Ebenezer Scrooge was a liberal

Taken from Monday’s edition of the David Boze Show on KTTH.

Throughout time people have pointed to Scrooge and said he’s the conservative, but by the end of “A Christmas Carol” he’s found the error of his ways, and is more liberal. After all, he’s like these Republican businessmen. He’s super rich. He’s greedy.

But an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily points out that Scrooge resembles a modern liberal far more than he’s ever resembled a modern conservative.

Scrooge says, “Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation? The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor?” He goes on to say, “I help to support the establishments I have mentioned – they cost enough. And those who are badly off must go there.”

Writer John Merline points out that you can roughly translate it to, ‘I pay taxes for the welfare state, therefore I don’t have to give to charity.’

Arthur Brooks, Seattle author and economist, has found that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charities than households headed by liberals, while another study found even poor conservatives donate more than rich liberals.

So when Scrooge doesn’t want to be charitable at all and give money, he’s acting like a liberal.

But the not giving to charity isn’t the only thing that makes Scrooge a liberal, according to Merline.

A cold and heartless Scrooge said it might be better for the poor who are unwilling to go on welfare to go on and die, “and decrease the surplus population.”

But overpopulation is a fixation of the left – not the right.

“Al Gore, for example, once urged making ‘fertility management ubiquitously available’ to fight the scourge of carbon-producing people,” writes Merline.

Scrooge wasn’t a religious man, either. He had faith in his dollars.

Then, after he has this conversion, he falls on his knees to pray and goes to church.

But according to a 2012 study, religious individuals tend to be more conservative. Yet another study found that religious conservatives outnumber religious liberals four to one.

Even Scrooge’s happiness, or lack of, plays into his liberalness. We use the term “Scrooge” or Scrooge-like to point to people that are unhappy. Pew research found that conservatives were more likely to say they were “very happy” than liberals. “This ‘happiness gap’ has existed since 1972,” writes Merline.

Oh wait! There is more.

He was single and childless, and that puts him on the left, too. Arthur Brooks noted that 53 percent of conservatives are married, versus 33 percent of liberals. Conservatives also tend to have more children than liberals.

Merline concludes with this:

Finally, lest you think Scrooge was intolerant — the one sin the left still abhors — consider how he instructs his nephew on the virtues of tolerance.

“Keep Christmas in your own way,” he tells Fred, “and let me keep it in mine.”

So the next time somebody points to Scrooge and says, “Hey, it’s such a great story about being liberal.” say, “Not so fast!”

Ebenezer Scrooge was a liberal to start and he becomes conservative, and that’s what saves the day. It’s a good lesson for all the good little girls and boys out there, just in time for Christmas.

If you don’t want to be a Scrooge, simply convert to conservatism.

Taken from Monday’s edition of the David Boze Show on KTTH.

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