OT - comic relief on lib/con conflict

Liberals warp any thought to fit their emotions, no matter how stupid or impractical. Conservatives warp any feeling to fit their thoughts, no matter how selfish or mean.

Liberals believe in meeting their needs, screw other people's private property. Conservatives believe in their private property, screw other people's needs.

Liberals believe that people's situations and histories are so compelling they are victims and can't control their behavior or financial fate. Conservatives believe that individuals have free will and must be held accountable for their behavior and deserve their financial fates.

Liberals believe in more government intervention financially, but less morally. Conservatives believe in less government intervention financially, but more morally. Populists believe in more government intervention financially, and more morally. Libertarians believe in less government intervention financially, and less morally.

The more educated a man is, the more likely he is a conservative. The more educated a woman is, the more likely she is a liberal.

Liberals want more gun control, conservatives want less, so beat the liberals with a stick and let them burn in Hell.

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 13:13:16 GMT, "Ed Huntress" shouted from the rooftop:

I'm sure it's funny, but I won't be reading it thanks to the NYT's 'subscribe' front page. Why should I give out any info just to read an article?

Oh, well.

-Carl "An honest man doesn't need a long memory"- Jesse Ventura

That's the price of a free newspaper, Carl. I don't like giving out info either, but that's the way it is. The Washington Post is dabbling with the same thing right now, somewhat unevenly requesting the same info.

For _The Economist_, I had to give out the same info...plus $120/year. For the Wall Street Journal, the same info...plus $72/year.

I prefer giving the info without the money.

Oh, you could do what I do with the Post. They think I'm a 72-year old woman who lives in Darby, PA. It's fun, it's easy, and it strikes a blow for privacy.

Ed Huntress

Really? What are you wearing?

Peter

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 03:25:47 GMT, "Ed Huntress" shouted from the rooftop:

Oh- I forgot about that. My 16 year old daughter does that kind of false-flag stuff for 'teen' sites. Someone other than her is getting a boatload of spam . Me, I prefer screwing around with telemarketers (I do a great John Belushi Samuri). With the new laws, I kind of miss those dinner hour calls...

(Brief intermission)

OK, I registered (and probably gave the NYT tracking computer a headache, using conflicting choices from the various drop-down menus) and it was worth it. Good article.

And if anyone from the Times asks, I really was born in 1902.

-Carl "An honest man doesn't need a long memory"- Jesse Ventura

Haha! Ya' don't know what ya' got 'till it's gone...

You may get a call telling you that you're the Times' oldest subscriber.

Ed Huntress

Nothing at all. I thought I'd give them a thrill.

Ed Huntress

I believe 'statistics show' he is actuall more likely to be a liberal

Dale

atheists that will destroy the society. It is Darwinian.

>

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 10:46:18 GMT, "Ed Huntress" shouted from the rooftop:

Nah- I put down Gunner's phone number (BR549) .

-Carl "An honest man doesn't need a long memory"- Jesse Ventura

The higher the IQ, the higher the income and the higher the education, the more likely a man witll be a conservative an America.

Women are not so predictable. Where I got that was from a Michael Medved broadcast

The higher the IQ, the higher the income and the higher the education, the more likely a man witll be a conservative an America.

Women are not so predictable. Where I got that was from a Michael Medved broadcast

Cites? By the typos in your post above...hummmmmm

Gunner

"rm -rf /bin/laden

Bush = Root"

Okay, here's a cite (one of many):

For those of you who have been listening to talk radio long enough to incur significant mental impairment, there are 4 main political ideologies in the U.S., not two, that were used in the above study:

The liberal supports government economic intervention and the expansion of individual liberties;

The conservative opposes both.

The libertarian supports expanded individual liberties but opposes economic intervention.

The populist supports economic intervention but opposes expansion of individual liberties

Since I doubt any of you so-called conservatives will bother to read it, here is an excerpt. It is interesting to me to note that education makes little difference in determining conservatism, but a strong correlation exists between education level and populism vs. libertarianism, with the highly educated person more likely to be libertarian.

"Education: As can be seen from table 2, education relates strongly to ideological type. The most obvious relationship is the predominance of the populist category among those with grade-school and high-school education, and the relatively small percentage of populists beyond high school.

Conservatives are drawn about equally from each of the educational groups, while the proportions of liberals and libertarians increase quite significantly with higher levels of education. For those with college and advanced degrees, these two types represent about half the group."

