Conversations have already starting rumbling about Professor Arthur Brooks’s new book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservativism. A good place to start seeing what folks are saying is, predictably, at Mirror of Justice, the Catholic legal studies blog, where there are differing opinions on the conclusions of the book.
I’m not sure what the comparison between religious conservatives and secular liberals proves, but it certainly doesn’t prove, to quote Instapundit (quoting Beliefnet), that conservatives are more generous "by any measure." At most, it shows that religious conservatives are more generous donors to private charities. But, if I define "generous" to encompass, say, support against one’s financial interest for social programs funded through redistributive taxation, then wealthy liberals (secular or religious), who generally support such taxes and such programs, do well and conservatives (religious or not) don’t look so hot.
Second, even those of our friends here and elsewhere who consistently advocate a larger governmental presence and role in the economy and in providing benefits to the poor should be disturbed by the apparent consequence that most who support larger government treat it as a substitute for personal engagement in their own communities. Like the old joke about the person who avoids a charitable request by saying "I gave at the office," too many liberals appear to be saying "I gave to the government." Whatever may be the merits of increasing government welfare spending and government redistribution of wealth, it cannot be gainsaid that such activities also have deleterious effects on society, by fattening bureaucracies, by separating people from their neighbors as government assumes greater responsibilities, by sometimes crowding out private charitable solutions or imposing destructive regulations on private charities (including regulations that religious charities cannot in good conscience accept), etc. As Catholics, we ought to be more concerned about what is happening to human hearts than we are about any economic arrangements or political agendas.
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