I guess it is in how you define EI. If you define it in practical terms, as in how to interact with other humans, I suppose conservatives would have the edge: why do felons almost universally prefer Democrats?
As I posted elsewhere, the GOP support is in the centre of bell curve while the Dems get the brightest and dullest. Is this a suggestion that the brightest are manipulating the dullest for their own political ends? Debatable.
I think that was part of Cecil’s point: states with lots of swing voters - independent voters - had a noticable margin in the IQ department. One might think that this mindset would show the same pattern among committed Republicans and Democrats.
Libertarians tend to be well-to-do but somewhat non-social, if I am not putting it too harsh. The former is evidence of higher intelligence while the latter, not so much.They can also be ridiculously naive in matters of foreign policy, which throws common sense out the window.
I agree that the basic premise of the article and thread are sort of unanswerable and you have to look at the polity as a whole.
I don’t have it at my fingertips but studies tend to show a corelation between education levels and voter turnout. You can take that as a proxy for intelligence to conclude that smart people will vote.
However, if one assumes this, what of states that have lots of dumb people and a few smart people? The smart people would carry the day but the state as a whole would clock in as being dumb for supporting the winning candidate.
Well, you are an idiot in these matters. Pick a third party candidate or spoil your ballot or whatever. It is your god-given right to have a say and it is your birthright bought with the blood of your ancestors: do it.
If you think you could do a better job, then why don’t you run?
In university I ran for some mickey mouse student positions and lost lost in a trifecta of unreasonableness on my classmates behalf 
What galled me is some activist complaining about the results: 3 white males. I called to her across the classroom: “You could have run”
Your observations are not shared by at least 60% of Americans (those who identify with the two major parties) and up to 90% or more who don’t identify as libertarians. Perhaps you think that you are part of the cognitive elite and see things that others don’t, but you should not be too sure of that.
Let’s be fair here: it was the Democrats, the liberals, who resorted to the courts, as they do on every significant public policy debate they don’t win by support from the citizenry.
Your postulate does not conform with the evidence and the numerous studies that have examined it.
That’s why I look at things like exit polls, which can tease our that information, with some surprising results.
This presumes that all college degrees are equal, when enrollment at private religious colleges that deny science (global warming, evolution) are overwhelmingly conservative. So to say those graduates who are willfully ignorant are as smart as liberals who attended public universities is not a fair comparison.
There are various definitions of “group think” but one is that if you and all the people you interact with hold the same views, you incorrectly assume that everyone holds those views. That is certainly a problem on the left rather than the right. You get people cloistered in academia, unionized public service, the judiciary, the main stream media and such, and they all agree they they know best and those who disagree must be deluded or evil or something.
People on the right are exposed to leftist nonsense all the time and have retreated to less-flashy media like talk radio and the internet. Fox network, being an exception, is the target of all other main stream media.
Here in Canada, when the Conservatives took power, leftist everywhere were asking “How could this happen; I don’t know anyone who voted for them!”
More recently, a senator inadvertenly reignited the death penalty debate. The leftist opposition leader denounced him as being out of step with Canadian values, and shortly after a poll revealed that 63% of us would support the death penalty. Obviously, the leftist was out of touch with public sentiment, probably because all the people she hangs will are similar ideologues rather than thinking people.
There is the general idea that just because there are two sides to the debate, that doesn’t make each side equally valid or compelling or what have you. However, your choice of examples shows your bias.
To properly debate the matters, you would have to define your terms but - without definition - I would say that evolution is on pretty solid grounds while AGW is political piffle passing as science.
Liberals are at least as close minded as conservatives on those issue that they declare to be sacred cows, AGW included. They do not accept ambiguity well, they make simplistic assertions, they require closure on issues, etc etc. In other words, all of the pathologies that liberals and their academic stooges like to assign to conservatives and well and alive in their own minds: the fact that they don’t see it only makes their convictions stronger.
