A while ago there was a story that some study had confirmed that conservatives were more "generous" as a rule than liberals. I do not know how the story was presented, or what controls were used in the study. I also do not understand how the terms were defined. "Conservatives" are a coalition of social and economic conservatives, two VERY different groups that seem to see eye to eye. Liberals could mean socially tolerant college professors or a Democratic voting single mother who opposes gay marriage.

I would suggest that the more liberal one is the more generous one tends to be. However, I would also suggest that the more religious one is the more generous one tends to be. The ideal generous person would be part of the religious left. Conversely, the most stridently suspicious person, who assumes that homeless people are drunks, seem to be secular conservatives in my experience. Since conservatives lean toward religion and liberals lean toward secularism it makes my position difficult to confirm, and probably means that there is a complexity to how both groups define "generosity." It means that there it is a two axis study that should be used and not simply who is liberal or who is conservative.

I think we could all use more generosity. However, we also need our eyes wide open. Give generously, but intelligently.