When do I spray the fruit trees?

[subtle]

Gratuitous grandious generalization

It's my sense that liberal propoganda is rampant in higher education and that it takes independent thinking and analysis to overcome it.

And yet you present no evidence for your opposite claims.

Statistically, you're more likely to be a Republican and/or conservative if you're:

a.. a man b.. a college graduate c.. in the top income bracket d.. an evangelical Christian e.. living in a rural area f.. a Thinker-Sensor Statistically, you're more likely to be a Democrat and/or liberal if you're:

a.. a woman b.. a senior citizen c.. gay d.. nonwhite e.. living in an urban area f.. a Feeler-Intuitor Here are the references used for the list above and other resources for further reading on this subject.

The Harris Poll: Party Affiliation Results of year 2000 survey of 13,000 adults.

2000 Exit Polling Demographic data from exit polling during the 2000 elections.

Republican Voting Trends Regression analysis.

U.S. Demographics Major demographic groupings in the United States.

Party Negativity or Neutrality? Research paper analyzes long-term trends in party alignment.

An Alternative Analysis of Mass Belief Systems: Liberal, Conservative, Populist, and Libertarian Policy analysis from the Cato Institute.

The Party of the Rich? Commentary from Dean Esmay.

Preserve, Protect, Defend Commentary from Michael Spencer: "Republicans seek to preserve what is essential about American life, while Democrats seek to replace what is essential with their own liberal brand of tyranny. There are many, many other differences, but this is the persuasive one."

Communication Styles and the Florida Ballot Flap Scott Hogenson links politics and the Myers-Briggs analysis of personality and communication styles.

The Gender Gap's Back Two factors explain almost all of the gender gap in presidential politics.

[gregpresley]

People throw a lot of statistics around to make their point. Here is a breakdown by the National Review (a very conservative publication) of the voters in the 2000 election:

I have put the words from the National Review article in quotation marks to distinguish them from my comments, and to show their take on the statistics they gathered.

"The voters who graduated from college went better (51) for the GOP than for the Democrats (45) -3 went to Nader."

We'll have to add Nader's voters to the Democrats as liberal, so apparently

48+% of college graduates are liberals - not exactly a knockout for those conservatives who want to prove that most people with higher-education are conservative.

"What irritates is that those who go on to postgraduate education head out in the wrong direction (52-44)." (Meaning that they voted for Gore, not Bush.) Whoops - this seems to directly contradict what the poster below implies about education and political philosophy. Apparently, the MORE educated you are, the more likely you are to have a liberal political philosophy.

"because voters who didn't even graduate from high school are stoutly (59-39)Democratic." This would support the view that the Democratic party has traditionally been supportive of laborers and minorities, who, as a rule, have attained fewer years of higher education.

"When you reach incomes over $50,000, the Republicans are strong (52), but not overwhelming. And that margin of 52 climbs a mere two points for voters who make over $100,000. Forty-three percent of the very affluent voted Democratic, which raises the question: If you're so rich, why aren't you smart?"

Makes one wonder who's defining "smart" and what the criteria are for making that determination...... It also makes one wonder if we should identify those VERY AFFLUENT Democrats (43% of the VERY AFFLUENT voting block) with the statement that "liberalism is a refuge for those living in envy of the accomplishments of others". I wouldn't say that the case is ironclad, would you?

[garden guy]

Sure it isn't an overwhelming statistic, and the original claim against liberalism is a sweeping generalization, but to completely discount it might be as bad.

The more important question is "What works?". It may be interesting to argue why certain groups believe one set of ideals over another, or vote one party into office; but has a nation ever taxed itself into prosperity?

...or to break it down.

Corruption in politics:

Should we eliminate special rights and privileges for elected or appointed government officials?

Should we revise any law or regulation that exempts the government or its officials from compliance?

Should we end government funding of any political party or candidate?

Should we revise state and federal laws to enable all candidates for elective office to be included on election ballots?

Crime:

Should we respect the victim's rights and make criminals pay full restitution?

Should we hold all criminals responsible for their actions.?

Should we double the police resources available for crime prevention without any additional government spending?

Should we reduce the number of criminals at large on our streets?

Should we defend the most effective crime deterrent available, the private ownership of guns.?

Should we create jobs, end welfare dependence, and improve education?

