America is still kicking ass:

Americans’ greatest moral failure in my lifetime,” he said, “has been that we still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”

Sorry, but he can hang that one up. Whatever the case is with his own selfishness, the evidence of an internationally superior Americans generosity is impressive, beginning with the numbers on our charitable giving. We give twice as much as the British per capita, and according to The American magazine, seven times as much as the Germans and 14 times as much as the Italians.

Even in inflation-adjusted dollars, the amount given each year just keeps getting larger, and meanwhile, we do far more volunteer work than in other industrialized countries.

Of course, Obama isn’t just talking about private giving, and could face serious embarrassment if he were. As has been reported about a study by Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University, conservatives give almost a third more money to charities than liberals, who mostly have more to give.

Directing this at Darwin, how do you reconcile American donating so heavily when compared to countries that seemingly care more about the poor when measured through their economic welfare policies? Stated otherwise: if capitalism leads to neglecting the poor, why is a country that has much more pro-capitalism policies then other countries donating much more money to the poor?

Knowing this, can you honestly maintain the position that pro-capitalism policies lead to more suffering of the poor because of less donations?

In reference to the fact that conservatives are more chartable than liberals I can’t help but wonder if the reason liberals support coercion is because they personally know they will not donate. Knowing they are stingy, they assume everyone else is, and turn to the state to force people to be ‘charitable’. They assuage their guilty by making everyone give to the poor.

I stand by my statement that their is an inherent contradiction in supporting redistribution policy and failing to donate all of your wealth to the poor.

Glenn Reynolds from Instapundit has this to say:

Obama’s comments seem to echo the claims of U.N. official Jan Egeland that the U.S. response to the Indian Ocean tsunami was “stingy.” That charge was bogus — there was over a billion dollars in private tsunami relief from Americans — and it turned out that the U.N. wasted a lot of its own relief money on overhead. But that’s how it is with nanny-state approaches: They dampen private impulses toward unselfishness, even as officials line their pockets. Is this what Obama wants?

Arguably, while liberals intention’s are good, inevitably the policy they implement seems to become ripe for abuse by politicians and bureaucrats. This really is a strong argument for being against wealth redistribute. It does not solve the so-called problem of wealth inequity and ends up consolidating a great deal of power into a small groups of people.

Update: A page laying out the numbers.

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