Frankly, I see it the other way around. America is the most giving country on the face of the earth and gives away countless millions upon billions in both taxes and charitable contributions to faces they never see and problems they never hear about. Always, someone has a hand out and America is there to put something of value in it: food, clothes, money, toys for kids, education (such as it is), a job... MONEY...
Do Americans receive ANY thanks for their trouble. You might get a homeless man to thank you for the dollar, but the vast majority think it's their entitlement and wonder in astonishment why there isn't any more. America poured it's heart out to the victims of 9/11 and what have you heard in the wake of all that charitable giving? Squabbling over the MILLIONS being given to each family and the hands out EXPECTING more. ANd lawyers to back them up!
I'll tell you, there is one precious-yet-renewable resource that is being burned away faster than it can be restored: a kind and charitable heart.
Sodom and Gomorrah may have fallen because the hearts of it's wealthy were hard, but America may yet fall because the hearts of her "poor" were even harder. They have milk and honey running out their mouths and have the audacity to complain that their bellies hurt because they aren't full enough.
Because the cry of [the victims of] Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous (18:20)This sounds way too familiar...In Sodom it was decreed: "Whoever hands a piece of bread to a pauper or stranger shall be burned at stake" Plotit the daughter of Lot was married to one of the leading citizens of Sodom. One day, she saw a pauper starving in the street, and her soul was saddened over him. What did she do? Every day, when she went to draw water from the well, she would place from all the foods of her home in her pitcher and feed the pauper. But the people of Sodom wondered, "This pauper, how is he surviving?" until the matter became known and she was taken out to be burned, and her cries rose to the Divine Throne. (Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 25)
Our Rabbis taught: The men of Sodom were corrupted only on account of the good which G-d had lavished upon them... They said: Since there comes forth bread out of our earth, and it has the dust of gold, why should we suffer wayfarers, who come to us only to deplete our wealth? Come, let us abolish the practice of lodging travelers in our land...
If a person had rows of bricks the Sodomites came and each took one brick, saying, I have taken only one. If a person spread out garlic or onions to dry, each one came and took one, saying, I have taken only one.
There were four judges in Sodom: Shakrai, Shakurai, Zayyafi, and Mazle Dina. If a man assaulted his neighbor's wife and caused her to miscarry, they would say to the husband, Give her to him, that he make her pregnant for you. If one cut off the ear of his neighbor's ass, they would order, Give it to him until it grows again. If one wounded his neighbor they would say to the victim, Give him a fee for bleeding you.
They had beds upon which travelers slept. If the guest was too long, they shortened him; if too short, they stretched him out.
If a poor man happened to come there, every resident gave him a dinar, upon which he wrote his name, but no bread was sold to him. When he died, each came and took back his dinar.
A certain maiden gave some bread to a poor man, hiding it in a pitcher. When the matter becoming known, they daubed her with honey and placed her on the parapet of the wall, and the bees came and consumed her. Thus it is written: "And G-d said,: 'The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, because it is great.'" (Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b-109a) Parsha In Depth Content
But is it, really? Is it not like the parent who wants their kid out of his hair, so he gives the kid $20 and tells him to go do something with it? Is that parent being 'charitable', or merely lazy?
Now look at the allegations of fraud and mismanagement in many of these large charitible NGOs like the Red Cross and the United Way.
But hey, those guys blindly throwing money to these big charities can say proudly that they Gave, and are Good People, and are Charitible. And the parent can say he's a Good Parent because he spends money on his child.
Tuor