I fail to see how "pay us and we won't crush you" qualifies as 'doing something good.'
From the very first report issued by John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board -- this is their first mission statement: "In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions of intellectual and character education fade from their minds and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk." Source http://www.altruists.org/static/files/Shocking%20O rigins%20of%20Public%20Education%20(John%20Taylor% 20Gatto).htm
s/John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board/Microsoft/
You shall pay for your lack of vision - Darth Ballmer
So, in the end, wouldn't that mean we'd need a series of presidential assassinations to send the message that corruption won't be tolerated?
No, it wouldn't have to be presidents. Congressmen, senators, judges and other political figures would do just fine:) Really though, I gave a response to the other person who answered my post explaining that I don't think it could work as things are now and why. My original reply was really meant to point out that showing polititians the constitution won't change thins, which you seem to agree.
So the question is more complex than - can an armed revolution work?
I agree.
Honestly, I think the answer is no - because this administration is willing to destroy any such attempt - they have the means and the will do that.
s/this administration/the federal government/
But as things stand, I agree the answer is no, but for different and worse reasons than the strength of this administration or the government. Even if everyone was well armed, most people are too indicisive to know who or when to shoot for an armed revolution to be a success. As I said in one of the posts I linked to: "How can you be free if a government agent teaches you how to think?" The right to bear arms and the right to free speech are largely illusionary as long as the citizenry are trained in compulsory schools to obedience and susceptibility to marketing and propaganda. What was more highly rewarded at your school, obedience or initiative? How did we come to be a people that had independent incomes and opportunity seekers to be a people that will let a boss tell us what to do for a meagre wage? Even if people know what to do, they won't likely do it unless someone tells them to, and then you just have another autocrat. The initiative has been trained out of them. I recommend reading "An Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto. It's an eye opener, even if you don't agree with everything he says, it's hard to ignore.
Really, my post was meant to point out the folly of thinking that things will change if polititians read the Constitution etc.
As I understand it, his point is not whether or not Gore supported the war, it's that Gore (and other Democrats) agreed that Iraq had WMD, the general context being the post saying the war was over lies.
To many people, this shows Democrats accusations "Bush lied about WMD" to be hypocritical, as many of them agreed about the WMD even if they disagreed about the correct response.
You believe, naively, that you can get the people to gather to stop this man.
Well, not exactly. Just pointing out that showing the constitution to oppresive leaders is not going to lead to change. What do people think would happen, Bush reads it, blushes and says "Oops, sorry guys, my bad."? Plainly this is not going to happen. These documents vest power to the people, but if the people do not appropriate that power, well, they won't have it. It's not the sort of thing that you can solve by saying "Hey meanie, stop that, we have the power, see, we're sending you a piece of paper"
In any case, Bush is not so powerful that he can't be removed from office. However, people have been well trained in complacency and are unlikely to do anything effective any time soon. You can see a little of my views on why people won't really do anything in this post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=237629&cid=194 21019 and my other reply in this thread http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=237723&cid=194 33143 explains why my goal would not be to have an actual armed revolution.
To curtail "Bush's" system (it's really far larger than he is, more appropriately called "The Federal Government"). To remove Bush from the presidency only takes an election. To remove him from all forms of power only takes one determined citizen with a rifle. The problem with actual assasination/revolution though, is that history shows there is an effectively unlimited supply of potential autocrats waiting to take the place of the old ones (a point touched on by the parent to the second link I gave).
The point is that it is not necessary (or desirable) to actually have a civil war or even assasinations. What is necessary and desirable is that the individual government officials etc link the abuse of their power to the possibility of personally experienced consequences, the ultimate being armed resistance from the citizenry.
You really think an armed revolution would produce a positive change?
I think that if the government considered this a realistic possiblility things might change. It's supposed to be the limitation on governments power, since the constitution is just a piece of paper and has to be enforced. It's not rational to think that the government will enforce limitations of the governments power if they can help it.
Not a single internal armed revolution has led to better leaders being put in than those who left.
The goal isn't to have a revolution, it's to have the government fear to be tyrannical. Think of it as a transferance of negotiating power to the people, rather than active planning for revolution. Your right to Habeas Corpus was gained this way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta no ruler deposed, but a show of force by the Barons opening the way for the common law rights we have today.
