[nevermind6794]

That doesn't break conservative donations into religious and secular, only religious people's donations.

I wish the list of sources was more specific. Those organizations have tons of data.

[paft]

Got any documentation indicating this presumed gap from a more objective source?

[policraticus]

Do you have any evidence that my ultimate source, the book, Arthur Brooks's Who Really Cares is unreliable? This was a widely cited and broadly accepted thesis, if you have serious objections, please make them known.

[paft]

Arthur Brooks is hardly objective. And so far I've mainly seen it "widely cited and broadly accepted" by other conservatives and right wingers.

So again -- do you have any documentation on this from someone who is NOT president of the American Enterprise Institute?

[policraticus]

But is he unreliable? Can you point to any critics who attack his work? Are you objecting to his methods? His data? Or is it just the conclusions that bother you? Or is it just that you don't like Arthur Brooks? If your only argument is, "I don't like the AEI, therefore everything said people from the AEI says needs to be confirmed by people from the The Center for American Progress before I will accept it as true," then... that is silly.

[paft]

So I gather from this that your answer is "no." The sole source for this claim about donations is Brooks, who has a definite political axe to grind.

And no, I'm not asking for confirmation from The Center for American Progress. Do you know what the term "objective" means in this context?

[nevermind6794]

Here are a few I found after a quick search:

http://volokh.com/posts/1164012942.shtml

[dreadfulpenny81]

Gee, PAFT, I gave you that information a few days ago and you completely dismissed it, even though it came directly from sources whose goal is to track who is giving to what causes.

In case you forgot: http://www.mint.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/CharityWhoCares2.jpg

Same link that I posted in my other comment above, in case you didn't see that.