After reading this debate on charitable donations and volunteerism and how it relates to political ideology I can’t help but think that you all have this relationship completely backwards. There is a certain group of people who hold the personal value of charity in very high regard, and it is one of their defining characteristics; and from a very young age they tend to have been volunteering their time and donating their money to charities. Quite often the charities they choose to support are those that are designed to help the same people that many people who (supposedly) are liberals claim to exclusively care for; and this tends to give them first hand experience with the problems, and with how ineffective or detrimental government solutions are.
Consider someone who joined the Big-Brothers & Big Sisters club to be a mentor for a child. Now, the child they’re mentoring comes from a single parent family where the mother is on welfare and is a drug addict. While the combination of subsidized rent and financial support should be able to provide her and her child with a poor but adequate lifestyle while giving the mother the opportunity to train and find a decent job, with the exception of money for basic survival every dime is going to feeding the mother’s drug habit; and when that money isn’t enough she turns tricks, or uses her government-subsidized drug plan to scam prescription-narcotics to sell on the street, in order to get the money she needs. To what extent do you think that this person would think that welfare was a really good system?
Essay Pro