Sounds like it's time to start a massive campaign to citzen's homes with copies of the 2nd amendment to remind these people where their power is derived from.
The only question is how to prevent them from killing our freedoms.
Resist compulsory schooling. How can you be free if a government agent teaches you how to think?
Since schooling is compulsory, it is the norm for there to be a large percentage of any class who don't want to be there. This means that the first priority of a teacher necessarily becomes crowd control. No teaching can happen until this is achieved, regardless of the quality or intentions of the teacher. So the most predominant and consistent lesson taught in school becomes "submit". It is a lesson that has been taught far more effectively than any other, one evidence being that the vast majority in the US used to work for themselves or realistically aim to do so, but most now work for a company.
To the "submit" lesson of compulsory school, add the two party system. This means people can voice dissent, and take some apparently meaningful action for change. Wash, rinse, repeat. Both parties continue to encroach on people's freedoms, but people's desire to feel they've done something about it is sufficiently satisfied.
Governments want control, businesses want money.
Government and business control schooling. This is not some whacked out conspiracy theory, it's just they way the system currently works. What would make anyone think that government wants control and business wants money, but they institute schooling for the good of the people rather than to increase their control and money?
As a freethinking Atheist I feel all religions should be banned globally. The quicker religions are banned, the quicker we will achieve peace globally.
Like the systems set up in USSR and China, those bastions of free thinking peacefullness.
Tell me something, are you a man/woman of faith? Do you believe in "god"?
Yes
If you do, then tell me how things like marijuana are bad...
Well, I've had hemp clothes, and I didn't think I was being bad. In my experience and observation people often suffer significant harm from drug use, yes, even marijuana.
and shouldn't be legal.
Well, I'm with you on this one probably. I don't see why marijuana should be illegal, or other plants, opium etc, even if they have harmful uses. I think the negative effects of drug prohibition as we have it today are easily recognisable and difficult to refute.
Or, if you are a "god-fearing" person, it's like saying god made a mistake.
Not at all. The world and everything in it is significantly different to the way it was created. Even if it wasn't, there wouldn't be many things if any that don't have the potential for misuse as well as beneficial uses. Consider the rock Cain killed Abel with, for example.
Personally I think it's just one example of the much larger problem of not regarding people as sovereign over themselves, whether it's harmful or not is a distraction. In my country, for example, suicide is not illegal, so how could drug use being harmful be a justification for making it illegal? What I wouldn't want to see though, is a situation where people could be effectively enslaved by the mass marketing of drugs, with no legal recourse. Lets not even get into discussing the pharaceutical industy as it is today.
You might want to check out the history of Islamic nations and see how many became Islamic by jihad, so you can have some reality in that opinion. Yes, I know other religions have done this at times, yes I know that at different times and in different proportions there has been moderation in the way people follow Islam. Here's a problem though: the Taliban, Hamas, etc operate day care centres and schools. They have been doing this for some time, and have used them to produce a generation brainwashed to jihad. Some of these people may think about what they've been taught and reject it, but likely not many. I think it was a Catholic priest who said "If you get a boy by the time he's seven, you've got him for life". It may not by 100% accurate, but it is for precisely this reason that western government schooling doesn't contain religious instruction.
Diplomacy and being nice definitely have their place, but in this situation, they are too little too late. Maybe 50 years ago it would have been more significant. At this stage, I doubt that backing off militarily will have any effect but to accelerate the jihad.
VT student murderer... He is just your reflection in another, peculiarly twisted mirror.
My reflection? No. Yours perhaps, if you recognise yourself in his acts. Here in Australia people used to do "cadets" at school, military training using military weapons. You could buy a gun over the shop counter without ID. Yet we have never had high murder rates. If I remember correctly, guns were used in approx 25% of murders when gun control was introduced. It was politically convenient and was nothing to do with public safety. In times of war, we could field newly recruited troops who actually knew how to aim and shoot.
Sorry, but watching from Australia, the whole gun-control debate in the US is a farce.
Really? According to this article at the Sydney Morning Herald it seems to be that gun-control laws are the farce:
"Homicide patterns (firearm and non-firearm) were not influenced by the NFA, the conclusion being that the gun buyback and restrictive legislative changes had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia,"
You only have to look at the firearm fatality rates per capita of western countries to realise the US is massively out of whack.
