The SL Tribune published my letter adapted from my blog post in response to a columnist. The letter so far has a negative vote of -19!
Rebecca Walsh’s column “GOP is the LDS addiction” (Tribune, Aug. 31) makes no sense. Of course Mormons (and Utahns) believe in virtues such as service, charity and sacrifice. But Walsh mistakenly thinks that unless the government does it, it isn’t charity. She has it exactly backward. Mormons are taught to not wait for the government to tax and act in our place. In fact, we are not performing our charitable duty unless we give of our own time and talents.
So where’s the disconnect? It is with Walsh.
Conservative Mormons are similar to other religious conservatives who are suspicious of government’s inefficiency and ineffectiveness. According to Ben Gose in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, studies show that “religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others.”
So putting aside social issues and other sundry reasons why Mormons vote Republican, there’s no inconsistency that a people who believe in service and charity support a party that doesn’t want to outsource those virtues to bureaucrats.
David H. Sundwall
Holladay
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Tags: charity, Democrats, Republicans
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I would have been disappointed with a favorable rating on the Trib’s site. The stalkers there throw stones at any pieces evidencing reasonable thought.
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For some reason, I missed this in my reader, but I found it on Facebook. Weird!
I have plenty of reservations about depending on the bureaucracies for charitable services, but I think the GOP has a branding problem. It’s been very easy for people to simplistically blame the ruling party (as the GOP was until 2 years ago) for the myriad things that are squeezing poor Americans these days. E.g. healthcare, the war, infrastructure, crowded schools, etc.
My perspective is not that the government should be tasked with giving everyone puppies, or any other kind of handout. It’s just that it SEEMS (even if it’s not true) that Republicans balk at any suggestion that we could be spending our country’s vast wealth in ways that help common taxpayers with the basic services that other western nations enjoy. Again, I’m certain there are plenty of republicans who are very concerned with taking care of their poorer constituents, but it’s a branding issue (I’m a marketer) that the GOP could work on.
Am I crazy?
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I think *both* parties have a branding problem, really–consider the number of people who think that the Republicans stand for letting the poor starve, and the number of people who think that the Democrats stand for taking all the rich people’s money and giving it to the undeserving poor.
Neither of these, of course, reflects the truth (well, maybe except for the radical fringe of both parties, but i’m not certain that really exists, anyway), but it doesn’t keep people from reacting as if whichever one is most convenient for them does.
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Am I my brother’s keeper? It’s in the Bible so it must be true–except no one stops to remember who said it and why, nor what the reply to it was. When the government does its so-called charity, it’s the “brother’s keeper” version, which is more like operating a zoo, and giving a man a fish instead of teaching him how to fish.
I worked for the State of Utah’s welfare office for 28-1/2 years, so I have an idea of how government-sponsored charity works: Having the government do our charitable work for us is like giving to a charity whose overhead is 85%–little gets to where it’s supposed to go. The bureaucracy to distribute it is way over-staffed–why have only one person do a job that three people could get paid for doing? But then, that’s only possible when there’s an unlimited supply of money from the taxpayers, who don’t know any better.
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Well, all this from the anti-big-government crowd here has convinced me that we need to encourage people to work to get people to provide community-based, not government-based services. You know, we need to encourage people to be community organizers–that’s what the Republicans here are saying, it seems to me.
[David B grins, ducks, and runs away giggling]
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