tagged w/ Conservatives
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Stanford—In Makers and Takers, a new volume by Peter Schweizer, a Hoover Institution research fellow, you will discover why
* Seventy-one percent of conservatives say you have an obligation to care for a seriously injured spouse or parent versus less than half (46 percent) of liberals
* Conservatives have a better work ethic and are much less likely to call in sick than their liberal counterparts
* Liberals are two and a half times more likely to be resentful of others’ success and 50 percent more likely to be jealous of other people’s good luck
* Liberals are two times more likely to say it is ok to cheat the government out of welfare money you don’t deserve
* Conservatives are more likely than liberals to hug their children and “significantly more likely” to display positive nurturing emotions
* Liberals are less trusting of family members and much less likely to stay in touch with their parents
* Do you get satisfaction from putting someone else’s happiness ahead of your own? Fifty-five percent of conservatives said yes versus only 20 percent of liberals.
According to Schweizer, the American left prides itself on being superior to conservatives: more generous, less materialistic, more tolerant, more intellectual, and more selfless. For years scholars have constructed—and the media have pushed—elaborate theories designed to demonstrate that conservatives suffer from a host of personality defects and character flaws. According to these supposedly unbiased studies, conservatives are mean-spirited, greedy, selfish malcontents with authoritarian tendencies.
Schweizer has dug deep—through tax documents, scholarly data, primary opinion research surveys, and private records—and discovered that these claims are a myth. Indeed, he shows that many of these claims actually apply more to liberals than conservatives. Schweizer argues that the failure lies in modern liberal ideas, which foster a self-centered, “if it feels, good do it” attitude that leads liberals to outsource their responsibilities to the government and focus instead on themselves and their own desires.
Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of numerous books, including the New York Times best seller Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy. He lives in Florida with his wife and sons.
http://www.hoover.org/news/press-releases/29254Stanford—In Makers and Takers, a new volume by Peter Schweizer, a Hoover... more
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Those who were wondering how low the conservative movement could go need look no farther than the CPAC 2012 confab, which yesterday hosted a panel on “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity”Those who were wondering how low the conservative movement could go need look no... more
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There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.
The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.
"Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood," he said.
The findings combine three hot-button topics.
"They've pulled off the trifecta of controversial topics," said Brian Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not involved in the study. "When one selects intelligence, political ideology and racism and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables, it's bound to upset somebody."
Polling data and social and political science research do show that prejudice is more common in those who hold right-wing ideals that those of other political persuasions, Nosek told LiveScience. [7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You]
"The unique contribution here is trying to make some progress on the most challenging aspect of this," Nosek said, referring to the new study. "It's not that a relationship like that exists, but why it exists."
Brains and bias
Earlier studies have found links between low levels of education and higher levels of prejudice, Hodson said, so studying intelligence seemed a logical next step. The researchers turned to two studies of citizens in the United Kingdom, one that has followed babies since their births in March 1958, and another that did the same for babies born in April 1970. The children in the studies had their intelligence assessed at age 10 or 11; as adults ages 30 or 33, their levels of social conservatism and racism were measured. [Life's Extremes: Democrat vs. Republican]
In the first study, verbal and nonverbal intelligence was measured using tests that asked people to find similarities and differences between words, shapes and symbols. The second study measured cognitive abilities in four ways, including number recall, shape-drawing tasks, defining words and identifying patterns and similarities among words. Average IQ is set at 100.
Social conservatives were defined as people who agreed with a laundry list of statements such as "Family life suffers if mum is working full-time," and "Schools should teach children to obey authority." Attitudes toward other races were captured by measuring agreement with statements such as "I wouldn't mind working with people from other races." (These questions measured overt prejudiced attitudes, but most people, no matter how egalitarian, do hold unconscious racial biases; Hodson's work can't speak to this "underground" racism.)
As suspected, low intelligence in childhood corresponded with racism in adulthood. But the factor that explained the relationship between these two variables was political: When researchers included social conservatism in the analysis, those ideologies accounted for much of the link between brains and bias.
People with lower cognitive abilities also had less contact with people of other races.
"This finding is consistent with recent research demonstrating that intergroup contact is mentally challenging and cognitively draining, and consistent with findings that contact reduces prejudice," said Hodson, who along with his colleagues published these results online Jan. 5 in the journal Psychological Science.
A study of averages
Hodson was quick to note that the despite the link found between low intelligence and social conservatism, the researchers aren't implying that all liberals are brilliant and all conservatives stupid. The research is a study of averages over large groups, he said.
"There are multiple examples of very bright conservatives and not-so-bright liberals, and many examples of very principled conservatives and very intolerant liberals," Hodson said.