And yet Canada and Switzerland have a high rate of gun ownership (including automatic military weapons in Switzerland) but not the murder rate of the US, so it would be logical to think that the US murder rate is affected by other issues. In addition to that, any review of gun deaths to determine the effects of gun control really should take into account deaths of civilians at the hands of the government, not just civilian murders. Approximately 100 million in the last hundred years by various despots. Regardless of gun laws, no western country is experiencing or ever seems likely to experience the level of civilian criminal activity necessary to compete with despots for death rates, and the surest prevention of despotism is an armed citizenry.
I recommend you to become familiar with the terms "dar al-harb" and "dar al-islam"
From wikipedia:
Dar al-Harb (Arabic: "house of war") is a term used to refer to those areas outside Muslim rule. The term traditionally refers to those lands administered by non-Muslim governments. The exact definitions of these territories can vary widely according to the viewer's concept of who is and is not a Muslim, and which governments are or are not Muslim in practice. The inhabitants of the Dar al-Harb are called harbi, as opposed to dhimmi. A harbi has no rights, not even the right to live.
I note that it seems "dar al-harb" and "dar al-islam" are traditional teachings, not the product of a fanatical minority group. The fanatical minority groups just take them more seriously and implement them. The idea that there can be lasting peace between Muslims and non-muslims is a dangerous fantasy. No action of self ruled non-muslims can make them not be dar al-harb. Diplomacy and "trying to be less hated" will never be sufficient.
More innocent people are shot in the US than anywhere else in the world.
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and some german guy. Totals about 100 million or so if I remember correctly. Any tally of gun deaths that doesn't include civilians killed by their own or an invading government is deceptive if used to show the effects of private gun ownership.
Well, I haven't read much of the paper yet, but there is a big difference between noting the historical effects of assasination and advocating assasination. I haven't read enough yet to know what position the authors take. It could also be that knowing this could be used to help a country towards democracy rather than having another dictator installed after an assasination done internally, ie could be useful practical information even if you don't initiate assasinations.
Terrorism can only be diminished by not having people who hate you. Which requires complex diplomacy and well thinking one's foreign policy.
People with a fundamentalist religious belief that all non-believers must be converted, subjugated or killed will stop hating you if you have complex diplomacy and a well thought out foreign policy? Good luck with that.
Spun: Of course selfishness is a part of human behavior. I never said it wasn't.
Spun: people don't act in their own rational self interest
The rationality makes the difference. Somebody can act intending their own benefit (the selfishness part) but not be rational, and therefore not actually be acting in their own self interest.
I'm not sure if you mean: (a) Conservatives donate more than liberals, which results in them paying less tax, or (b) Conservatives pay less taxes than liberals, which results in them donating more.
If (a), this is how tax deductions for donations work: If you are paying a tax rate of 30%, and donate $100, you pay $30 less tax. It still costs you $70. You never get a tax break larger than your marginal tax rate, the donation always still costs you money, as long as we are talking about financial donations.
If (b) tell me more about this. How do conservatives pay less tax? Since the conclusion was "religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income" don't bother mentioning tax breaks available to the rich but not the poor, as it's not relevant, and there are rich liberals too.
My bet is that if you look at donations to your own church as something other than "charity", then this statistic may swing the other way.
From a review of the book available at reasononline:
"And while religion is a major factor, the figures don't just show tithing to churches. Religious donors give significantly more to non-religious causes than do their secular counterparts."
"I believe copying whatever the hell we like is a natural right that everyone has.."
So go ahead then, copy his stuff. Of course, there is no implication in what he said that he is required to help you or give you that information. Plenty of people would disagree with him, but I don't see an accusation of hypocracy being justified.
How does is feel to only have food because people who live on farms work effeciently enough to provide for you?
There is a reason cities subsidize rural areas. It is because they are totally dependent on efficient rural production. Without technology and efficiency in primary industries, very little else is possible, as everyones time is taken up in survival instead of progress.
Slashdot Mirror
I fail to see how "pay us and we won't crush you" qualifies as 'doing something good.'
O rigins%20of%20Public%20Education%20(John%20Taylor% 20Gatto).htm
From the very first report issued by John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board -- this is their first mission statement: "In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions of intellectual and character education fade from their minds and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk." Source http://www.altruists.org/static/files/Shocking%20
s/John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board/Microsoft/
You shall pay for your lack of vision - Darth Ballmer
So, in the end, wouldn't that mean we'd need a series of presidential assassinations to send the message that corruption won't be tolerated?
