RUTHFULLY YOURS

Liberals claim to be better than other mortals.   Liberals, they tell us, are a political anomaly who vote for other people’s benefit, not their own.  Democrats see themselves as the generous party, the saviors of the needy, the elderly, the minority underdog against the cruel hand of fate and Republicans.

Liberals are right: there is a difference in caring that shows up along party lines.  Conservatives give more, a lot more.  They aren’t content with good-hearted wishes, they do good deeds, turning wishes into actions.  Conservatives are ten times more personally charitable, even to secular causes.  They do far more volunteer work.  They even give more blood.  Conservatives do more to help the poor, the sick, minorities, the environment.  People who want small government give an average of $1600 a year versus a measly $140 given by redistributionists.  It’s not because conservatives are richer; the opposite is true.    

Liberals rationalize their stingy behavior by saying government welfare is a right.  They will tell you that voting for higher taxes (on other people) is morally superior to charity.  Really?  Out of a $1000 “donated” to the IRS a meager $30 reaches the poor, versus $700 from a private charity.  Our neediest citizens would be in tough shape without the $126 billion in church programs, from soup kitchens to adoption centers to shelters to hospitals. 

Liberals still see themselves as the giving ones.  The real world doesn’t enter into it.  Liberals know that Republicans are selfish rich guys who would let everyone else croak.  No matter that the richest Americans are liberals, while most middle and working class families are Republican — Republicans are the “Party of the Rich,” Democrats are the party that cares.  Jason Cooper here at AT googled ‘selfish republicans’ and got over 4 million hits.  That’s a lot of unearned self-congratulation by Democrats.

New Republic editor, Leon Wieseltier, boasts about liberal selflessness: “It is not a delusion… to vote against your own economic interest. …. We may not regard the world solely from the standpoint of our own prosperity, our own safety, our own contentment.” 

Nonsense.  Liberals  vote for political pay-off as much as anyone else. 

Trial lawyers, unionized teachers and the crony capitalists of Wall Street are core constituents crucial to Democrat victory.  For them, getting Democrats elected is pure economic self-interest.  Each group receives direct, tangible benefits, often at the expense of justice, schoolchildren, and the economy.  Teachers get out the vote, teachers get legislation they want.  Wall St. raises money, Wall St. gets federal bailouts, investment fees, appointments and favors.  

Obama had almost two hundred lawyers as bundlers, his single largest group, bringing in over a quarter of his campaign chest.  Doctors donated less than a tenth as much.  Obamacare was the payoff.  For lawyers, the absence of tort reform protected their huge malpractice income; for doctors, Obamacare means more rules and lower fees. 

Is favoring lawyers at the expense of doctors good for America?  No, but it is good for Democrats.  Many Democrat Congressmen are lawyers, four times more than Republicans; five times more Republican Congressmen are doctors.  Lawyers living high off the federal government crowd six of the ten richest counties in America, all surrounding Washington, D.C.  Lawyers vote for big government, lawyers grow rich (and politically powerful) as politicians.  At the height of the recession, while unemployment skyrocketed, the median salary around D.C. grew.  Those are their campaign contributions and your tax dollars at work.

Twenty percent of Obama’s top bundlers were homosexual activists.  They did it for power, not money.  The administration illegally scuttled the Defense of Marriage act, trampling on our Constitution and the will of the people as expressed through Congress. 

Hollywood is an invaluable fundraiser for Democrats.  Yes, they believe in liberal values, but they help themselves to special tax breaks (see here and here and here.)  and political favors.  Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of Dreamworks, was looking for some direct payoff for the $10 million he bundled for Obama’s campaign.  He got it when the White House helped him get a deal with China worth $350 million (exporting jobs to China by building a big studio there).   

Silicon Valley funds Democrat victories, Democrats funnel money — big money, counted in the hundred billions — for green energy boondoggles.  Google’s CEO organizes Obama’s get-out-the-vote machine, winning him a second term despite Obama’s unpopularity; the government promotes ‘net neutrality,’ a policy of government regulation of the internet that benefits Google. Google execs even get federal subsidies for their corportate jet fuel.  There’s no self-sacrifice in sight.

Safe behind his media guard, Obama has been more blatantly corrupt than most.  Almost half of Obama’s bundlers received crass political pay-offs, more than any president since Nixon.  Bundlers chair the Federal Communications Commission, serve on the Defense Policy Board, as General Counsel for the Department of Energy, Assistant Attorney General, National Security Advisor, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Agriculture — the list goes on.  Bundlers are now ambassadors to France, Australia, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, and South Africa — forty percent of our embassies.  Qualifications are unimportant to our President — it’s all about money and party loyalty.

Rich liberals received the winners’ spoils — spoils they were promised in advance for donating to the Obama campaign.  They are motivated by the power, the money and the prestige that a victorious party doles out.

Virtues are not limited to one side of the political aisle.  Nor is voting for political favors and crass self-interest.  To promote the notion that the Democrat/Republican divide is that between giving people and selfish people is demagoguery unworthy of Americans. 

Karin McQuillan is a retired Peace Corps Volunteer, clinical social worker and psychotherapist, and author.  She is a frequent American Thinker contributor.