I have my favourite charities. Most aren't regular organisations but rather private peoplle I know in my neighbourhood. We grow a graden and sometimes have an excess of vegetables. There are some elderly and disabled people who appreciate our gifts of food. I can and freeze some items and usually share those with a couple of elderly ladies. I also like to donate to a couple of organised groups such as Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts as it seems an investment in preventing crime.

Many years ago I saw statistics on the number of people who who had spent a year or more in Scouting. The contrast with the general population was striking. I view it as prevention of crime and a gift that indirectly benefits my family.
I prefer giving privately to having govaernment select recipients for my donations. I somehow believe that dollar for dollar, my personal donations are far more effective than government programs.I see the results locally.

This is like when people at work keep telling us we are "just lucky to have a job." NO! I have become well educated and prospered in my duties. I'm not lucky, I'm smart, resilient and gosh darn it, people like me.

I guess I could be considered "less fortunate" as I'm at retirement age and I still have to work.

I got my fill of all the public giving a couple of years ago. I was watching TV and the distribution place at City Hall East was being featured. I saw a family come out with a boatload of stuff and get into a great big, late model SUV. Sure did plink my strings the wrong way.

Now I find a needy family through a church and provide the whole darned Christmas for them...from soup to turkey to presents for the kids and mom and dad (if there is a dad).

I wonder how many non-Christian families take advantage of this generosity?

I'm 63. Outside of my family NO ONE has ever given me a darn thing in my life...I never saw anyone helping me on a Saturday night at the office trying to work through problems so we could solve the next system issue..

We GIVE TO...not BACK. Kids, the mentally ill, the physically ill....to all the folks that do drugs or alcohol and make stupid life choices...It will be a cold day in hell before you get my money....

I absolutely agree with Neal that the concept of "giving back" is just another PC-step in the Socialist plan for America. I just want to scream when I hear people mouth that particular platitude. giving back implies that I took it from these people in the first place - which I did not. I EARNED what I have, and if I CHOOSE to contribute something to charity, it is a CHOICE on my part, not a requirement to return something that doesn't belong to me in the first place. This "giving back" crap is right out of the Karl Marx playbook: "From each according to his ability to each according to his need."

And as for the "less fortunate." Again, life is about choices. And all of the posters who claim that they were "lucky" enough to be born into a two-parent family who worked hard and made responsible choices instead of being born to a crack whore, I say MAYBE, just maybe, look at it from the standpoint NOT that you were lucky, but that you were the product of two hard-working, responsible people. Give your parents some credit here! THEY may be the reason you learned to work hard and make responsible choices - NOT that you were lucky. Believe it or not, the lesson that some children learn from being born to a crack whore is NOT to make the same mistakes. Let me do the OPPOSITE of what my mother did, and maybe I'll get a different result. Not all children born to the poor are destined to remain poor for the rest of their lives. But if they choose to follow the same path in life, and if the leaders they listen to continue to pound them with the message that they are victims and their poverty is not their fault and they need to turn to the GOVERNMENT to help them because they are incapable of rising above their meager beginnings, I can GUARANTEE they will continue to be poor.

I was born to two hard-working, responsible parents. I am also one of five children. I decided to follow my parents' path and made similar decisions in my life. Not all of my siblings did so. I live a comfortable life, and look forward to a comfortable retirement. The siblings who made different choices, are living a different result. No luck involved here. Same parent, same education, same "advantages," same upbringing, different CHOICES.

"By what rational measure does a successful person in a free market, who has made good on all his debts and obligations in the traditional sense, owe something further to a nebulous entity called society?"

http://tinyurl.com/qxg8xm

Being poor does not mean you are stupid. However, more controversially-being stupid is like to MAKE you poor.

While I understand the Christian ideal of “giving back,” most of the people who make public appeals to “give back” sound more like they are espousing the socialist idea that the wealth one has gotten was gained by “taking” something from the poor. It irks me that there are some people so stupid that they believe the Communist idea that the economy is a zero-sum game (i.e. for me to gain something, someone else must lose it.)