Income is also a major player:

"Income: Predictably there is a strong relationship between income and ideological type. The populist category virtually preempts the other ideologies in the lowest income category and is barely found in the highest income group. Part of this tendency may be explained by the dominance of populism among nonwhites, who also make up much of the lower income categories. The libertarian category is the largest for the two highest income groups, representing 33 percent of those with an income of $35,000 and over. Distinctions that might be overlooked or obscured with a liberal-conservative continuum are obvious in this table. For example, the high proportion of libertarians among the wealthy may in part explain the "inversion" of the class base of liberalism and conservatism analyzed by Ladd and Hadley (1978). Many of the issues that Ladd and Hadley use to indicate that upper income strata are becoming more liberal are in fact issues of individual liberty -- abortion, marijuana, and sexual relationships."

Later,

Bob

As I posted three days ago above, I prefer to think of it as:

1) Do you favor more government intervention financially? 2) Do you favor more government intervention morally?

Listed in order of popularity:

1) Conservative, no, yes 2) Libertarian, no, no 3) Populist, yes, yes 4) Liberal, yes, no

Or so a lady on C span said 10 years ago.

>

Your selected quotes seem a bit at odds with your contention that an educated person is more likely to be liberal: If liberals and libertarians make up "about half" of the educated group, and populists represent a "relatively small percentage," that leaves a fairly healthy chunk of the pie for conservatives. Finding this a little surprising, I looked at the study. IMO, you would have made a more convincing case by citing the numbers rather than the prose. (The missing piece of the prose puzzle is the percentage of people who don't fit any of the four defined categories.)

Here are the numbers (best viewed with fixed pitch font):

a b c d e Education Level: Grade School 43 15 7 3 9 High School 27 19 13 11 20 Some College 12 18 23 19 23 College Degree 8 17 30 20 20 Advanced Degree 8 17 26 33 13

a= populist b= conservative c= liberal d= libertarian e= undetermined (beliefs not consistent with any of the above categories)

What strikes me as surprising is how consistent the percentage of conservatives is across the entire range of education levels. The inversion between liberals and libertarians when going from college degree to advanced degree is also intriguing.

If the numbers are reorganized based on the two underlying categories (economic intervention and personal liberty), the results are a little more revealing (IMO):

a b c d Education Level: Grade School 50 18 10 58 High School 40 30 24 46 Some College 35 37 42 30 College Degree 38 37 50 25 Advanced Degree 34 50 59 25

a= supports economic intervention b= opposes economic intervention c= supports individual liberties d= opposes individual liberties

So there is a very strong movement toward support of individual liberty as education increases, and a somewhat less strong movement away from support of economic intervention.

A question for the group: Do the undereducated oppose liberty because they're apprehensive about having freedom themselves (i.e., do they feel the need for law-based guidance and structure in their own lives), or is it because they're apprehensive about others having more freedom (i.e., do they wish to avoid having to deal with a wider range of behaviors from others)? Does religion play a role? Are the undereducated more likely to be influenced by religion? Do they perhaps feel constrained in their behaviors by religious dictates and don't want others (who might not be as religious) to be allowed to do things that they can't? Talk amongst yourselves...

Bert

Bert,

I think you and I have pretty much the same take on the data, my main point was that there appeared to be little or no correlation between conservatism and education, and that the ideologies most effected were populism and libertarianism, with liberalism falling somewhere in between. Good questions, too...

Bob

The data you guys are discussing come from a survey performed in 1976. Among other things, keep in mind that the Libertarian Party was formed just four years prior to that, in 1972. Libertarianism was still a gestating idea.

More importantly, it's necessary to look at the methodology to understand what a survey is about. A red flag should go up when you see a generalized and abstract phrase such as "individual liberties," for example.

In fact, the questions they lumped together to measure this factor were as follows (as they state in the paper linked to above): "Factor II, individual liberties, is represented by legalization of marijuana (.54), abortion (.43), and equal role for women (.33)."

It should be self-evident that this question will produce the opposite of what the term "individual liberties" mean to many people, particularly those of a conservative bent. Favoring abortion, for example, is not high on their list of evidences that one favors individual liberties in general.

What can be said, looking at Bert's re-sorting of the data analysis, is that more-educated people in the mid-1970s favored abortion rights, legalization of marijuana, and an equal social role for women. That's about all you can say about the "individual liberties" scale.

It's an interesting historical snapshot of a different time in American history, when a different set of values defined ideological postures.

I agree with Ed. This is a more recent pole:

Do you know if that was a telephone pole, by any chance?

John Martin