This study found young liberals to make the least charitable contributions of all, whether in money, time or blood. Idealism in words is not idealism in deeds.

That was from Who Really Cares?, which addressed the myth that Liberals are more generous than Conservatives.  This is in addition to Liberals being bad at basic economics.  So other than being “generous” with other people’s money and not knowing their subject, they are doing a great job.

I’m no cheerleader for banks or credit card companies (unlike some celebrities who do ads for banks).  I just know that the problems with the bailouts and the mortgage meltdown were due more to politicians than the bankers.

Here’s more:

More frightening than any particular beliefs or policies is an utter lack of any sense of a need to test those beliefs and policies against hard evidence. Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring. It is liberals who advocate “forgiveness” of loans to third-world countries, a “living wage” for the poor and a “safety net” for all.

But these are all government policies — not individual acts of compassion — and the actual empirical consequences of such policies are of remarkably little interest to those who advocate them. Depending on what those consequences are, there may be good reasons to oppose them, so being for or against these policies may tell us nothing about who is compassionate or caring and who is not.

A new book, titled Who Really Cares by Arthur C. Brooks examines the actual behavior of liberals and conservatives when it comes to donating their own time, money, or blood for the benefit of others. It is remarkable that beliefs on this subject should have become conventional, if not set in concrete, for decades before anyone bothered to check these beliefs against facts.

Hat tip to Pastor Timothy for this quote by Penn Gillette: