r/askanything • u/SignificantCrow • 9h ago

Political Question Are Republicans inherently selfish?

Not referring to every individual obviously but as a whole, compared to democrats/independents they seem to really only care about themselves or their immediate family and pretty much have a “f**k em” attitude towards literally everyone else. Does anyone else feel this way?

This would explain why so many are against social policies but have no issue dumping much more money into the military instead, for example.

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11

u/2guns1holster 9h ago

So, why do tax returns show that Republicans overwhelmingly donate more to charities and churches than Democrats?

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u/fy1sh 8h ago

Because the sheeple are a captive audience, they can be told water is not wet and will sell their souls for pennies on the dollar.

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u/pizzapit 9h ago

Tax write offs dont count. Church is an immediate community so id argue the same. Not to mention tithing

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u/elyfantman 9h ago

Republicans are only more charitable when religion is taken into account. Republicans give far more to religion because they are sheep.

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u/ThrowAway3000Delux 9h ago

Because they confuse tithing with charity. Giving to churches isn't charity.

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u/batman-i 8h ago

The Catholic Church is considered one of, if not the largest, charitable organizations in the world. The local church where I live operates a food bank and offers bill payment assistance. They also work with a couple of local business to provide reduced cost maintenance for elderly and low income residence.

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u/LivingOk7270 7h ago

Ah yes, the charity where the leader lives in a 1,000 room palace in his own country with billions of dollars in art including a bathtub previously owned by Nero which is worth $2 billion.

Maybe they can part with the bathtub and house a couple more unhoused people.

Not particularly picking on the Catholics, my religion requires us to give directly to the poor, so we don’t have the overhead that other religions do.

But can they just sell the bathtub maybe?

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u/batman-i 5h ago

Catholic Charities itself is the largest provider of relief to the homeless population. Providing food and shelter as well as medical treatment.

The Vatican itself owns the items inside the Vatican, not the religion. It’s also inalienable which means it can’t be sold.

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u/LivingOk7270 5h ago edited 5h ago

The Vatican can sell the items, it can change the law—remember it’s an independent country—all I’m asking is to sell Nero’s bathtub which has not religious significance and is not raising any money. It’s just sitting there—selling it to house a couple hundred thousand more families.

I don’t know that Jesus would hold onto a bathtub—while the poor needed help.

I’m not asking them to chisel the Sistine chapel ceiling off and sell it—it’s a secular bathtub

Also it was believed to have been purchased by the Vatican to be a design element for the palace in the 1800s. It was likely purchase with Vatican funds and is not inalienable.

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u/WittyFix6553 5h ago

Who would buy it?

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u/LivingOk7270 5h ago

Museums or private collectors. Put it on eBay and see who shows up for all I care.

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u/batman-i 5h ago

The Smithsonian can sell off some items too, it doesn’t have to hold onto anything. Same with The Louvre. Imagine all of the people selling the Mona Lisa can help. Or the Crown Jewels. Hell, kick the royal family out of Buckingham Palace and use it as a shelter.

I’m sure it would be easier to do all of those than to find a buyer for a bathtub that Nero used.

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u/LivingOk7270 5h ago

The Lourve and the Smithsonian don’t hold themselves as charities which help the poor. And don’t collect funds to help the poor while literally having a $2 billion dollar bathtub.

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u/MunchingOnCelery 3h ago

The Catholic Church is not a charity. Churches are proven to be horribly inefficient at charity. Hope that helps.

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u/batman-i 2h ago

The church itself is not a charity, but it supports the Catholic Charities, which help a lot of people.

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u/ThrowAway3000Delux 8h ago

ROFL. They donate to themselves. THis is like saying billionaires are the most giving when they do it to promote themselves. Hilarious.

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u/batman-i 8h ago

Ok bud.

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u/Barnabas_77 8h ago

I’m a minister that oversees the finances of a small church (60 members) we give to the food bank and the homeless shelter every month as well as other local recovery services. We give thousands of dollars in benevolence to our church members who get into a bind and need help. We give money to overseas missionaries who are running orphanages and schools. The people giving the most are taking nothing. You may not be able to accept or believe that we do care and have big hearts but that’s on you not us.

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u/dgc137 7h ago

I'd be curious to know what portion of your revenue goes to charitable causes and what the overall overhead is for those works. I know faith based charities have a potential to be more efficient (at least on paper) due to utilization of volunteers [hours] for administration, and obviously direct dispensation is the most efficient, so I'd be curious to know how you calculate the overhead and/or whether that is a major concern for how you allocate your resources.