Nosek gave another example to illustrate the dangers of taking the findings too literally.
"We can say definitively men are taller than women on average," he said. "But you can't say if you take a random man and you take a random woman that the man is going to be taller. There's plenty of overlap."
Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world.
"Socially conservative ideologies tend to offer structure and order," Hodson said, explaining why these beliefs might draw those with low intelligence. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice."
In another study, this one in the United States, Hodson and Busseri compared 254 people with the same amount of education but different levels of ability in abstract reasoning. They found that what applies to racism may also apply to homophobia. People who were poorer at abstract reasoning were more likely to exhibit prejudice against gays. As in the U.K. citizens, a lack of contact with gays and more acceptance of right-wing authoritarianism explained the link. [5 Myths About Gay People Debunked]
Simple viewpoints
Hodson and Busseri's explanation of their findings is reasonable, Nosek said, but it is correlational. That means the researchers didn't conclusively prove that the low intelligence caused the later prejudice. To do that, you'd have to somehow randomly assign otherwise identical people to be smart or dumb, liberal or conservative. Those sorts of studies obviously aren't possible.
The researchers controlled for factors such as education and socioeconomic status, making their case stronger, Nosek said. But there are other possible explanations that fit the data. For example, Nosek said, a study of left-wing liberals with stereotypically naïve views like "every kid is a genius in his or her own way," might find that people who hold these attitudes are also less bright. In other words, it might not be a particular ideology that is linked to stupidity, but extremist views in general.
"My speculation is that it's not as simple as their model presents it," Nosek said. "I think that lower cognitive capacity can lead to multiple simple ways to represent the world, and one of those can be embodied in a right-wing ideology where 'People I don't know are threats' and 'The world is a dangerous place'. ... Another simple way would be to just assume everybody is wonderful."
Prejudice is of particular interest because understanding the roots of racism and bias could help eliminate them, Hodson said. For example, he said, many anti-prejudice programs encourage participants to see things from another group's point of view. That mental exercise may be too taxing for people of low IQ.
"There may be cognitive limits in the ability to take the perspective of others, particularly foreigners," Hodson said. "Much of the present research literature suggests that our prejudices are primarily emotional in origin rather than cognitive. These two pieces of information suggest that it might be particularly fruitful for researchers to consider strategies to change feelings toward outgroups," rather than thoughts.There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may... more
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By David Edwards
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said on Sunday that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s thumping of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in South Carolina Saturday showed that the Republican base was “revolting” against the party establishment.
During a round table discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd explained that Gingrich’s win was “about Mitt Romney.”
“He hasn’t made the sale to conservatives,” Todd observed. “And losing in South Carolina, he can’t dismiss it. This is the heart and soul of the conservative movement, the folks that show up at telephones, that knock on the doors — and he doesn’t have their support.”
“There’s no doubt about it,” Scarborough agreed. “The party base is revolting, but they are revolting against the Washington Republican establishment anointing Mitt Romney.”
“Just like Herman Cain was not about Herman Cain. It was a rejection of Mitt Romney. Rick Perry, a rejection of Mitt Romney. Michele Bachmann, a rejection of Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich wave one, a rejection of Mitt Romney. Now we have Newt Gingrich wave two, a rejection of Mitt Romney.”
Scarborough continued: “Mitt Romney could attack Newt for not being a conservative because Newt is not a conservative. Google it! We [Republicans] ran him out of Congress in 1998 because he sold us out on taxes, he sold us out on spending, he went to the floor and he sided with Democrats on his last speech, calling us the perfectionists caucus. He called us jihadists. He’s not a conservative, he’s an opportunist. But here is the problem: So is Mitt Romney.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/22/scarborough-gop-base-is-revolting-against-romney/
Watch this video from NBC’s Meet the Press, broadcast Jan. 22, 2012.
"They still don't have the Balls to say they do not support Mitt because he is Mormon!!!"By David Edwards
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough... more
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Then, from bad logic he shifts to chicanery, as my research failed to establish where “Carl Sagan (among others) thought that the answer is to be found, tragically, in the final variable: the high probability that advanced civilizations destroy themselves.” Would Sagan the evidence-driven scientist make such specific predictions about absent civilizations about which no one knows anything?Then, from bad logic he shifts to chicanery, as my research failed to establish where... more
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The scene in the caucus looked like an outtake from a Ma and Pa Kettle movie. I lived in Ames proper and spent all my time either on campus or at the club where I DJed, so I had never seen the local white trashery in all its glory before. Sweet hell, you could have cast a sequel to Deliverance out of that room. Some speaking in tongues and serpent handling wouldn’t have been entirely out of place.The scene in the caucus looked like an outtake from a Ma and Pa Kettle movie. I lived... more
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...the implication is that the conservative electorate in this country is actually more conservative than the slate of GOP candidates vying for the nomination. For 57% to think Obama liberal (while the left often considers him right-moderate) would seem to indicate that 57% polled (from my left perspective) fall to the right of right-moderate, else their perspective wouldn’t lean that way.