:) Really though, I gave a response to the other person who answered my post explaining that I don't think it could work as things are now and why. My original reply was really meant to point out that showing polititians the constitution won't change thins, which you seem to agree.
No, it wouldn't have to be presidents. Congressmen, senators, judges and other political figures would do just fine
I think the problem is worse than it seems.
Yes.
So the question is more complex than - can an armed revolution work?
I agree.
Honestly, I think the answer is no - because this administration is willing to destroy any such attempt - they have the means and the will do that.
s/this administration/the federal government/
But as things stand, I agree the answer is no, but for different and worse reasons than the strength of this administration or the government. Even if everyone was well armed, most people are too indicisive to know who or when to shoot for an armed revolution to be a success. As I said in one of the posts I linked to: "How can you be free if a government agent teaches you how to think?" The right to bear arms and the right to free speech are largely illusionary as long as the citizenry are trained in compulsory schools to obedience and susceptibility to marketing and propaganda. What was more highly rewarded at your school, obedience or initiative? How did we come to be a people that had independent incomes and opportunity seekers to be a people that will let a boss tell us what to do for a meagre wage? Even if people know what to do, they won't likely do it unless someone tells them to, and then you just have another autocrat. The initiative has been trained out of them. I recommend reading "An Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto. It's an eye opener, even if you don't agree with everything he says, it's hard to ignore.
Really, my post was meant to point out the folly of thinking that things will change if polititians read the Constitution etc.
As I understand it, his point is not whether or not Gore supported the war, it's that Gore (and other Democrats) agreed that Iraq had WMD, the general context being the post saying the war was over lies.
To many people, this shows Democrats accusations "Bush lied about WMD" to be hypocritical, as many of them agreed about the WMD even if they disagreed about the correct response.
You believe, naively, that you can get the people to gather to stop this man.
4 21019 and my other reply in this thread http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=237723&cid=194 33143 explains why my goal would not be to have an actual armed revolution.
Well, not exactly. Just pointing out that showing the constitution to oppresive leaders is not going to lead to change. What do people think would happen, Bush reads it, blushes and says "Oops, sorry guys, my bad."? Plainly this is not going to happen. These documents vest power to the people, but if the people do not appropriate that power, well, they won't have it. It's not the sort of thing that you can solve by saying "Hey meanie, stop that, we have the power, see, we're sending you a piece of paper"
In any case, Bush is not so powerful that he can't be removed from office. However, people have been well trained in complacency and are unlikely to do anything effective any time soon. You can see a little of my views on why people won't really do anything in this post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=237629&cid=19
To curtail "Bush's" system (it's really far larger than he is, more appropriately called "The Federal Government"). To remove Bush from the presidency only takes an election. To remove him from all forms of power only takes one determined citizen with a rifle. The problem with actual assasination/revolution though, is that history shows there is an effectively unlimited supply of potential autocrats waiting to take the place of the old ones (a point touched on by the parent to the second link I gave).
The point is that it is not necessary (or desirable) to actually have a civil war or even assasinations. What is necessary and desirable is that the individual government officials etc link the abuse of their power to the possibility of personally experienced consequences, the ultimate being armed resistance from the citizenry.
You really think an armed revolution would produce a positive change?
I think that if the government considered this a realistic possiblility things might change. It's supposed to be the limitation on governments power, since the constitution is just a piece of paper and has to be enforced. It's not rational to think that the government will enforce limitations of the governments power if they can help it.
Not a single internal armed revolution has led to better leaders being put in than those who left.
Assasinations on the other hand, can lead to better government: "We find that the successful assassination of autocrats produces institutional change - substantially raising the probability that a country transitions to democracy," say the American economists Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olkin in a paper published yesterday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. But that's not really the point as I see it. Both revolutions and assasinations remove the current leaders. The possibility of them happening is a motivation for the current leaders to be better, not a guarantee that any future government would be better.
The goal isn't to have a revolution, it's to have the government fear to be tyrannical. Think of it as a transferance of negotiating power to the people, rather than active planning for revolution. Your right to Habeas Corpus was gained this way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta no ruler deposed, but a show of force by the Barons opening the way for the common law rights we have today.