Unemployment:

Should we stop taking money consumers and businesses would otherwise use to purchase goods and services?

Should we stop taking money individuals and companies would otherwise use for investment?

Should we stop subsidizing foreign governments, foreign businesses, and foreign citizens?

Should we stop financing our massive budget deficit with borrowed money that otherwise could be used for business expansion and job creation?

Should we stop smothering workers, business people, and investors with endless regulations and bloated bureaucracy?

Should we stop restricting commerce and trade?

Education:

Should we support a true market in education -- one in which parents and students would not be stuck with a bad local school, because they could choose another?

Should we implement measures such as tax credits so that parents will have the financial ability to choose among schools?

Should we provide financial incentives for businesses to help fund schools and for individuals to support students other than their own children?

Should we eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, which spends billions on education and educates no one?

Health care and costs:

Should we establish medical savings accounts, strengthening the role of the individual health care consumer?

Should all health care expenditures should be 100% tax deductible?

Should we deregulate the health care industry? ...eliminating mandated benefits, repealing Certificate-of-Need program, and expanding the scope of practice for non-physician health professionals.

Should we replace the FDA?

Should we privatize Medicare and Medicaid?

I better knock it off. Time for work.

PS: Liberals tend to be top posters.

[escapee]

Not true. I'm a liberal, have an Expedition, a big expensive house, big pool and I don't have to work. Next.

[dr-solo]

I dont believe in giving people handouts. The majority of people on welfare are children. I want them to get everything they need to grow up to be people with good jobs. Poor nutrition early in life damages IQ, poor health care leads to chronic illness, poor schooling leads to unemployability. Poor PARENTING leads to a lack of discipline which leads to a life of chaos, so I dont believe in "welfare" to parents and children without quality control. I got a whole program in mind for putting women on welfare to work ... train them to be child care workers in child care facilities attached to grade schools as a start. The work, they get schooling, their kids benefit, other working women get cheap, good, safe child care. The majority of women on welfare are white and live in towns and rural areas. the average "time" on welfare is about 2 years. the average number of children is

2-3. most if not all of them are on welfare cause the fathers arent supporting their children. There are people who simply cannot work. Most of them are mentally ill and as a scientist with a genetics minor I will say that the literature indicates most of it is genetic and/or genetic predisposition, not their fault and most cannot yet be controlled with medications. I foresee they will be in the future and if diagnosed early enough and treated early enough all those people will be functional.

most of our tax m>so don't subsidize it and take away their will to pursue their own bounty in

If the income tax were eliminated we would

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[dr-solo]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List

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[dr-solo]

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[Salty Thumb]

"subtle" wrote in news:4Rmec.12947779$ [e-mail]:

Not a gratuitous but perhaps a grandiose generalization, yet certainly one more thoroughly grounded in reality than your friend's (or was it your own?) assertion. (Omitting references to reality being a unnecessary and misleading generalization of my generalization.)

Take the set of people with over 6 figure earnings as photographed in the March 14, 2004 Parade Magazine:

WM Donald Trump, Real estate mogul, $100 mil WM Rush Limbaugh, Radio host, $32 mil WF Judy Sheindlin, TV Judge, $25 mil BF Halle Berry, Actress, $15 mil BM Kobe Bryant, Pro Basketball player, $13.5 mil WF Marilyn Monroe, screen legend, $8 mil > truly representative of reality, being true only in specific senses

Propaganda or open discussion? In "higher education", ideas are supposedly open to challenge, unlike in one sided presentations provided by perspective "news" programs, decrees from the government, or views distilled by religious or other special interest organizations. It's a wonder that liberal views are even given any credence in higher education if you claim that the majority of college educated persons are or turn conservative. In fact it is tactically unsound to target a comparatively minor population of supposedly free thinking persons when supposedly in a democracy, the power is wielded by the general populace, and it would be far more effective to generate "mob" support by inflaming popular opinion through mass media, which is what conservatives have traditionally done, and as you can see from the radio station announcement, liberals, for better or worse are jumping on the bandwagon.

I thought I'd give the person I'm responding to a chance to respond first. But if you insist are the any particular claims your are interested in that I haven't already answered in this reply?

That's all very well and not especially relevant.

