Thomas Sowell uses election returns as further evidence of how innacurate the "Rich Republican" myth is:
Although the state as a whole voted to remove the disastrous Governor Gray Davis from office by 55 percent to 45 percent, he received a solid majority of support in most of the upscale northern California coastal counties.
In San Mateo County, where the average home costs more than half a million dollars and the environmentalists reign supreme, keeping the vast majority of the land off-limits to building, 63 percent of the voters wanted Gray Davis to remain in office. In even more upscale Marin County, 68 percent of the voters were for Gray Davis. And in San Francisco, the furthest left of them all, no less than 80 percent voted to keep Gray Davis as governor.
There is a certain irony here, since the Democrats like to portray themselves as the party of the working people, with special solicitude for "the children" and for minorities. But working people, families with children and blacks are precisely the kinds of people who have been forced out of these three affluent and politically correct counties.
All three of these ultra-liberal counties have been losing black population since the previous census. Kindergartens in San Mateo County are shutting down for lack of children. The number of children in San Francisco has also gone down since the last census, even though the population of the city as a whole has gone up.
Out in the valleys to which those who are not as affluent have been forced to flee, in order to find something resembling affordable housing, the vote was just as solidly against Davis as it was for him among those further up the income scale. Out where ordinary people live, the vote against Governor Davis was 64 percent in Merced County, 72 percent in Tulare County and 75 percent in Lassen County.
The whole thing is worth a quick read.
Okay, bonus points: Previously, we learned conservatives were evil because they were rich. Now that we can show it is actually liberals who are wealthy, do we conclude liberals are eeeeevil?
I don't, since I think the idea was stupid to begin with. But we can certainly conclude liberals must be either ignorant or dishonest when they depict themselves as the representative of normal, everyday folk.
Tim - I'm honestly confused, who are these "liberals"? The way you portray them, they do look like idiots, but there is some sweeping generalization going by you, no? Are you calling journalist liberals? Most of them print what sells. Patriotic Americans attacked by religious zombies sells in America. Israel behind 9/11 sells in Pakistan. Internal conspiracy for 9/11 sells in France. France sucks sells in America.
I'm not a liberal, not conservative. I have opinions which differ even with my brother. E.g.
IMO, if a 16 year old kid shot a person, treat him like a murder, don't free him in 2 year juvy jail. It's conservative party. My brother disagrees. Me conservative, he liberal?
Tax - Let me manage my money and get out of my way. So I'm conservative again, my brother likes free health and he think every one has a right to live.
G. W. Bush is not much better than Bin Laden, we both agree (liberals, I guess?)
American didn't have much choice to vote any one but republicans, despite above. I agree, my brother don't. My colleagues don't. So me republican, they liberal?
Abortion - I really don't have an opinion. If I was aborted, I won't mind, I won’t know to mind, life sucks anyways ;) my brother says what about the life we are taking, without giving them the chance to defend? Me republican, he liberal?
Gays - IMHO it's the matter of controlling your desires. I have a desire to say screw dogs or goats. Do I do it? And yeah, today gays are ok, 50 years after pedophiles will be? I'm NOT ok with gay marriage. They gonna marry and adopt kids. How screwed that poor kid will be? My brother is indifferent. My colleagues love gays....me republican 'control freak', they liberals?
Pollution, corporate responsibility, not taxpayers. Me, my brother and colleagues agree. We all liberals.
Tobacco - not a matter of choice. Addict don't have a choice. Government should step in. Sue the tobacco companies. They kill 400,000 Americans / year. Much more in a year than al-qaeda will ever do. Me, my brother, my colleague agrees.
So what am I, liberal / republican?
Tim - I'm honestly confused, who are these "liberals"? ... but there is some sweeping generalization going by you, no?
Yes, of course I'm generalizing. Generally, when I say "liberal" I mean (a) Democratic leaders, or (b) those tend to support mostly "liberal" values, including but not limited to: government-run schools and medicine, lots of taxes, promises to take care of everyone no matter what, restricting private gun ownership, opposing death for murderers, but not abortion, and dislike or opposition to traditional JudeoChristian values.
(And, of course, there are those of us who tend to believe the opposite on each point, who I call "conservatives".)
