What's your view of Right Wing Conservatives who do genuine good deeds? And this case specifically?

[Locut0s]

I have an aunt who recently just went to a poor African country to help distribute water and food to the poor there. For about 3 days to a week I think. Let me paint a picture of her personality:

*A control freak. If you do something that's not HER way she will cut you down in 1/2 a second.
*Socially liberal. She comes from a family that's 1/2 black though that's not at all apparent in her looks. She works full time raising money for a society dedicated to a medical condition.
*Financially VERY conservative, votes for the conservative party here like clock work.
*She and my Uncle are very comfortably wealthy, we estimate they make at the very least $350,000 a year.
*Husband, my uncle is conservative beyond reason. Socially he's more liberal. But touch a FUCKING PENNY of his and you are into some argument!!!

On another occasion they went down south to help build houses for the poor in Mexico. So you can see this is not against her personality. However they make no qualms about wanting to associate with the richest of rich. Everything they do is self stylized to fit in with that crowd. Name something that sounds cliched for the wealthy to do and they aspire to it. Like I said they vote right wing like it was the only box on the ballot year after year.

We had a falling out with them some years back over money and family. My grandmother at the time needed to go into a home and was living out their way with my grandfather. Well of course they seized upon this opportunity to show off their wealth and strong arm the rest of us. Your grandmother is going into home X, you will cough up $500 a month to help pay for this as will we. No mention of the fact that they make probably 4 or 5 times what we do and that $500 a month was not a small amount for us. We argued about it and they basically just said we don't love her enough, remember this is being directed mostly at my father, her SON! We brought up the fact that they were more wealthy than us and that a flat rate, vs percentage of income, based payment solution, didn't make sense. Well that just set off an atomic bomb and it's taken years to patch relations between the 2 families back together.

So like I said in the title my aunt from this family recently went to Ethiopia to help distribute food and water with other volunteers. A very noble and good deed. Something we ourselves would be far more likely to do given our politics, but haven't.

Of course she sent out a long mass email to the whole family explaining just how much of an ordeal it was and how "you would be proud of me" and more. I have no doubt that living conditions there were very poor but still. Even mentioned how glad she was to get back to the 3 star hotel in the main city.

Basically I'm very conflicted as to how to feel about this. As the liberal side of the family I feel this is the kind of thing we should be doing. As someone who likes to feel he gives everyone their fair share of the credit I applaud what she did whole heartedly, more people need to do this kind of thing! I applaud what she does for living, any society that raises money for the sick is to be praised. But I also can't help but see the selfish one-upmanship in this. The need to fill her quiver with bitter arrows of "good deeds done". In reality my own family lived in China during the 1980s for 4 years VERY happily and humbly, something I know they could not have done for more than a week, and would only have done if there was some moral good will they could rub off on themselves. Yet like I said these are STILL genuine good deeds that more should do. So I'm conflicted.

How would you feel in this situation?

[Skittles]

1. one does not need religion to do good deeds

also, most true givers do not send out mass emails BRAGGING about themselves

[Locut0s]

3. Neither of out families is religious. My family probably the least so...

As for her email bragging about it, yeah it wouldn't be a "good deed" done by them unless you knew about it. And remember they now have that archived for future ammunition should they need it.

[Skittles]

4. I do not understand this part

*Financially VERY conservative, votes for the conservative party here like clock work.

WTF does FINANCIALLY CONSERVATIVE mean? That trillions wasted on war is A-OK but money to help people is not???

[Locut0s]

11. Sorry seems there may be some cross talk going on here. Don't want any misunderstandings.

The type of people they are is this.

Trillions of $ going to war is A OK so long as it's the conservatives in power spending it.
Money going to the poor is OK. ONLY if it's money I personally give to the poor personally.
Money going to the poor is NOT FUCKING OK if it's part of any collected tax money. My MONEY is MY MONEY and I spend it the fucking way I choose to.
So they might donate money to very good charities to help the homeless but the thought of the government setting up programs to help the homeless using tax money makes their blood boil.

[Skittles]

25. so, to recap

they're not really financially conservative - they are actually financially assholish

[woodsprite]

2. They sound like my in-laws

Helping, but not people who directly could compete with them. I know
foreign countries need aid too. Does she help out with local needs?

[End Of The Road]

5. You might enjoy a novel by Barbara Kingsolver

A really fine read entitled The Poisonwood Bible.

It's about a missionary couple and their young daughters who live in Africa (can't remember exactly where) for a period of years, so it hardly parallels your aunt's journey. But Kingsolver deals brilliantly with the moral superiority issue.

[Whisp]

27. is a wonderful book :)

[Ikonoklast]

6. I feel sorry for those poor Ethiopians.

Is she acts like a control freak with side issues here, I am fairly certain she acted the same way in Africa.

Did she pay for the food and water, or was just there to help?

[bread_and_roses]

7. Charity is not an answer - it is a sop for injustice. And auntie should ponder the camel/needle.

For how many years have charities been distributing food and water in Africa? Has it solved anything? Our Plutocrat overlords love directing energy and resources into charity - it costs them about nothing, changes nothing, threatens nothing.