In fact your example shows another point I made, that your generalizations appear plausible, but upon inspection aren't truly representative of reality, being true only in specific senses.

The chart certainly doesn't show that one's conservative (or non-liberal) affinity increases as one's education level increases. It does show that there were more conservatives with college degrees than liberals with college degrees. It does not show that getting a higher degree increases the likelihood of turning or being a conservative, as, assuming a representative sample space, the data is severely biased towards undergraduate degrees. You might as well say that conservative affinity isn't a result of going to college, but a result of being wealthy and being able to pay for college.

The relation to the claim is so tenuous, I wonder if you wrote it and the following bibliography yourself, or if it's part of some "standard" reply that you get at Republican camp.

I'd like to know what exactly you in particular consider essential about American life.

Other than citing sources, is there any specific point you'd like to make?

[April]

Can you cite a source for this? Of course not.

[escapee]

Well, let's see...this year alone 125 billion with a b dollars will be spent on Iraq. That's enough money to buy everyone in the nation all their prescription drugs, or feed everyone and give them all a check up and dental exam. But, we are busy nation building in a nation which hates us. Do I really have to cite this?

[garden guy]

not that this is an important point or anything....but arguing from the one to the many doesn't hold up since he used the word likely.

[zhanataya]

Good Grief. Pass the Scotch.

[dr-solo]

thought I had included at least the first link. Ingrid

April wrote:

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[B & J]

You must be a teacher, Gardenguy, because you certainly know everything that's wrong with public education. It would certainly help if more conservatives became teachers and brought their insights into improving public education from the front line, particularly considering all the money lavished by the public on teacher salaries. You must be smiling as you take your pay check to the bank and plan your early retirement. It certainly would help if conservatives funded scholarship for conservative students interested in reforming public education. I'm sure conservatives would receive far more applicants for these educational scholarship candidates than they could fund.

I have to disagree with you about the U.S. Department of Education. I definitely think the U.S. Department of Education is doing it's job because their head did call the NEA, your union, an agent of terrorism. What observation could be more profound? You must have missed that speech at the Republican Governors' Convention.

You also missed mentioning vouchers for private academies. Why shouldn't parents be able to take the education dollars spent on their children in public schools and spend this money on schools where funds aren't wasted on special education and special need students? Private schools can spend all their money on education and not have to waste it on these high cost students whom they aren't required to admit. Private academies can also expel troublemakers, which improves the learning environment. After all, the purpose of education is to educate, not baby-sit.

You really did inform everyone about the best of the conservative agenda for education. Thanks for your insight.

John

[John Gotts]

What really matters is the correlation of IQ to political affiliation. Degrees may prove intelligence, but in many cases it only proves that your parents were wealthy enough to buy them for you.

No kidding conservatives are better educated. Degrees are expensive. Intelligence is innate.

[escapee]

I understand he said "likely," but in the city where we live, 67% of the population has been to higher education, and 24% of graduates, attended graduate school and up. This, for the most part, a very liberal town. Our president is a big dumbo. He is declared to be a Harvard Business School graduate, but has failed in every business he operated. Including, IMO, our great nation. He came in when we were in the black, now we are in more debt than ever in the history of the nation.

[escapee]

My mother attended college at the age of 54 and paid for it, had a 4.0, was nominated Valedictorian and graduated, graduate school as Summa Cum Laude. (I may not have spelled things correctly.)

So, she is vastly a liberal, lives in New York, owns a home ON the water, and her back deck overhangs a wildlife preserve estuary where ospreys nest. She has money to spare and still works at the age of 70, full time. Her IQ is somewhere in the 150s, and she would vote for President Clinton again in a heartbeat, should he ever run again. As would I.

[Janet Baraclough..]

Ingrid, would you just clarify for furrin readers what Americans mean by undergraduate education and grad school? Thanks

Janet

[dr-solo]

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[Ann]

escapee expounded:

And Kerry has done _what_ successfully? Besides marrying rich women? By the way, don't forget he's my state's Junior Senator. I am a Republican, but I know what Ted Kennedy has done over time; he has quite a list of accomplishments, people he's helped, bills he's passed, projects he's got done for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. John Effin Kerry hasn't done a damned thing. No, I'm not happy with Bush, I'm definitely unhappy with Kerry. There isn't anyone running worth voting for.