In this particular case, I'm using those who voted for Gray Davis in a California election as a proxy for those holding many "liberal" values. Possibly some of those who voted for Davis don't buy into each value mentioned above: true! But that doesn't stop a generalization from being valid. Most Reagan voters supported Reagan's values, for example, even if a smaller subset were lukewarm or borderline.
In this particular case, as the election results demonstrated, Davis was rather unpopular. That probably indicates the generalization was even more valid, since apparently mushy centrists ended up voting against Davis, leaving only die-hard supporters.
My thesis here is that traditionally "Democratic" or "liberal" values are now more widely supported by the rich than conservative ones, and that the Democratic party tends to be supported more by the rich than by the average Joe.
The way you portray them, they do look like idiots...
Part of the what you're seeing is, I think, an unintentional "selection bias" which is inherant to the medium. I tend to blog only on areas where I (a) strongly disagree with "liberals" and (b) have some good evidence for my (contrary) position. So those are positions where, at least if you read my stuff, "liberals" will probably look rather bad.
If I'm wrong, or being unfair, go ahead and cite specifics. But remember that the reason I'm writing is to convince people those are harmful positions to hold: I really am concerned by the harm I feel is done by these positions, and thus write to oppose them.
Personally, many "liberals" I know are nice, decent people. But yes, I do believe that the positions they generally embrace, besides being false and/or not-very-well-thought-through, tend to be quite harmful to society, including and especially the most vulnerable.
I believe characteristically "liberal" positions increase poverty, hurt minorities and the poor, increase pollution, encourage racism, subvert justice, degrade the quality of life generally, and even sometimes encourage genocide and mass murder. (1) Sounds like an awful extreme set of allegations, but I can back each point up. (2) Perhaps I'm wrong: that's why I have comments.
So my point isn't generally to demonize liberals personally, but rather simply undermine and render incredible this set of ideas which I see as false and harmful. But yes, that then tarnishes those who embrace these ideas. That's life, I guess: some are misled, some should indeed know better.
Or perhaps, as I said, it is I who am misled: then I'll learn something from the comments section.
Are you calling journalist liberals?
Not in this particular article, but yes, I'd certainly agree with that proposition. (Just as I'd say most radio talk show hosts tend to be conservative.)
For example 89 percent of the Washington press corps supported Clinton in 1992 (vs. 7% for GHW Bush). The election was actually 43%/38% Clinton/Bush, so that's clearly a significant indicator, and I expect that bias tints Washington reportage.
Most of them print what sells.
I don't agree, completely. I tend to think bias intereferes with marketing sense, and -- partially for the fun of it, it's more a thesis than a proven fact at this point -- I'd argue that's happening in journalism.
For example, I thought that the Clinton/Monica sex scandal would be a clear ratings blockbuster. And it was. Yet Time and Newsweek sat on it for months, only breaking it when Drudge forced them to. But there was no such hesitation with rumors of infidelity with GHW Bush in 1992, though far less well substantiated.
Or compare rumors about Bush/Kerry's military service. Kerry's purple hearts unwarranted? Got a signed affidavit by the guy who granted 'em saying that. Plunk: nothing, until the denials are raised. Then only tepid, muted coverage. Bush went AWOL? Oh yeah, that got play, and at the exact right moment: right before the election. Never mind that Dan Rather's "unimpeachable source" was actually working for -- whoops -- the Kerry campaign, and that CBS apparently knew that.
So, of course, I tend to suspect bias in those contrasts, since we're talking about what seem to be equally and similarly scandalous stories.
As an analogy, I'd point to movies: The G/PG-rated movies soundly thrash R-rated ones at the box office. But guess which ones Hollywood produces more of? Right: the ones which make less profit.
A final fascinating study: Republican Senator Bob Packwood. According to this article, though a Republican, because he was a leading support of women's causes he was "immunized" (like Clinton) from being exposed as a chronic sexual harasser. He held left-leaning views on this subject, so women he sexually harassed -- even journalists! -- were ignored and dismissed.
The same may be true of Ted Kennedy (on the left) who is apparently quite the mysogynist, but publicly speaks in favor of women's issues. Pity the poor woman harrassed by him: she'll never be taken seriously. Perhaps if she could get Dick Cheney to blast her with bird shot... ;-)
G. W. Bush is not much better than Bin Laden, we both agree (liberals, I guess?)
Mostly, perhaps. There are some far-right-wing conservatives who agree with you completely. Lew Rockwell and Catholic Pat Buchanan, for example.
