From "Are Liberals Smarter Than Conservatives?", by John Cloud in "Time", cited by Stephen Black: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1968042,00.html
"These aren't entirely new findings; last year, for example, a British team found that kids with higher intelligence scores were more likely to grow into adults who vote for Liberal Democrats, even after the researchers controlled for socioeconomics." Oh, dear, the perils of translating from the UK to the US! Do not conflate the American use of the term "liberal" with what is meant in Britain by "Liberal". First the name Liberal Democrats comes from a 1987 merger of the traditional Liberal Party (always traditionally a strong supporter of capitalist free enterprise, with safeguards) with the Social Democratic Party. The Social Democratic Party was an offshoot of the Labour Party set up by four prominent Labour Party members from the Right of the Party. Second, the Liberal Democrats are regarded as a more middle-of-the-road Party than the left-of-centre Labour Party (at least the traditional part of the Labour Party). Second, while the leadership tends to be responsible in its formulation of policies in the sense of maintaining policies that recognize the realities of what can be achieved by any Government in the specific circumstances of its election to power, the Liberal Democrats have the advantage over the two main parties in that they have no hope of achieving power in the immediate future, so their policies can be more "idealistic" without their having to be put to the test of actually having to be carried out. And third, there is a vocal wing of the Liberal Democrats that advocates all manner of mostly unrealistic idealistic policies that would be virtually impossible to accomplish, and which wouldn't help the Party if they were to be accepted by the leadership because they don't have any great support among the wider population. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org ------------------------------------------------------ From: Paul Brandon <paul.bran...@mnsu.edu> Subject: Re: Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:59:04 -0600 On the other hand, self styled conservatives like Bush and Cheney worked very hard at avoiding actual combat. May be more a style of verbal aggression. On Mar 8, 2010, at 7:38 PM, <sbl...@ubishops.ca> <sbl...@ubishops.ca> wrote: As a follow-up to my post drawing attention to this paper, I've noticed that _Time_ magazine also has an essay on it, probably published immediately after they spotted my note on TIPS. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1968042,00.html The author, John Cloud, refers to a study which found that physically stronger men tended toward a belief in the use of force to solve personal and international conflicts. Identifying this with a conservative philosophy (a bit forced, perhaps), Cloud concludes his piece with this bit of advice: "If you are a liberal who believes you're smarter than conservatives, you probably shouldn't bring that up around them. You might not like them when they're angry." Which suggests that it might not have been a good idea for Ed Pollack to have, as he said, send the article around to his right wing friends, even if he did get a lot of pleasure out of it. Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato paul.bran...@mnsu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1263 or send a blank email to leave-1263-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
