# Are the American people becoming more politically liberal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 23, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135 "2007-06-23T17:25:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/201 "2007-06-28T07:09:46Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] If these dreadful consequence are visited upon those people who need such governmental intervention, then they are not visited upon those who don’t. So if then it must follow that they are not subject to such strains, which means the wealthy and comfortable classes have much stronger family values and cohesion, not being rotted from within by socialistic nanny states. Well, is that the case? [/QUOTE] Jeez, if you’re wealthy you don’t exactly need the kids to look after you, do you? Here, try reading this: [Making Kids Worthless: Social Security’s Contribution to the Fertility Crisis](http://www.mises.org/story/2451) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/202 "2007-06-28T15:22:20Z")
Not perzackly, **Sam**. Yoiu decry the destruction of family values, and point the accusative finger at the “nanny state”, that somehow, by some mechanism, making life easier destroys moral fiber and family cohesion. Well, then, doesn’t it necessarily follow that those classes of people who are not compelled to such assistance do not suffer these consequences? And if such assistance is the primary force destroying family values, those who are not exposed to such assistance should, perforce, have thier values intact, unsullied. One would expect the comfortable classes must therefore have much stronger values, be less affected by divorce and family breakup, suffer less from drug and alcohol problems. All around, much better people. Is this so? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/203 "2007-06-28T15:39:09Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] Here, try reading this: [Making Kids Worthless: Social Security’s Contribution to the Fertility Crisis](http://www.mises.org/story/2451) [/QUOTE] **What** “fertility crisis”?! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/204 "2007-06-28T16:02:54Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] **What** “fertility crisis”?! [/QUOTE] He defines it in the article: > [@](#): > > The decline of fertility in the 20th century is a dismal reality. Fertility rates were higher than 5 in both Europe and the United States just a hundred years ago, but by year 2000, they had plummeted to as low as around 1.5 in Europe and 2.0 in the United States. Many European nations experience fertility rates far below replacement levels: Spain, Italy and Greece dip as low as 1.3. Germany — where according to Adenauer people were always going to have children — reaches an equally bleak figure of 1.4. According to some estimates Italy will reduce its population by half in the next 50 years. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/205 "2007-06-28T23:21:25Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] He defines it in the article: [/QUOTE] That ain’t no crisis, that’s [salvation!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/206 "2007-06-30T02:02:14Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Not perzackly, **Sam**. Yoiu decry the destruction of family values, and point the accusative finger at the “nanny state”, that somehow, by some mechanism, making life easier destroys moral fiber and family cohesion. Well, then, doesn’t it necessarily follow that those classes of people who are not compelled to such assistance do not suffer these consequences? And if such assistance is the primary force destroying family values, those who are not exposed to such assistance should, perforce, have thier values intact, unsullied. One would expect the comfortable classes must therefore have much stronger values, be less affected by divorce and family breakup, suffer less from drug and alcohol problems. All around, much better people. Is this so? [/QUOTE] The number of fallacies in that reasoning are amazing. First of all, wealthy families may have entirely other forces that keep them together (for example, trust funds and inheritances and family property). Second, it may actually prove the point - if wealthy families are still intact, but the poor ones who stayed together for social safety reasons are not, that might indicate that it’s true. “somehow, by some mechanism” seems to describe your understanding of economics, but then you did say that it makes your head hurt. In fact, there’s no mystery about it at all. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or economic genius to understand that if one of the reasons people had big families and stayed close to them was so that they could look after them in old age, then if you take away that need you remove some impetus for staying connected with your extended family. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/207 "2007-06-30T03:09:06Z")
[QUOTE=Sam] The number of fallacies in that reasoning are amazing. First of all, wealthy families may have entirely other forces that keep them together (for example, trust funds and inheritances and family property)… [/QUOTE] Clearly, your reasoning is beyond my grasp, it is too many for me, I fold. Why, until the moment, I had always thought of trust funds, inheritances and family property as being largely the same thing, i.e., money! Imagine that! I blush to admit it. > [@](#): > > …Second, it may actually prove the point - if wealthy families are still intact, but the poor ones who stayed together for social safety reasons are not, that might indicate that it’s true… Yeah, that’s kinda why I said it? And I’m not sure that “social safety reasons” are the motivation for having kids, they are a crummy investment, as cash crops go. Hell, at least chickens lay eggs, kids _eat_ eggs, as well as chickens. But, yeah, if you’re going to claim that the dole rots the soul, seems you pretty much have claimed that wealthy families are healthier and more connected than the