57% are to the right of right-moderate....the implication is that the conservative electorate in this country is actually... more
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According to polls — Pew Research Center, the National Science Foundation — and studies such as Arthur Brooks’s Gross National Happiness, conservative Americans are happier than liberal Americans.
Liberals respond this way: “If we’re unhappier, it’s because we are more upset than conservatives over the plight of those less fortunate than ourselves.”
But common sense and data suggest other explanations.
For one thing, conservatives on the same socioeconomic level as liberals give more charity and volunteer more time than do liberals. And as regards the suffering of non-Americans, for at least half a century conservatives have been far more willing to sacrifice American treasure and American blood (often their own) for other nations’ liberty.
Both of these facts refute the liberals-are-more-concerned-about-others explanation for liberal unhappiness.
So, let’s look at other explanations.
Perhaps we are posing the question backwards when we ask why liberals are less happy than conservatives. The question implies that liberalism causes unhappiness. And while this is true, it may be equally correct to say that unhappy people are more likely to adopt leftist positions.
Take black Americans, for example. It makes perfect sense that a black American who is essentially happy is going to be less attracted to the Left. Anyone who has interacted with black conservatives rarely encounters an angry, unhappy person.
Why?
Because the liberal view on race is that America is a racist society. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, a black American must abandon liberalism in order to be a happy individual. It is very hard, if not impossible, to be a happy person while believing that society is out to hurt you. So, the unhappy black person will gravitate to liberalism and liberalism will in turn make him more unhappy by reinforcing his view that he is a victim.
The unhappy gravitate toward the Left for a second reason. Life is hard for liberals and life is hard for conservatives. But conservatives assume that life will always be hard. Liberals, on the other hand, have utopian dreams. At his brother Robert’s funeral, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy recalled his brother saying: “Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’”
Utopians will always be less happy than those who know that suffering is inherent to human existence. The utopian compares America to utopia and finds it terribly wanting. The conservative compares America to every other civilization that has ever existed and walks around wondering how he got so lucky as to be born or naturalized an American.
Third, imagine two Americans living in essentially identical socioeconomic conditions. They earn $45,000 a year, they have the same amount of debt on their homes, and both have the same number of dependents. One seeks governmental assistance wherever possible; the other eschews any governmental help. Which one is likely to be the liberal and which one is likely to be the happier individual?
This is not a question only an oracle can answer. The one who yearns for governmental help is the one who is likely to be both liberal and less happy. Conservatism, which demands self-reliance, makes one happier. The more a man or woman feels like captain of his or her ship (as poor as that ship may be), the happier he or she will be.
A fourth explanation for greater unhappiness among liberals is that the more people allow feelings to govern them, the less happy they will be. And the further left one goes, the more importance one attaches to feelings.
It is liberal educators and liberal parents who have clamored for protecting young people from the pain of losing games. The liberal world came up with the idea of giving trophies to kids who lose; they don’t want their children feeling bad. Conservatives, on the other hand, teach their kids how to lose well. They are less worried about their children feeling bad.
A couple of years ago, I gave a speech on happiness to the students and faculty of a prestigious high school in the Los Angeles area. The subject was the need to act happy even when one isn’t feeling happy — because it is unfair to others to inflict our bad moods on them and because we will never be happy if we allow our feelings to dictate our happiness.
From what I experienced that day and learned later, liberal students and faculty generally loathed my speech; conservative students generally loved it (there were no conservative faculty to speak of). Why? Because conservatives are far more likely to be comfortable with the idea that feelings are not as important as behavior.
Those who know that feelings must not govern us, but that we must govern our feelings, are far more likely to be happy people.