The idea of luck playing a part is true only in a small part. I have known people who were born in upper middle class families, who were given all the educational and developmental opportunities possible, who still wound up dead in their early 20’s because of bad decision making. I have also known people who were born in very poor backgrounds who hustled their tails off to get an education and are now very successful business people. In both cases, it is the strengths and weaknesses of the individual’s character that created the outcome. Of course I have also known people born into the upper middle class who coasted through school, only really got hired because of family connections, and muddle through life pretty well; whereas a person from the lower classes with the same attitude and work ethic would never get ahead. As has been pointed out by numerous self-help gurus, attitude is a personal choice, and perhaps the most important choice an individual can make by far.

So, while I give to my church and charities, I do not “give back” to my community, and resent the implications of those using the phrase.

Neal, you're the one sounding PC here. Obsessing over a few widely used choice of words. Swallow your pride and follow through with your concluding thought. It's a time for giving.

It is Chanukah season!!!!

While I can feel the pain of innocent children going without presents, I am not certain that most instances are not because of the selfishness of the parents who expect others to cover the expense.
I remember a woman who refused to pay her December rent and expected the landlord to morally agree that the kids Christmas was more important than the landlords right to his rent money. Also, I recently overheard a conversation at work relating to the poor registering to receive Christmas gifts for their children. The conversation was along the lines of, "They're giving away free stuff there. You need to go and get yours too! It doesn't matter what your income is...just that you are(ethnicity inserted)!" These were people making decent incomes and they wanted "their" share of the offerings of decent people contributing charitably.

Yep! Moochers everywhere.

True, much of what you achieve in life is due to your decision making or smart choices. Staying in school, being wise with your finances, or making smart business decisions has a huge impact.

But being fortunate is what gets many people into the "rich" status. If you happen to be born with talent (and get discovered) in football instead of say waterpolo a lot more doors will open in America for you. If you are fortunate enough to make it to CEO level in a large Wall Street bank today, instead of say 30 years ago you will reap far larger rewards. If you are lucky enough to make it as a big talk show host instead of, say a game show host, life will be fairer to you.
If you open a restaurant that takes off, while the equally good restaurant down the street goes nowhere also has an element of luck.
If you happen to be skilled in a trade that got outsourced to India or China due to this "global economy" you find yourself in the less fortunate category. But in that case you can retrain. So yes smart choices are important, but luck (or misfortune) also plays a role in many cases.

Now let's see how many people will blast me for actually claiming that success and failure is not 100% based on one's choices.

Many years ago, a caller to radio talk show pioneer Bruce Williams was discussing air travel. Bruce Williams mentioned that he usually travels first class. The caller said to Mr. Williams, "Oh, Bruce, you're so lucky". Mr. Williams, clearly offput by the assertion that he was "lucky" responded in his deep avuncular tone, "Well, it's not so much that I have been lucky, I'd say that I have been FORTUNATE".

If someone says you are "fortunate", they are NOT mean that you are lucky . . it merely means that you have acquired fortune, which can be monetary, material, or emotional or some combination thereof. In some cases, there may have been some luck involved along the way, but that is not a given.

I suppose I would say that I am fortunate, but I am not so full of myself that I forget to realize that there has indeed be some luck involved:
1. I was lucky to be born to two parents who valued education and lived their lives in a responsible fashion that set a good example for me.
2. I was lucky to be born to a middle class family that could provide me with everything that that entails: a comfortable home in a safe neighborhood, enough to eat, etc.
3. There was *some* luck involved that a company took a chance on hiring me when I was a newly minted college graduate.
4. And, stepping back even further, I was lucky to have been born into a developed country . . . thank goodness I was not born into some theocracy or a dirt poor country where every day is a fight for survival.

Neal, to whom do you give thanks on Thanksgiving?

Please, Neal, let's have no more of this "Less fortunate".
The term should read "less MOTIVATED". Not PC, I know, but it fits in every instance you can name. It's actually the perfect replacement phrase, don't you agree?