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u/Barnabas_77 6h ago

For us it isn't an exact science, and our benevolence fluctuates (not everyone needs help all the time). right now we are operating in a bit of a deficit because we came into a large sum of money and have been using it to make a lot of building upgrades that we've been putting off. To be brutally honest I'm the greatest expense the church has. I'm a full time employee taking in 60k a year. We usually generate around 94k a year in total offerings. I think this year we've allocated around 12k to the causes I mentioned above (missions, local charities, benevolence) the rest of the money has gone to bills. We don't really have a zero sum ministry philosophy. As far as how our local nonprofits handle their budgets that I do not know. What I do know is our food bank feeds hungry people and our homeless shelter takes in the homeless and the missionaries we support are helping take care of orphan children. So to answer your question, the majority of our resource allocation is to remain a functioning church with a minister able to allocate his full attention to the church. We don't try to hit percentages in charities, we just give what we can. But I would say over 10% of our total giving goes towards helping people. Its not changing the world, but it is helping.

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u/ThrowAway3000Delux 4h ago

Sorry, but giving your money to yourselves is kind of my issue here. You really only furthered my point... "missionaries."

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u/dgc137 2h ago

I don't think that's a universally valid criticism. I suspect you are expressing distaste for missionaries in their role as " evangelizing their religion to the non-believers ", but missionaries often do really good objectively beneficial work, like building infrastructure (wells, houses, schools), delivering aid (food, medicine, education), and advocacy for marginalized people.

There are definitely evangelicals that have a primary goal of converting people, and I would say those people are missing the point established in their religion.

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u/HuntedByAll 8h ago

Even if that were the case, it isn't like you are actually refuting anything. The point is that they are donating their money, which is the furthest thing from being selfish. It doesn't make a different who they are donating that money to.

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u/dgc137 7h ago

Donation to your local church which you attend on a regular basis and which uses that money on community resources (facilities, events, celebrations, social services like daycare, etc.) that you directly benefit from is not the same as charity.

Yes, many churches use a portion of their donations for charitable work, but most churches use the bulk of donations for their own operational costs. Some churches are very focused on spending their money only in their own congregation. The most well intentioned churches often find their budgets dominated by operations and struggle to fund things like missions. My parents are their (small, Baptist) church's treasurers and estimate that about 10-15% of their revenue ends up in the charity bucket.

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u/Barnabas_77 6h ago

I wish I'd read this before I answered your question on my post, it would have helped me understand your question better. It wouldn't have changed the numbers, but I think I could have given a better answer

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u/hardplay2118 4h ago

It is the definition of charity, giving to an stablished church.

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u/dgc137 2h ago

While you are correct by the legal tax status definition of charity, the common definition of the word as "giving to those in need" is not well met by a lot of churches.

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u/Pretend-Stay-1460 6h ago

True. I donate my money to the bar down the street every week. Prices are insane.

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u/High-Nomad 5h ago edited 5h ago

If you’re doing it so YOU can get into heaven that it’s pretty selfish

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u/ThrowAway3000Delux 4h ago

LOL, so the target means nothing? Just giving money away is, in itself, altruistic - without regard for benefit or improvement? Interesting take.

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u/Sufficient_Beach_445 1h ago

uh, tithing is charity. But it is not simply tithing that Republicans give.

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u/Xenikovia 9h ago

Very easy if you bother to look beneath the surface for context. Many tax‑return comparisons showing Republicans donating more are heavily distorted by ultra‑wealthy conservative megadonors, whose very large contributions to churches, foundations, and donor‑advised funds inflate the averages far beyond what typical households give, and when you remove these top‑end outliers the difference between ordinary Republican and Democratic giving becomes much smaller; in fact, among middle‑ and lower‑income households, Democrats often give more to secular charities, while Republicans’ higher totals mostly come from religious giving, which is counted as “charity” on tax returns even though it often functions more like funding a religious institution than supporting public‑facing social services.

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u/SuggestionRare4128 9h ago

Because Republicans are more interested in the benefits they get from donations, and wealthier people tend to be republican and wealthier people have more money to give away. A poor person can donate a bigger percentage of their net worth and it will show up as fewer dollars on a tax return

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u/2guns1holster 9h ago

So Democrats are broke and don't like tax breaks?

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u/SuggestionRare4128 9h ago

No im saying your question answers itself. Republicans are more selfish and donate for the purpose of getting tax benefits

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u/happytobeaheathen 9h ago

Take out their club dues to their churches and does this still apply?

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u/2guns1holster 9h ago

Club dues to churches?

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u/Beezhockeyfan 8h ago

It’s hard to put a metric on one’s ability to give based only on money and tax return data. I’d like to give more monetarily but can’t so give my time and talents instead.

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u/Pretend-Stay-1460 7h ago

Ah I see what you did there. Saying “charities and churches” is like saying I’m a huge donor of charities and my favorite bar (which I attend every week, but also it’s not a charity).

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u/MunchingOnCelery 3h ago

They don't

Hope that helps

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u/2guns1holster 37m ago

False, you obviously know facts! 😆