“MR. & MRS. BUTTONS” : THE MYTH OF BLEEDING-HEART LIBERAL COMPASSION

.
I am afraid Americans have lost their manhood and their valor. Oh, here and there there are still some signs of it, but we are getting womanish. The small comforts and cozinesses of life are now beginning to be of the utmost importance to us, and the little amusements. ... Men have forgot how to be brave, stern, masters of their government, their families, and their lives. ... Now men want safety and happiness.
~ Taylor Caldwell
(from her book “Ceremony Of The Innocent”)

Taylor Caldwell rocks! Liberals suck beans!
~ Yoey O’Dogherty
General manager, ACME Bean Farms

The following excerpt comes from the book ON GROWING UP TOUGH by Taylor Caldwell. My thanks to the Babylon Today website for posting it.

My introduction to Taylor Caldwell came years ago via the book 20th Century Heroes, a compilation of profiles originally published in The New American magazine. In the chapter on Caldwell, we learn that she “considered it a sport to fire back at leftists”. It seems that Taylor Caldwell was the original Ann Coulter. Woo-Hoo!

And now for the excerpt:

Recently a flowery young "Liberal" male with flowing hair and flowing hands - and a flowing tongue, too - demanded of me that I explain why and when I became a "Conservative". He wanted to know how I got this way.

Frankly, I couldn't remember just how and when, and I went home musing to myself. I searched my memory and soon it all began to click in my mind, episode after episode - all of them very painful one way or another. There are doubtless a hundred psychiatrists around who will find the following recounting of those formative experiences very interesting.

HEART FOR THE POOR
It all began, doctors, when I was a child. A "Liberal" aunt of mine, who had never herself been in need of anything material, had a deep passion for the Poor, from whom she was very careful to keep far, far away. While we still lived in England, where I was born, Auntie would frequently gather together outworn garments which her family had discarded and prepare them for the Women's Guild of our local Anglican Church. She would sit before the fireplace, I recall, and singing some sad Scots or Irish ballad in a very moving soprano, she would carefully snip every single, solitary button off the clothing.

I was very young indeed when this practice of Auntie's suddenly seemed outrageous to me. "Auntie," I demanded, "what will the Poor do for buttons?"

Auntie had very remarkable hazel and glittering eyes, and they usually glittered on me unpleasantly. They did so now. "They can buy them," she snapped. "They're only tuppence a card."

I pondered. If people were so poor that they had to wear other people's cast-offs then they certainly were too poor to buy buttons. I pointed this out to Auntie. She smacked me fiercely for my trouble and then began to shriek.

"A wicked, wicked girl!" screamed Auntie. "She has no Heart for the Poor!"

My uncle, hearing Auntie's shrill cries, stormed out of his studio and demanded to know what was the matter.

Auntie pointed a shaking, furious finger at me. "Your niece," she said, "doesn't want me to give these clothes - these poor old worthless rags - to the Poor!"

I was standing up now, having recovered from Auntie's blow. "If they're rags," I said, reasonably, "why should the Poor want them, anyway? And she's taken off all the buttons."

"Impudence," bellowed Uncle, who like Auntie was a flaming "Liberal" and also very fond of making a great show of loving the Poor (whom he had never met). And he grabbed me and soundly thrashed me on the spot. I am afraid I didn't ardently love those relatives after that, which was sinful, of course. But from that day on buttons had a special significance for me. I noticed that other of my "Liberal" relatives removed buttons from the garments they were preparing for the Poor, though I never discovered them patching these same old garments.

One rich relative did answer my cynical question about the button snipping with the brief reply, "It's thrifty, and I suppose, Janet, that's something you'll never be." I made it a point of learning all about thrift - and the lessons were all about me, too - and it never appealed to me thereafter. Thrift is an estimable virtue, I have heard, but somehow when I encounter thrifty "Liberals" - and they are inevitably tight with their own money - I always seem to see those buttons being snipped off the clothing for the Poor. I often think of the old little poem written by some Englishman who ought to be immortalized:

To spread the wealth the communist's willing:
He'll tax your pennies and keep his shilling.

To this day I find myself referring to male and female "Liberals" as "Mr. Buttons" or "Mrs. Buttons," among the less invidious names I employ when I am in form.

If you talk to most liberals, they’ll tell you that conservatives are insensitive, callous and selfish. To their own detriment, leftists tend to believe that those on the right simply don’t care about the less fortunate. While this doctrine has been embedded in left-leaning gospel for decades, research and reality paint a very different picture — one that has perplexed many of the left’s self-proclaimed “compassionates.”
…
American researchers have taken a pretty clear and concise look at this issue and the case is closed: Conservatives out-give and out-volunteer the opposition. Don’t believe me? Examine the facts.
~ Surprise! Conservatives Are More Generous Than Liberals

Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
~ Conservatives More Liberal Givers

The only debate is whether conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than liberals, as Arthur Brooks, author of "Who Really Cares," claims, or twice as much as liberals, as a study by Google indicates.
~ Study: Conservatives More Generous Than Liberals

It turns out that this idea that liberals give more…is a myth. Of the top 25 states where people give an above average percent of their income, 24 were red states in the last presidential election.
~ Who Gives And Who Doesn't?

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
.