Democrats believe that it's all of our mutual responsibility to make sure that everybody has bootstraps with which to pull themselves up. Republicans believe that it's each person's individual responsibility to pull themselves up but they don't get that not everybody even has bootstraps.

I do wonder though, what the general political affiliations of the majority of people that volunteer for the peace corps or red cross in impoverished nations in say Africa (as an example) are.  It seems like the few that I've talked to are definitely leaning more to the left. 

I mean, that has no bearing on what the government should do in OUR country because I feel America is has enough opportunites for anyone to make it if they put forth the effort, but I've always found it interesting and wondered why more people from the left (in my limited experience) volunteer for such causes.  [Anyway, what sims posted made me think about this, because some of the people in those countries really do have no bootstraps or the odds and obstacles in their way are so obscene.]

So...basically, I'm interested if somehow the general attitude of the left and right parties somehow contribute to what I've noticed about party affiliations of those volunteers I've talked to.

(I've never voted by any party affiliation, my own views seem to span across both parties general views....I just vote for whoever most aligns with my views in a given election.  Just thought I'd put that in there first before someone accuses me of being some extremist one way or the other)

If Democrats believe that, why do they make laws that force SOME of us to make sure that everybody has these bootstraps?

Why is it a "mutual responsibility" when some people have to contribute more than others?

I describe a familiar scenario in this blog entry:

http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/article/301955/The_right_the_left_and_the_middle_on_taxation

Please comment and describe how the "mutual responsibility" applies to the three people in the scenario.

If the "mutual responsibility" you propose in any way looks like "this one guy can pay for the two other guys", I will be forced to reject your notion that the "responsibility" is "mutual".

It depends on how useful the groups are that people join.

"Peace activists", who help terrorists kill people, are usually from the left.

But the Dutch Christians who came to Israel in 2006 to help rebuilding after the war and then worked in charities for a year were more right-wing.

The guys that destroyed Africa's weak clothing industry with the "donate old cloths to Africans" were left-wingers, I think.

The founder of "doctors without borders" is a socialist but tends to be on the right side of socialism. (He was in favour of the liberation of Iraq and now serves in Sarkozy's government in France.)

Not every activism is actually useful and some that are are not "useful" in the sense they claim to be.

Here's a picture of a "peace activist" who wasted more than 500,000 dollars on finding out that the starving people in Gaza had not only enough food to feed the "peace activists" (who came to help Gaza without even enough food for themselves):

http://www.daylife.com/photo/02uy2JZ8Uw445/gaza

People in Africa are starving, but you will find the left-wing activists "helping" in an overstocked supermarket in one of the richest regions of the non-oiled Arab world complaining that neighbouring countries won't let her cross the border between two enemy states during a war.

I don't think it's realistic to say that Democrats believe everybody should be paying to help those without high enough living standards. They believe the rich people who lived the American dream and are now profiting from it should help those who are just beginning on the American Dream.

Some of the views, such as social security etc. Are very important for a first world country in my view, but the idea of having a Universal Healthcare (and stopping immigration to/from Mexico for that matter) simply doesn't work in a country that still idolises freedom and the same values of their founding fathers.

If someone as leftist as Obama took power for more than one term, America would be beginning on a track which Europe has tread and I really don't think another European welfare-state is what the world needs. It would be very expensive too, it's all very well supporting college students and providing universal healthcare as they do in Britain, but even without the costs of Iraq, the funding would need to come from somwhere. Britain can scarcely afford to fund its armies because of welfare initiatives and over-funding in state-schools (schools provided for free by the government), which is something a small island nation in Europe can get away with, but the worlds number one superpower cannot.

It's all very well Democrats such as Obama saying that people have to have the freedom to decide on infanticide themselves, but in that case rich people should also has the freedom to decide whether they will give money to poorer citizens too, and they should also have the freedom to decide whether they want guns or not. Gun control and freedom to choose (to the extent that Obama supports) are contradictory.

Correction - democrats beleive it is YOUR mutual responsibility.  Their responsibility is to just say do it, and then leave.

First, I lived in Palestine/Israel that region for several years.  Most Westerns think that "big bad" Israel is being the big bully.  If those people just found out who Suha Arafat is and found out that she is one of the most wealthiest women.  That's 1+1 EASY MATH.

I hear all the time about National Health care and how we are the only industrial country that doesn't have it (which is true to an extent).  That means we have an opportunity to view how successful it is and to see how much it will cost US (you and me).  Cubian Dictator did not stay in the Cube (not a typo) for medical treatment.  The U.K. and Can-nada (not a typo) are actually in the process correcting a lot of issues that they have this.  I agree with Khamul's comment on this subject.

Again, both sides of the political spectrum act as if either candidate is going MAKE SOME AMAZING CHANGES happen (go to CNN and read some of the comments made by people) NEITHER  candidate will be able to make any TRUE change in the world today.  The Ball is rolling and that ball will be very hard to stop. Things are happening and have happened that have solidified issues of the world. 

For the most part, most politicians eventually move to the center of the spectrum.  Then both parties do the same thing with very minor differences (these differences are small).

One final thing, look at the government size.  Both parties say that the government should be smaller.  Now in the past which party has ACTUALLY made our government smaller?

When was the last time you read in the paper 'U.S. government has cut xxxx number of jobs' instead of 'U.S. Airs has cut another 50 billion'. 

There have been books based on the research on this very issue and it's not even close. Conservatives volunteer vastly more and give vastly more for charities than liberals even taking per capita spending into account.

See the book "Who really cares" (written by a liberal Democrat) on some of the results.

I'll have to check that out brad.  I was running off my own personal experiences which are pretty limited (5-6 people doing various volunteer work in South America and Africa).

I have to admit I can't find any info on the author being a far left guy...Most of the articles I see on his website seem to be critical of the liberals.

I just like to know the stances of works I read so I can know where they're coming from and so I know which direction I should be looking for holes in the arguments. 

I've read alot of absurd stuff from far right 'crazies' as well so I like to take everything with a grain of salt...though at least in my experience, it takes less of an extreme to the left to write crazy ideas (imo) than to the right.  If that makes sense.

IMO conservatives do more charity work at home in the US, while more liberals do charity work overseas, perhaps because some think it is the fault of the US for other nations plights. I could be wrong, just an observation on the issue, as I know there are people from both ideologies doing work everywhere. Whatever they think is important I say, their choice.