rest of us. Might have to have a bit more than your word on that. > [@](#): > > …somehow, by some mechanism" seems to describe your understanding of economics… Yep, just a country boy, **Sam**. Still, just because I don’t know much, doesn’t mean you know more. See, I’m _inquiring_ about that mechanism, **Sam**. What is this device, what force is manifested, that has this effect on people? “Give people money, you destroy their dignity!” Well, OK, assuming that’s true…how? “Somehow, by some mechanism” is a question, not an admission. > [@](#): > > …stayed close to them was so that they could look after them in old age, then if you take away that need you remove some impetus for staying connected with your extended family… Sure, depending on the degree that is important, what degree of intergenerational dependency is involved, then, yes, some impetus is removed. Of course, if the scourge of the nanny state weakend the family by weakening that dependence, how much the more so for those who don’t need to rely on their children as a source of anything but embarassment? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/208 "2007-06-30T05:32:50Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] The number of fallacies in that reasoning are amazing. First of all, wealthy families may have entirely other forces that keep them together (for example, trust funds and inheritances and family property). Second, it may actually prove the point - if wealthy families are still intact, but the poor ones who stayed together for social safety reasons are not, that might indicate that it’s true. [/QUOTE] Got any cites showing rich people have lower divorce rates than the middle class? Even article I read about someone who is wealthy seems to mention at least several divorces. Children and exes don’t starve of course, but I’m not sure I’d call that keeping the family together. But that’s anecdotal - got any evidence? The welfare system does encourage women to not be married, which is not a good thing, so I wouldn’t want to compare them with poor people. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/209 "2007-06-30T13:22:25Z")
Voyager writes: \> Got any cites showing rich people have lower divorce rates than the middle \> class? Here’s a cite: \> The biggest factors contributing to marital success are higher income, increased \> education level, higher age at marriage and higher levels of religious \> commitment and activity. If you Google on these words, you can find a dozen or so websites that talk about this issue. They also will give you the statistics that show that higher income is the one of these four factors that contributes the most to the probability of success of marriage. I suspect that you’re going to quibble now about whether this really applies to rich people or just to the difference between middle-class or working-class people. Certainly increased income makes the probability of divorce less common well up into the upper-middle-class range. What percent of all people would you consider rich? If you define the lower bound on what constitutes being rich to be so high that only, say, .01% of all people are rich, then it’s unlikely that there have been many sociological studies of such people. When a subgroup of a study (like rich people) is too small, a sociologist would have to say, “I can’t make any definitive statements about the probability of divorce among people making more than X dollars a year, because there are too few of them in my sample.” \> Even article I read about someone who is wealthy seems to mention at least \> several divorces. Do you understand the difference between anecdotes and statistics? The news stories you read are not about typical wealthy people. Rich people generally go out of their way to stay out of the news. The people you think of as celebrities are not typical of rich people (and often are not nearly as well off as they pretend to be). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/210 "2007-06-30T13:42:00Z")
How exactly is money you inherit from your ancestors any less soul-destroying than money you are given by the state? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/211 "2007-06-30T14:06:31Z")
Well, that depends. Is it money, trust funds, inheritance, or family property? **Sam** will explain the difference to you, its kinda beyond my ken… That said, I would more or less expect people with easier lives to have, well, easier lives. _Tres duh!_ Apparently, this is a direct result of not being exposed to the dignity-crushing experience of being subjected to governmental interference, by a mechanism that will be explained shortly. Not by me, I’m not that smart… ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135/212 "2007-06-30T15:21:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Another example of a moral hazard is the destruction of the extended family that was a consequence of social security. Families typically didn’t just break apart and get together a couple of times a year like they do now - they tended to stay together because they were the social welfare and retirement programs. My extended family scattered for exactly the opposite reason–they couldn’t make a living at home. Out of the nine siblings in my dad’s family, one took over the farm (until he couldn’t make a living at it anymore and got a job in the coal fields), Dad went to college and became a social worker, and the other seven left Kentucky for the factories of Ohio and Michigan. If they had stayed around, there’s no way they would have had the money to support my grandparents in their old age, had they needed to. These days, extended families around here tend to stay together, because those plentiful unskilled factory jobs up north just aren’t there for the taking anymore and relocating isn’t likely to be worth it. Of course, a lot of them end up on government assistance from time to time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-american-people-becoming-more-politically-liberal/409135.md?page=10)