Sounds like it's time to start a massive campaign to citzen's homes with copies of the 2nd amendment to remind these people where their power is derived from.
Copy write
It's copyright. It's not about writing, it's about rights.
The only question is how to prevent them from killing our freedoms.
Resist compulsory schooling. How can you be free if a government agent teaches you how to think?
Since schooling is compulsory, it is the norm for there to be a large percentage of any class who don't want to be there. This means that the first priority of a teacher necessarily becomes crowd control. No teaching can happen until this is achieved, regardless of the quality or intentions of the teacher. So the most predominant and consistent lesson taught in school becomes "submit". It is a lesson that has been taught far more effectively than any other, one evidence being that the vast majority in the US used to work for themselves or realistically aim to do so, but most now work for a company.
To the "submit" lesson of compulsory school, add the two party system. This means people can voice dissent, and take some apparently meaningful action for change. Wash, rinse, repeat. Both parties continue to encroach on people's freedoms, but people's desire to feel they've done something about it is sufficiently satisfied.
Governments want control, businesses want money.
Government and business control schooling. This is not some whacked out conspiracy theory, it's just they way the system currently works. What would make anyone think that government wants control and business wants money, but they institute schooling for the good of the people rather than to increase their control and money?
As a freethinking Atheist I feel all religions should be banned globally. The quicker religions are banned, the quicker we will achieve peace globally.
Like the systems set up in USSR and China, those bastions of free thinking peacefullness.
Tell me something, are you a man/woman of faith? Do you believe in "god"?
...
Yes
If you do, then tell me how things like marijuana are bad
Well, I've had hemp clothes, and I didn't think I was being bad. In my experience and observation people often suffer significant harm from drug use, yes, even marijuana.
and shouldn't be legal.
Well, I'm with you on this one probably. I don't see why marijuana should be illegal, or other plants, opium etc, even if they have harmful uses. I think the negative effects of drug prohibition as we have it today are easily recognisable and difficult to refute.
Or, if you are a "god-fearing" person, it's like saying god made a mistake.
Not at all. The world and everything in it is significantly different to the way it was created. Even if it wasn't, there wouldn't be many things if any that don't have the potential for misuse as well as beneficial uses. Consider the rock Cain killed Abel with, for example.
Personally I think it's just one example of the much larger problem of not regarding people as sovereign over themselves, whether it's harmful or not is a distraction. In my country, for example, suicide is not illegal, so how could drug use being harmful be a justification for making it illegal? What I wouldn't want to see though, is a situation where people could be effectively enslaved by the mass marketing of drugs, with no legal recourse. Lets not even get into discussing the pharaceutical industy as it is today.
You might want to check out the history of Islamic nations and see how many became Islamic by jihad, so you can have some reality in that opinion. Yes, I know other religions have done this at times, yes I know that at different times and in different proportions there has been moderation in the way people follow Islam. Here's a problem though: the Taliban, Hamas, etc operate day care centres and schools. They have been doing this for some time, and have used them to produce a generation brainwashed to jihad. Some of these people may think about what they've been taught and reject it, but likely not many. I think it was a Catholic priest who said "If you get a boy by the time he's seven, you've got him for life". It may not by 100% accurate, but it is for precisely this reason that western government schooling doesn't contain religious instruction.
Diplomacy and being nice definitely have their place, but in this situation, they are too little too late. Maybe 50 years ago it would have been more significant. At this stage, I doubt that backing off militarily will have any effect but to accelerate the jihad.
VT student murderer ... He is just your reflection in another, peculiarly twisted mirror.
My reflection? No. Yours perhaps, if you recognise yourself in his acts. Here in Australia people used to do "cadets" at school, military training using military weapons. You could buy a gun over the shop counter without ID. Yet we have never had high murder rates. If I remember correctly, guns were used in approx 25% of murders when gun control was introduced. It was politically convenient and was nothing to do with public safety. In times of war, we could field newly recruited troops who actually knew how to aim and shoot.
Sorry, but watching from Australia, the whole gun-control debate in the US is a farce.
Really? According to this article at the Sydney Morning Herald it seems to be that gun-control laws are the farce:
"Homicide patterns (firearm and non-firearm) were not influenced by the NFA, the conclusion being that the gun buyback and restrictive legislative changes had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia,"
You only have to look at the firearm fatality rates per capita of western countries to realise the US is massively out of whack.
