There's a lot of talk lately about the differences between Red States and Blue States. For example, lefties are saying they're smarter than conservatives, and have even tried to compare average IQ scores between the states.
I think these sorts of comparisons are pretty worthless, because you have no way of knowing who, in a given state, actually voted for Kerry vs. who actually voted for Bush. Even in many Blue States, as much as 45% of the population voted for Bush. So even if you find that Blue States have a higher average IQ than Red States, who's to say it wasn't the upper end of the IQ scale in any given state that voted for Bush?
But if we're going to do broad-brush comparisons, here's a good one.
Guess which states are the most generous in charitable contributions? Come on, guess. Would it be the states where people like John Kerry and Hilary Clinton live, people who are always preaching about "giving back" and "fair share" and all that? Would it be the states where the lefties say all the smart people live?
Nope, it wouldn't. It would be the Red States.
Here's the link to the Chicago Tribune article I happened to read this afternoon.
The most generous state of all: Mississippi. This is really kind of touching, because Mississippi ranks dead last in average per capita income, but is 5th in average per capita charitable donations. The difference between the two ranks (50th and 5th) is 45, which is the biggest gap of any state, and that gets Mississippi ranked first on the Generosity Index.
The rank ordering of states is pretty astonishing, actually, because you have to read all the way down to the 26th state to find even one Blue State, which happens to be New York. New York is ranked 5th in per capita income, and 9th in average giving.
It strikes me as significant that the top half of the Generosity Index is filled with Red States. You wanna know the bottom five? Minnesota, Wisconsin (sad to say, because it's my own state), New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire.
Funny, the Chicago Tribune article never commented on that.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Red States, Blue States, I-share-with-you States
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1 comment:
How right you are!
On Rush's show today he was commenting on how the liberals were complaining, yes, complaining, that they were giving more than their fair share, and the red states weren't pulling their load! This is based on information that shows that the red States get more Federal funding than the blue states - what happened to the compasionate liberal??
So what's the message this time - if you can't pull your own weight, then too bad because the blue states aren't going to help you? Maybe, but you can still be guaranteed that if a blue state is in trouble, there will be plenty of red states to help them out, and they won't ask for any favors in return.
pmm
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