Now if only it were illegal for politicians to keep spending like drunken sailors, even when they have to borrow $0.50 on every dollar to do it!
Basic economics, folks. You can't get a reduction on taxes if you don't actually pay any. This is an injustice. But don't expect the Sojo crowd to take to the streets in holy protest.
Well... at least this lady can count on some change.Peanuts 1 billion/year
(National Peanut Council)
Popcorn 1.2. billion/year
(Nielsen Marketing Research)
Chewing gum 2.3 billion/year
(National Association of Chewing Gum Mfgrs.)
Cookies 3.4 billion/year
(Nielsen Marketing Research)
Potato chips 4.6 billion/year
(Nielsen Marketing Research)
Movie box office receipts 4.8 billion/year
(Academy of Motion Pictures)
Candy 6 billion/year
(Nielsen Marketing Research)
Ice cream 10 billion/year
(International Ice Cream Associations)
Soft drinks 30 billion/year
(EPM Communications)
Restaurant dining 173.8 billion/ear
(National Restaurant Association)
Beer 50 billion/year
(Beer Institute)
Legal gambling 300 billion/year
(Discovery Channel, Cronkite Report)
Pet grooming 175.3 million/year
(Pet Industry Joint Council)
Cat furniture 23.5 million/year
(Pet Industry Joint Council)
Terrarium heaters 37.7 million/year
(Pet Industry Joint Council)
Dog snacks 39.3 million/year
(Pet Industry Joint Council)
Licensed sporting goods 2.2 billion/year
(The Licensing Letter, 1993)
Non-beer alcoholic beverages 39 billion/year(Beer Institute)
Cosmetic products 27 billion/year
(Drug & Cosmetic Magazine)
Lawn & Garden Products 6.1 billion/year
(Better Lawn & Garden Products)
These suggest that maybe...just maybe... we can manage to take care of children instead of killing them.
Zondervan and Nelson Publishers are being sued by self-proclaimed Bible expert and self-affirmed practicing homosexual, Bradley LaShawn Fowler. In all, he says he is owed $70 million for the emotional pain and trauma he has suffered. 1 Corinthians 6:9 is the focal point of his complaint. (I wonder where he got the idea of focusing here....) Feel free to take a look at the Greek behind it.
of Reconciliation with the G.O.A.T., God of All Truth. (Please, no goatse jokes.) And - tremble, O Zondervan and Nelson - he's representing himself in court. (I don't know why: the ACLU, GLAAD, GLF, GMAD, and others would probably provide pro OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets
I'm glad to know, however, that I could easily handly 15 more!
(P.S. Click here if the Malthus reference didn't ring a bell.)
Before the vote to change the Heidelberg Catechism, the usual predictable YAD stands to the mic and says that the church is a reforming church (instead of a REFORMED church). They take this to mean that the church is always changing her basic beliefs. As evidence, she cited the presence of multi-ethnic moderator / vice-moderators this year. (Big whoop. There were more black people and Near-East Asians at the Council of Nicea than there are at the PCUSA's GA!)The classic example is the Roman Senator Cato’s repeated cry, Cartago delenda est! He was not saying, “Carthage is being destroyed.” He was saying, “Carthage needs to be destroyed!” or “Carthage must be destroyed!” Similarly, Legibus parendum est, does not mean, “The laws are being obeyed.” It means, “The laws must be obeyed!”By the same token, “Ecclesia Reformata at Semper Reformanda” does not mean, “The Church Reformed and Always Reforming.” It means “The Church Reformed and Always Needing to be Reformed.”
Kengor: I suppose that of all the charges against liberals in the subtitle, the one that liberals will probably protest most vehemently is the point on materialism. And in their defense, Peter, I must say that I’ve seen some pretty darned materialistic conservatives.Schweizer: Well remember, in all of this we are talking about tendencies. Not all conservatives are one way and not all liberals are the other. That said, the research really does indicate that liberals value money more than conservatives. After health, they are more likely to consider it the most important thing in their life. And they are more likely to say that there is no wrong way to make money. I think this actually makes sense when you look at modern liberalism. After all, what do liberals use as their measure of justice and equality? Income, or money! This is the reason I believe that modern liberals are also much more likely to be envious of other peoples’ success. They are constantly looking at the money yardstick.
Kengor: How does the giving of Barack Obama measure up to, say, George W. Bush, or the nefarious Dick Cheney?
Schweizer: Obama, like John Kerry or Al Gore, has traditionally given a very small portion of his income to charity, approximately 1 percent. Bush gives 10 percent or more on a regular basis. In 2005, Dick Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity—and got criticized for it! I also went back and looked at the numbers for Ronald Reagan and FDR. Reagan gave nearly twice as much as FDR did during the height of the Great Depression.
Kengor: But doesn’t Obama care more than Dick Cheney?
Schweizer: Supposedly. At least that is what he tells us. And liberals tell us that in surveys, too. They are much more likely to say that they “feel close” to the poor. The problem is it kind of ends at the feeling part.