The upshot of all this? There is an amazingly simple way to defeat the Left: Raise children who are grateful to be American, who don’t complain, who can handle losing, and who are guided by values, not feelings. In other words, teach them how to be happy adults.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/253768/why-unhappy-people-become-liberals-dennis-prager?pg=2According to polls — Pew Research Center, the National Science Foundation... more
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Let’s not muddle the messaging by suggesting Cain failed because of unconventionality. He broke under the weight of his own conventionalism. Even innocent of the allegations, some of his most damning character flaws showed through very clearly in his responses. His only failure in “unconventionalism” was lack of the necessary political savvy to slap the right lipstick on the right pig at the right time. Sadly, we have too much of that conventionality at hand. If only more candidates would collapse from such a lack of savvy.Let’s not muddle the messaging by suggesting Cain failed because of... more
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The answer, then, to why Nixon, why now, seems fairly obvious: His presidency, as twisted and corrupt and doomed as it was politically, was actually the last time we had a White House acting more or less in the best interests of the citizens of the United States. And we miss it. We know that power politics has always responded to wealth, but we long for the days when the sell-out wasn’t so comprehensive, so shameless, so arrogant and sneering. We wish those who control the political and economic direction of the nation would drop a crumb or two every now and then. We hate that corporations are citizens and that money is speech.The answer, then, to why Nixon, why now, seems fairly obvious: His presidency, as... more
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Put another way, evangelicals would rather have a liar and a hypocrite and has been married three times than a Mormon. And if anyone seriously believes Gingrich has repented, I’ve got a beautiful orange bridge in San Francisco to sell you.Put another way, evangelicals would rather have a liar and a hypocrite and has been... more
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Tampa, FL (PRWEB) November 07, 2011
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k86q25k2278188gw
A new study by Marcus Arvan, PhD appearing in the peer-reviewed research journal, Neuroethics, shows conservative value judgments on the death penalty, gay marriage, free markets, the right to go to war against UN resolutions, and detention of suspected terrorists without trial, to be related to three dark and anti-social personality traits: Machiavellianism (deception), narcissism (overinflated sense of self-worth), and psychopathy (absence of guilt or remorse). No significant relationships were found between these dark traits and liberal judgments on any moral issue.Tampa, FL (PRWEB) November 07, 2011... more
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Each time it's supposed to be different, imirite? You take another Republican hit thinking that this time it will be different; this time Republicanism will bring you that high you’ve been chasing since 1980. What happens? All you get is another war, more failed and debunked trickle down economics, more tax hikes for the non-uber rich, more national debt, more growth of the government, more government erosion of privacy rights, more cutbacks on social safety networks and, of course, more deregulation that leads to crap like the S&L debacle (that my grandmother lost her life savings from) and the collapse of the American banking industry under its own unregulated greed.Each time it's supposed to be different, imirite? You take another Republican hit... more
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Looks like Andrew Sanger is trying to rehabilate his grandmother's image after Herman Cain plays the race card in his anti-abortion stance.
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Andrew Sanger writes:
"Cain could use a history lesson. When my grandmother started Planned Parenthood in 1916, her first clinic was in Brownsville, Brooklyn, then a mixed neighborhood of primarily European immigrants. Within a decade and a half, her nascent organisation received the endorsement of several prominent African Americans, including Mary McLeod Bethune, WEB DuBois and Rev Adam Clayton Powell Jr. At their urging, in 1930, Harlem's first birth control clinic was opened, in partnership with the New York Urban League. In years to come, African American leaders endorsed her efforts to bring contraceptives to poor, rural black residents – the same services Planned Parenthood delivered to poor, rural white residents.
To think that my grandmother was clever enough to enlist prominent black religious and community leaders to exterminate their own race is not only nonsensical; it's racist. Throughout her career, my grandmother's driving force was to ensure that every child was a wanted child."
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I'm not defending Cain, and I know he is just playing up a wedge issue to distract from more important issues, but it appears that Andrew Sanger appears revise history lying by ommission. He forgot to include this quote from the elder Sanger regarding the Negro Project:
"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
This quote has been used by numerous Sanger detractors, including Angela Davis and the pro-life movement, to support their claims that Sanger was racist.[86] However, according to New York University's Margaret Sanger Papers Project, Sanger, in writing that letter, "recognized that elements within the black community might mistakenly associate the Negro Project with racist sterilization campaigns in the Jim Crow South, unless clergy and other community leaders spread the word that the Project had a humanitarian aim."[87]"Looks like Andrew Sanger is trying to rehabilate his grandmother's image after... more
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Yes, that McCain — but only if kept far from attractive, belligerently-ignorant starlet V.P.’s. Sorry, Michele, blame the Palin. Romney works, lacking the attack-dog growl, or maybe a reconditioned, feisty Perry if he passes candidate-in-training drills. Playacting politico Herman Cain could fit — a sop to minorities, but this time without giving the black guy real power. Consider the rhythmic, incantatory magic of a “McCain-Cain” ticket — or their motto: “War Hero and Cain, too, Fearless on Muslims, terrorists, whistleblowers and illegals.” Look, re-nominating McCain is no less crazed than veteran pundit Earl Hutchinson’s jaw-dropping, serious daydream, “The Unthinkable: a Cain Versus Obama Match-Up.”Yes, that McCain — but only if kept far from attractive, belligerently-ignorant... more
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