And yet Canada and Switzerland have a high rate of gun ownership (including automatic military weapons in Switzerland) but not the murder rate of the US, so it would be logical to think that the US murder rate is affected by other issues. In addition to that, any review of gun deaths to determine the effects of gun control really should take into account deaths of civilians at the hands of the government, not just civilian murders. Approximately 100 million in the last hundred years by various despots. Regardless of gun laws, no western country is experiencing or ever seems likely to experience the level of civilian criminal activity necessary to compete with despots for death rates, and the surest prevention of despotism is an armed citizenry.
I recommend you to become familiar with the terms "dar al-harb" and "dar al-islam"
r alharb.htm
From wikipedia:
Dar al-Harb (Arabic: "house of war") is a term used to refer to those areas outside Muslim rule. The term traditionally refers to those lands administered by non-Muslim governments. The exact definitions of these territories can vary widely according to the viewer's concept of who is and is not a Muslim, and which governments are or are not Muslim in practice. The inhabitants of the Dar al-Harb are called harbi, as opposed to dhimmi. A harbi has no rights, not even the right to live.
Dhimmi is another word to understand. Here's a good article about "dar al-harb" and "dar al-islam" http://atheism.about.com/od/islamicextremism/a/da
I note that it seems "dar al-harb" and "dar al-islam" are traditional teachings, not the product of a fanatical minority group. The fanatical minority groups just take them more seriously and implement them. The idea that there can be lasting peace between Muslims and non-muslims is a dangerous fantasy. No action of self ruled non-muslims can make them not be dar al-harb. Diplomacy and "trying to be less hated" will never be sufficient.
More innocent people are shot in the US than anywhere else in the world.
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and some german guy. Totals about 100 million or so if I remember correctly. Any tally of gun deaths that doesn't include civilians killed by their own or an invading government is deceptive if used to show the effects of private gun ownership.
Well, I haven't read much of the paper yet, but there is a big difference between noting the historical effects of assasination and advocating assasination. I haven't read enough yet to know what position the authors take. It could also be that knowing this could be used to help a country towards democracy rather than having another dictator installed after an assasination done internally, ie could be useful practical information even if you don't initiate assasinations.
Terrorism can only be diminished by not having people who hate you. Which requires complex diplomacy and well thinking one's foreign policy.
People with a fundamentalist religious belief that all non-believers must be converted, subjugated or killed will stop hating you if you have complex diplomacy and a well thought out foreign policy? Good luck with that.
Not exactly what you asked for (or what the GP said) but: "We find that the successful assassination of autocrats produces institutional change - substantially raising the probability that a country transitions to democracy," say the American economists Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olkin in a paper published yesterday by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Note: I am not arguing for or against this behaviour, just giving a relevant link.
I know it does strip out the mp3tags but I dont care about that.
You can use id3cp from http://id3lib.sourceforge.net/ to transfer the tags.
Spun: Of course selfishness is a part of human behavior. I never said it wasn't.
Spun: people don't act in their own rational self interest
The rationality makes the difference. Somebody can act intending their own benefit (the selfishness part) but not be rational, and therefore not actually be acting in their own self interest.
I'm not sure if you mean: (a) Conservatives donate more than liberals, which results in them paying less tax, or (b) Conservatives pay less taxes than liberals, which results in them donating more.
If (a), this is how tax deductions for donations work: If you are paying a tax rate of 30%, and donate $100, you pay $30 less tax. It still costs you $70. You never get a tax break larger than your marginal tax rate, the donation always still costs you money, as long as we are talking about financial donations.
If (b) tell me more about this. How do conservatives pay less tax? Since the conclusion was "religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income" don't bother mentioning tax breaks available to the rich but not the poor, as it's not relevant, and there are rich liberals too.
My bet is that if you look at donations to your own church as something other than "charity", then this statistic may swing the other way.
From a review of the book available at reasononline:
"And while religion is a major factor, the figures don't just show tithing to churches. Religious donors give significantly more to non-religious causes than do their secular counterparts."
How does is feel to only have food because people who live on farms work effeciently enough to provide for you?
There is a reason cities subsidize rural areas. It is because they are totally dependent on efficient rural production. Without technology and efficiency in primary industries, very little else is possible, as everyones time is taken up in survival instead of progress.