GOPideas... ideas done right

Recent media coverage has begun to spin the narrative that the town hall protesters are bitter, angry Republican cranks who seem to hate the world. Reasonable people might look at this analysis and believe that it buttresses the Democratic case for health reform, as no one wants to be bullied by such people. This would be a compelling argument, but it lacks one small nuance: it is completely false.

Pew Research has conducted a series of studies over the previous decades that attempted to gauge people’s happiness and found that Republicans are happier than Democrats. This finding is consistent over time --- regardless of which part is in power. Pew being Pew and the Washington Post being the Post points out on page 1 of their story that this is because Republicans have more money. However, Pew’s Paul Taylor admits later in the interview that even when sophisticated statistical techniques to categorize respondents (eliminating differences based on income) are used, Republicans are between 7-13% happier than Democrats. This is not just an American phenomenon --- the research has been duplicated in other countries, showing conservatives are happier than liberals. The working hypothesis is that people who believe that they are in control of their own destiny are happier --- and conservatives are more likely to believe that they are in control of the outcome of their lives.

The more socially compelling (and beneficial) research is that conservatives are much more charitable than liberals. As Arthur Brooks (author of Who Really Cares) points out, conservatives not only give more money and time to charitable causes --- they give more blood as well. Who are the least charitable? You saw them last fall working for “change”: young liberals. Give Mr. Brooks credit for being intellectually honest, when asked about his research, he stated: “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”

Once again, this is not an American phenomenon. All of those “enlightened” countries with universal health care? Turns out they are some of the least charitable on earth: willing to spend other’s money, but not their own on social goals. As Nicholas Kristoff (admitted liberal) honestly points out (as Brooks did): he could not bring himself to believe that liberals who want to be generous with public money, turn out to be selfish and miserly with their own, until of course, a consistent stream of data showed his assumptions to be false.

So, for all Republicans who are taking flack for being bitter, angry and selfish, take heart, you’re not. Ask those throwing the barbs to look in the mirror and around them --- those are the people who need to step up their charity.

For those looking to do so now, I recommend Kiva.org, a site that provides microfinance lending to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Start-up/expansion capital is difficult to attain in emerging economies and the money that is available to entrepreneurs is at usurious rates. Kiva partners with local organizations to vet entrepreneurs and service the loans --- and donors/lenders are repaid. (I’ve never had a default). So, fund a business or donate to them --- support capitalism abroad and philanthropy at home!