Michael
Oct 20th 2008, 08:52 PM
Originally posted on August 22nd, 2008
Liberals and conservatives are different, and it's not just about different policies. The mythology of mean, greedy conservatives versus generous, altruistic liberals, a mythology retailed by liberals, has no basis in fact. The evidence shows almost the exact reverse to be true more often than not. Peter Schweizer gives us that evidence in detail in "Makers and Takers."
Mr. Schweizer's conclusions - that conservatives on average work harder, are happier, lead closer family lives, are more honest, give more to charity, are more open-minded, less self-centered, less prone to anger and rage and whine a good deal less than liberals - are not what you've been hearing on television, reading in your daily newspaper or what your kids have been hearing from their professor in class.
Source: Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/17/conservatives-simply-work-harder/)
This is an antidote to all the "Conservatives are neanderthals" type threads I've seen over the years. Admitedly, the author is 'cultural warrior' for American conservatives and the paper carrying the review owned by the Moonies and one of the hard-line rightwing papers in the USA.
Caveat: The review cites various data points that are not referenced. These data points may be properly cited in the book (I don't know). If the survey data is valid, I suspect it is heavily colored by the weird fact that many 'actual liberals' in the USA self-identify as 'conservative' and many self-identified 'conservatives' are not conservative at all. Indeed, it is my opinion that 'self-labeling' of conservative-liberal in the USA is probably little more than nonsense (or simply tribal affiliation preference) based on flawed pop-cultural or conservative-propaganda definitions of the terms (and a very heated cultural war).
Note: no other replies to this thread were recovered.
Liberals and conservatives are different, and it's not just about different policies. The mythology of mean, greedy conservatives versus generous, altruistic liberals, a mythology retailed by liberals, has no basis in fact. The evidence shows almost the exact reverse to be true more often than not. Peter Schweizer gives us that evidence in detail in "Makers and Takers."
Mr. Schweizer's conclusions - that conservatives on average work harder, are happier, lead closer family lives, are more honest, give more to charity, are more open-minded, less self-centered, less prone to anger and rage and whine a good deal less than liberals - are not what you've been hearing on television, reading in your daily newspaper or what your kids have been hearing from their professor in class.
Source: Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/17/conservatives-simply-work-harder/)
This is an antidote to all the "Conservatives are neanderthals" type threads I've seen over the years. Admitedly, the author is 'cultural warrior' for American conservatives and the paper carrying the review owned by the Moonies and one of the hard-line rightwing papers in the USA.
Caveat: The review cites various data points that are not referenced. These data points may be properly cited in the book (I don't know). If the survey data is valid, I suspect it is heavily colored by the weird fact that many 'actual liberals' in the USA self-identify as 'conservative' and many self-identified 'conservatives' are not conservative at all. Indeed, it is my opinion that 'self-labeling' of conservative-liberal in the USA is probably little more than nonsense (or simply tribal affiliation preference) based on flawed pop-cultural or conservative-propaganda definitions of the terms (and a very heated cultural war).
Note: no other replies to this thread were recovered.