....So we never hear that philanthropy -- both large and small -- has been hugely important in relieving medical suffering, serving foster children, creating today’s greatest urban parks, and offering aid to the homeless. No one mentions (or even realizes) that donors voluntarily give far more to the poorest of the poor overseas than all our government aid put together. Americans are left utterly unaware that the two greatest public amenities in New York City -- the public library system and Central Park — are neither one managed by government, but rather run by charitable entities. How many stories have you read pointing out that the best schools boosting up minority kids in the U.S. today are all donor-initiated and supported? Facts like those are nowhere to be seen in what passes for journalism these days. Much more fun to jump into the echo chamber and attack the decency of Gates and honesty of Koch on Twitter. Most of the journalists and editors handing microphones to haters of private giving like Anand Giridharadas have no idea how fundamentally inaccurate his cartoon villainizations are. They’re too ignorant about the daily operations of our philanthropic sector to recognize his malpractice. Embracing today’s excoriators is also easy because so much of the media now share kneejerk left-wing antipathies toward businessmen, wealth, religious injunctions to charity, person-to-person aid, civic localism, and other pillars of our culture of giving....Enemies of private giving and voluntary action are insisting that only government should be allowed to improve the common good, and that alternatives to state power must be shut down, or taxed away....https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...n_generosity_and_voluntary_action_140452.html charitable giving by private citizens does the most to improve people’s lives in America. That secular progressives give the least and depend on taxes to coerce charity from others is no surprise. Americans have historically been and still are a generous people.
Those that belittle the generosity of charitable givers or the effects it has on the country as a whole want to outlaw charity and raise taxes to coerce it through government.
