For all you welfare hatas: U.S. charity scammers

You know, the second some "welfare queen" scams Uncle Sam out of a few thousand bucks, conservatives are all over it.  All welfare recipients are indicted.

Well, here you go, the nasty truth about the U.S. "charity business."  What say you, Christian conservatives who want to tear down the safety net and replace it with a network of charitable do-gooders who do just as good?  Does the exception prove the rule?  Does one really, really bad apple spoil the charitable bunch?

The Cancer Fund of America makes George Castanza's Human Fund look like Save the Children.

"But Obama [correction: Reagan] gives poor people free cell phones!" my low-information conservative interlocutor will protest hysterically.  (Sigh).

Intricate family connections bind several of America's worst charities

By Kris Hundley and Kendall Taggart

June 13, 2013 | Times/CIR Special Report

URL: http://www.tampabay.com/topics/specials/worst-charities3.page

Cheater nation: 'The world is going to hell'

But no, it's not going to hell for the reasons people usually cite, like gays getting married, abortion, or Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.  

We know America is going to hell because one eccentric researcher has been keeping track, and counting all the little ways in which we all cheat and steal, from disregarding the 10-item limit in the express checkout lane to rolling through stop signs to taking candles at church without paying.  And we're getting worse, demonstrably so.

He is business professor John Trinkaus and you can find some of his work here.

I have a few ideas about why America is becoming a nation of cheaters and scammers.  I doubt it has to do with our turning away from worshiping God, as many conservatives complain.  Nay, I think it has to do with our increasing worship of wealth and success (often by those very same values-preaching conservatives), and our culture's contempt for "losers."  The absolute worst thing in America is to be labelled a loser.  (But logically, how could everybody possibly be a winner?)  

Meanwhile, how you win isn't important, nobody seems to care, it's only the outcome that matters.  And if cheating is OK when it comes to the big things, then it's doubly permissible when it comes to the small things.  Hence Prof. Trinkaus's noticing our increasingly frequent fibs, fudges and infractions.

Learning From the Things That Annoy Us

By Flora Lichtman

October 19, 2012 | NPR

URL: http://n.pr/T35GC3