There were also some conservatives who are hypocrites on this issue: they hated and decried Clinton's actions in Kosovo (deprecating the war as "nation building"), but supporting pretty much the same thing from Bush.
So what am I, liberal / republican?
You don't fit neatly into any North American political category. At election time, you'd have to decide between the lesser of evils. ;-)
Abroad, there's a wide consensus from much of the "Islamic" and perhaps also Asian portion of the world which matches up with your stance: Socially conservative, at least in publicly professed values, would rather have economic freedom, but really dislikes George Bush and views US influence as negative.
I sort of view this as "conservative, but throughly influenced by the media politically."
North American "liberal" values are closer to European values; yet Eastern Europe and some parts of Africa (and street-level Iran) are closer to US Conservative values. There's no neat match-up between England's "Tories" and US conservatives, since the Tories are actually more secular than Labor.
Despite much immigration from everywhere in the world, US values are pretty much inherited from Europe, which were strongly influenced, of course, by Christianity and Judaism. So you have the socialist kids from the "Enlightenment", who can't stand those stuffy prudes, hate God, want more/crazier sex, and like revolutions, and us prudes, who reject that whole milleu and still profess public decency -- even when we can't live up to it in private.
(Most of us conservatives are actually fairly "liberal" on the environment (we hate pollution as much as the next guy, and want corps to clean up their toxic waste, too), but we're not convinced by the hysteria on "the left" so we tend to appear reactionary in contrast. We support nuclear power because it's cleaner, and can't figure out what "the greens" really think we should do, in practical terms, other than go back to the stone age.)
I'm no expert, but the Islamic paradigm strikes me as different: It is the extreme religious "conservatives" who both are more sexually conservative, but more in favor of revolution, and overturning the order of things.
Conservely, bible-fixated Christian conservatives (me, for example) also think homosexuality (and heterosexual fornication, for that matter) are wrong, but tend to be opposed to political revolution: we just want to shrink government a bit, and stop everything from changing socially, or at least slow things down a bit.
And far-east Asian political values and spectrum seem another matter entirely, apparently especially with regard to sex.
So the whole world doesn't fit neatly into the liberal/conservative spectrum used here in the US. Even a good chunk of the voters here don't. But then again I'm writing about California here, not India; and we're writing about an election where probably only the stalwarts supported Davis. And even if that was wrong, the sample set would still include what I'd call "liberals" as a good chunk of it.
One final note on the "idiot" implication: Do I think everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot or completely unworthy of intellectual respect? No, of course not! But it depends on where they're coming from.
I can understand a native Pakistani or Egyptian thinking George Bush or the US is, for example, evil incarnate. I read what passes for journalism in some places, and it's understandable, given the distorted information I see presented there, that people might get that impression. So I find that position lamentable, not reprehensible.
But when I find a journalist, who I believe clearly knows the rest of the story, omitting some crucial fact to distort the story, and mislead the public, then that's reprehensible, not merely lamentable.
Likewise, I have little sympathy for most Democrats who claim to hate Bush -- since he's much closer to their stated values than I am -- or claim to have been angry we deposed Saddam -- since they themselves voted to make that official US policy in the 1990s -- or claimed we have no right to go to war without UN approval -- since they were pleased to do so in Kosovo, under Clinton. I can certainly see opposing George Bush, just not from the left.
My grandfather was apparently an ardent socialist. I don't think he was a moron for thinking that: perhaps it looked like a plausable idea back then. Maybe I would have been one too: Who knows? But now we all live post-USSR, post-Khemer-Rouge, and post-Mao, and I can't imagine how anyone could be dense enough to still think that was a good move. So I see indigenous socialists as misled, but western liberals as incredibly dense, or perhaps narcissistic.
So I try to take these things into account: and might treat two people or groups with roughly the same position differently depending on where they're coming from.
Ok, so, the Conservatives are evil...
and the Liberals are Two-faced, Greedy bigots.
Got it!
Everyone vote for Free Radicals!
Posted by: Kim Z on October 20, 2003 02:23 AM