This is one of my main issues with current liberalism - it's not liberating at all. Instead, it seeks to make us slaves to the government. And they say that conservatives are the ones trying to push morality on the masses....
- Young conservatives are more likely to volunteer for a charity, any kind of charity, than young liberals — although young liberals are more likely to say they have attended a protest rally.
- Fifty-nine percent of those who describe themselves as “very liberal” think it’s wrong to cheat on your spouse, compared to 86 percent of those who self-identify as “very conservative.”
The data come from a treasure trove of scientific surveys that have been out there for years, but never really gone through in this way. Schweizer's conclusion after mining it: “Liberalism … allows one to claim the moral high ground on just about any issue while in effect ‘outsourcing’ your personal responsibility for doing something about it to the government.”
For the record, I have never successfully been able to convince a liberal that my stance against abortion or homosexual acts is not a personal attack on them.CitizenLink talked with him this week about the book and the reactions he expects it will get from both sides of the ideological aisle.
If we both stay really quiet for a minute, I’m sure we can hear liberals howling over the revelations in this book. How do you think the Jesse Jacksons and Nancy Pelosis and Bill Clintons of the world are going to react to Makers and Takers?
Well, I hope they don’t react by seeing it as a personal attack. Because what I really clearly try to emphasize is that this is a book about ideas and the consequences of ideas. I don’t think the world is divided between bad people and good people. I think we all have fallen short of the glory of God, and we’re all flawed. I do think ideas have consequences, though, and the real culprit here are modern liberal ideas, which tend to encourage some of the worst in us.
You document well how conservatives, especially social conservatives, get a lot of grief for the stands we take in the culture. . . In writing the book, are you trying to encourage folks who are constantly subject to the barrage that “you’re rotten, you’re horrible, you’re evil”?I'm a burkean conservative at heart. I'm not against change, but I am against the chronological fallacy.Absolutely. What I wanted to try to do was quantify, as best as I could, the benefits of holding on to your traditional values and conservative attitudes toward family and toward life. Conservatives have certainly argued, over the years, the benefits of it, but this is the first time we’ve been able to quantify it.
So, yeah, one of the reasons I wrote the book is because I want people to take comfort and say, “You know what, if you believe these traditional belief systems, you’re headed in the right direction, because the research supports the benefits of embracing this kind of belief system.”
Ever notice how libs get testy if you try to make them be up-front about their blogging identity?But what, if anything, did you dig up in the data that surprised you?
There were two things. No. 1, the whole honesty question. That really surprised me, though I guess it shouldn’t have because it does make sense that if you believe in relative truth, honesty is kind of a subjective thing. But to actually see the data difference in the way in which conservatives and liberals embrace whether honesty is important, that really did surprise me.
This may be part of the key to the South's conservative impulse. We're all about families - even our dysfunctional ones. It's important to know "who your people are" because it contextualizes you. It can be used to constrain, so caution is enjoined. But this makes sense - even from a social science / systems theory approach.The second thing was the whole issue of families. I was a little bit surprised in the research about family structure, about how liberals are less trusting of siblings, that they’re less close to their parents. Again, that’s maybe something I should not have been surprised by.
All of us know liberals. How do we use the information in this book to help us navigate those relationships?Unlike many people in my camp, I think liberals - at least of the religious variety I regularly interact with - want to be "good" and they want to be kind and compassionate. I'm just afraid that the tools being given in the modern liberal arts and theological curriculum (including the zeitgeist of postmodern culture at large) is just inadequate to the task. Similarly, I think religious libs want to connect people with God in order to transform them into caring people. However, if the base assumptions of your ideological approach are wrapped up in the therapeutic self, how can you overcome that?The first thing to do is to give them the empirical evidence and make clear that these are surveys and studies that have been done by academics. And show that, look, there is a pattern that exists here in behavior. And then really step back and say, “Why do you think this pattern, this gap between liberals and conservatives on these issues, is true?”
There are studies in the book about how conservatives are more reflective in terms of responsibility and they think about larger-picture issues. And that’s one of the things that really handicaps modern liberalism. Conservatives believe there are things larger than themselves; for many people, it’s faith in God. But modern liberalism really is about self. And I think that really does affect and influence perspective and the manner in which people look at these issues.
Modern liberals do have this notion and this sense that they have a moral superiority. And conservatives are so used to being beaten down that they have the reaction you had. What I hope we can do now that this information has been analyzed is to keep it out there. We need to keep pushing it and encouraging people to look at it. And I think eventually the public square will be forced to address these issues.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about Peter Schweizer and Makers and Takers, visit his Web site.