While I think most people give or act in charity out of far better motives than those of your aunt - who seems to act out of sheer self-aggrandizement and some peculiar moral calculus that discounts the harm her "conservative" politics do because it is at one remove while her "charity" is personal and one on one - it does not matter. Good motive or bad, genuine heart-felt empathy or guilt, the dictates of your church or of your tax adviser, no matter - the result, or lack thereof, is the same. The child sponsor charities are showing the same gut-wrenching photos of children scrabbling around garbage dumps as they were when they started up. The millions and millions donated to Haiti after the earthquake did more for the privateers than for the people.

And while I am an atheist and no expert on religion, I am pretty sure that not only does her moral calculus not compute in most faiths, most religions require that acts of goodness be motivated by something other than self-aggrandizement to "count" (at least nominally - one could argue over whether any of us ever act out of motives other than to satisfy some aspect of ourselves).

So, no - her charity changes nothing, not in the world, nor in the scale against her plainly grasping and mean-spirited dealings with you, nor in the calculus of her personal worth in other than dollars.

She is a hypocrite and a fraud and a sham.

[whistler162]

8. They sound like good people, you on the other hand with

that story not so much.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[valerief]

9. I wouldn't feel anything. Nothing at all. I wouldn't even think about her. nt

[Locut0s]

12. This is the healthy thing to do ;) nt

[valerief]

18. There's so much in life you have to do. You don't have to form opinions about everything.

I know this "SURVEY" culture (a friggin' poll/survey for everything we do) implies that we have to hold opinions on everything, but we don't. And we can "stay in the gray" about a lot of things without shame or guilt.

[WinkyDink]

13. Many RW'ers "do good deeds." But they fail/refuse to see that their "good deeds" are solely of their

choosing, to be curtailed also at their choosing, and solely for those whom they deem worthy.

A just society cannot be based on the whims and/or noblesse oblige of the wealthy.

[Gman]

14. Was/were she/they poor growing up?

I've seen similar behavior from Depression era folks. There is some kind of fear there of not having enough here. They have control somewhere else and it's in their terms. Here they fear they don't have complete control.

[Locut0s]

15. No not at all. They came from a solidly middle class upbringing in the 50s and 60s. nt.

[Scuba]

16. If you have to advertise your charity, it's not.

[Whisp]

28. that's how I think I feel about that too.

if you have to advertise it you are most likely promoting yourself and the good deed is secondary.

but even so, someone gets to benefit so I suppose i"m alright with that in the end.

[Iggo]

17. They sound like fucking douchebags.

My condolences.

[Odin2005]

19. People are complicated.

[LeftishBrit]

20. She seems to have very conflicting personality traits.

It's not just that she is a conservative; it's that she seems to be quite selfish and manipulative with other people. Plenty of people vote for right-wing parties but don't start family feuds with poorer members of the family over money; regrettably, some people sho vote for left-wing parties can do things of that nature.

Nonetheless, it is an admirable act for her to take the trouble to go to Ethiopia and distribute food and water. Most of us haven't done that sort of thing.

I have come across a number of people (not necessarily extremely rich, not necessarily right-wing politically) who are capable of being very generous with their time and possessions toward people whom they see as unquestionably 'The Poor' or 'The Sick', but are much less capable of generosity, or even tolerance, toward people who are poor but not destitute; have health problems or disabilities but aren't incapacitated or in immediate danger of death; have needs that don't come into a category on which they focus. For them, it's all or nothing; you're either extremely poor or you can afford anything you need; you're either an Invalid, or you can do anything you choose; etc. It sounds to me as though your aunt may be in this category.

[kctim]

21. Deed vs. beliefs

Is it the deed itself or the beliefs of the person, that does the most good?

Why look past the deed just to score some silly 'political point?'

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. Building shit in Africa or Mexico is just ostentation. n/t

[Javaman]

23. at the end of the day, if people know of the good deed then it's done for political/public gains.

good deeds should be just that. No ego, no promotion, etc.

any good deed doesn't require religion to make it so or to quantify it as good.

Do it, help people, walk away.

And there is no such thing as a selfless act, other than sacrificing your life to allow another to live.

That said, knowing personally that a good deed done wasn't for personal gain but for the good of the other person without promoting it is probably the closest to anyone gets to committing a selfless act.

Once other people know, then the concept is lost.

[greytdemocrat]

24. Hmmmm...

:bounce:

[Nikia]

26. My Republican grandparents genuinely believed that having the government invovled in charity

Discouraged people from doing charity in their own communities. If people weren't coerced into paying high taxes and told that helping the poor was the governments problems, many rich and middle class people would be more active in helping the poor. They were involved in local charities of course. By no means did they think that people should go hungry or live on the streets. I think that they were overly optimistic and projected their good will onto all people. They also probably didn't predict the situation that we have now, where there are so many more people who are barely getting by. The community where I was born and where they lived has experienced a huge drop in median income over the past few decades, which has obviously hurt local charities.
I am not sure how my grandmother feels now about all of this. I think that she related to more liberal Republicans like Eisenhower and Nixon. In her eighties, she still continues to help people though and is still naively optimistic.