Much as he did in his bestseller Do as I Say (Not as I Do), he brings to light never-before-revealed facts that will upset conventional wisdom. The biggest for me is that, while liberals claim to be compassionate and to care about the poor, conservatives are much more likely to donate their time and money to charitable causes. This has been true in my personal experience on a liberal seminary campus, but it extends to political liberals/conservatives. Here are some examples:
Conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Robert Bork have long argued that liberal policies promote social decay. Schweizer, using the latest data and research, exposes how, in general:
Schweizer argues that the failure lies in modern liberal ideas, which foster a self-centered, “if it feels good do it” attitude that leads liberals to outsource their responsibilities to the government and focus instead on themselves and their own desires.
This is nothing new. An increasing amount of research is being generated - based on both real behaviors and self-reported attitudes - that show how uncaring these hypocritical “guardians of society” generally are. Syracuse University professor Art Brooks is a fine example of a social scientist and former Democrat who was convinced by the evidence that conservatives really are more compassionate.
For dramatic proof, go to the streets of a liberal enclave like San Francisco, Seattle, or Vermont. There will be plenty of expensive boutiques, antique dealers, health spas, sushi bars, and upscale coffee shops. But you won't see very many children. The reason is not that right-wingers have dumped buckets of birth control pills into the San Francisco municipal water supply. The simple fact is that many on the liberal-left today just don't want to have children.
A 2004 survey showed that a typical sample of 100 unrelated adults who called themselves liberal will have 147 children. That contrasts with the typical conservative, who is likely to have 208 children per 100 unrelated adults. That's 41 percent more.(3) Why is this important? Because raising children is a difficult and selfless act that is also an important civic duty. The survival of our society--not to mention our Social Security system!--rests on individuals bringing up a new generation.
The liberal Northeastern states--Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York--have the lowest fertility rates in the country. They also have the lowest percentage of population under the age of five. In progressive San Francisco, there are more dogs than children. Joel Kotkin points out that Seattle (my hometown) has roughly the same population as it did in the 1960s, but barely half as many children. Indeed, there are nearly 45 percent more dogs than children.(4) Dogs, of course, offer companionship without the burdens and responsibilities of children.
Some might conclude that this is a result of the high cost of living in desirable cities like Boston, New York, and San Francisco. But in these childless meccas we also see some of the highest per capita expenditures on luxury goods, spas, and personal therapies. (Kotkin regards San Francisco as a “childless liberal boutique city.”)(5) It's not a lack of money; it's a lack of interest. The General Social Survey found that 69 percent of those who called themselves “very conservative” said it was important to them to have children. Only 38 percent of corresponding liberals agreed. An online survey (admittedly not scientific) taken by the left-wing website daily kos.com asked readers if they had children and how many. The most popular answers: “No children,” “Not going to have any," and “Don't want any.”
Meanwhile, the highest fertility rate in the country is found in the most conservative state, Utah, followed by Arizona, Alaska, and Texas, otherwise known as “red states,” according to the latest National Center for Health Statistics survey. States with the lowest fertility rates are Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, all "blue states.” Over half of the women of childbearing age--15 to 44--are childless in liberal bastions such as the District of Columbia, Vermont, and Massachusetts.(6)
Many on the left proudly proclaim themselves to be “child-free.” (They angrily reject the term child-less because it implies that they are missing out on something.) Partly this is a result of liberal pessimism about the future. Concerned about overpopulation, dwindling environmental resources, global warming, etc., some liberals don't want to have children because they see them as an environmental hazard. Billionaire Ted Turner reflected this attitude when he thoughtfully announced his regret at having five children. “If I was doing it over again, I wouldn't have had that many, but I can't shoot them now and they're here.”(7) No doubt this sort of sentiment makes for charming conversation around the Turner dinner table.
The sirens of modernity sound so sweet to the Episcopal Church because it has lost a full sense of the transcendence God and has majored on the immanence of God, so that its theology leans either towards pantheism (the mind or essence of the world is God) or possibly to panentheism (the world is included within the being of God). Thus the standard type of sermon is as follows:This sort of theological reductionism is fait accompli in the
- God is love;
- God's love is inclusive;
- God acts in justice to ensure that everyone (all types) is included;
- we should work with God as co-actors and co-creators in this great drama in making the world what She/He desires it to be.
Abortion: "I'm sure that the destruction of life in abortion would break his heart. However, I feel like if he were speaking to the church today in America, he would ask not the question, `Are you going to make it illegal and arrest women who have abortions?' I think Jesus would say, `What are you going to do to reduce the number of abortions?'He's the PhD sociologist, so I'm not going to go after his numbers (though I think the percentage that is purely economic are higher, in terms of "lifestyle" normally being a product of having enough money to support the rearing of a child without infringing on your current freedoms and expendable resources). But in my own reflection on abortion, this is an area that needs to be seriously addressed.(A new survey reported that) 70 percent of all abortions are economically driven. You have a poor woman working on minimum wage with no hospitalization. She gets pregnant. She can't afford to have the kid, she can't afford to pay the hospital bills, she can't afford day care after the child is born. So she says, `I'm going to have an abortion.' Can Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives agree on one thing: that it's wrong for women who want to have their babies to have abortions? And that's about 70 percent of them. Then we can start talking about the other 30 percent."