I’m a Canadian and now I watch Sun News which was accused of being Fox North and many leftists wanted it banned altogether (but hey, Al Jezhira was cool). I simply find it easier to back check the ridiculous claims of this unabashedly right wing network than to back check - and prove wrong - most assertions of the left-leaning media who pose as centrists. Guess what? I am a centrist!
I am not a Christian, so maybe someone will back me up on this:
Fiscally, Christians believe in private charity over government tax and spend.
While one should “render unto Ceaser” that is not a biblical license to take over the whole economy.
You would have to define “socially liberal” in better terms, and separate it from it’s fiscal incarnations.
Otherwise, pick social topics that are “liberal” and the balance of Christian doctrine and literature would be against it.
I largely agree with you.
A homosexual union was never a “marriage”. It’s simply not the same thing. Cite me chapter and verse where gays were “married” rather than “joined” or whatever, and I will back off. Otherwise, marriage has been a distinctly heterosexual institution from time immemorial.
Show me a list of how many cases they have quarterbacked that used the first amedment to shut religion out of the public square, and those that defended religion against the government. My guess it isn’t close to a 1 to 1 ratio.
Interesting - and provocative - observation.
Generally, the dull and uneducated don’t vote at all, but those who do vote Democrat. My hypothesis would be that voter turnout in southern states would be lower.
I couldn’t find that info now; maybe later.
What evidence do you have that such cases are equally numerous? You’re assuming for every attack of religion on government, there’s an attack of government on religion. This is again the false balance fallacy - the assumption that all sides are always equal.
What if there are 10 times as many problems with religions trying to push themselves into the public sphere than there are with government infringing on religious freedoms? Would you still then expect the ACLU - even if perfectly balanced - to have a matching number of cases from both problems?
Religiosity is the default in the US - attacks on Christianity from the various governments in the US are almost non-existant despite the claims of persecution by Christians. I would suspect most of the religious freedom infringement is actually on other religions - preventing Mosques being built when there are no legal grounds to deny them for instance - and I’d imagine the ACLU does handle stuff like that.
Liberals believe in tax and spend; conservatives believe in borrow and spend. Which shows more fiscal responsibility?
You made the original claim, mate: now defend it. I’ll get back to you when your your assertion that defies common sense has a bit of evidence behind it,
Republicans, not conservatives, will borrow and spend because they don’t want to debate hard questions or make hard choices.
I didn’t make any claim.
I’m attacking your claim that because the ACLU doesn’t have an equal number of cases defending infringement of religious freedoms from government to cases defending the public sphere against intrusion of religion, they must be biased against religion.
How in the world does my claim defy common sense? Yours does. You’re saying that there is exactly the same amount of infringement on religious freedom than there is infringement upon the public by religion. What are the odds that they’re exactly equal? Religiosity has permeated US culture for a long time and it’s only recently are there people willing to stand up to it.
I mean - I understand that Christians have convinced themselves that losing their priviledged status in society is persecution, but in actual practice, how many cases are there in which the rights of Christians to worship freely are infringed upon?
I say Christians specifically, because other religions legitimately do face religious persecution in the US, especially Islam, and the ACLU does take on those sorts of cases.
Neither do voters. That’s why your brand of conservatives will never be widely elected in the US.
My bad
But if you agree with it, then you should justiy it, even if the gamerunknown didn’t
I don’t think that you know what “my brand” of conservatives are or why you assume that I can even vote in your elections. I helped elect conservatives here in Canada and we are doing a hockey sock better than anyone in Europe and certainly better than the mighty US of A while you followed your messaiah down the drain.
I don’t mean to be snippy if you are not insulting conservatives.
The kind you were talking about here:
If you didn’t mean to imply that your brand of conservatives were against borrowing and spending, I apologize.
I made no such assumption; I was just pointing why such rare conservatives won’t make much headway here.
I don’t know why you assume I supported George W. Bush.
There’s a difference between and individual’s right to free speech and a government endorsement of religion. The ACLU is strongly in support of the first and against the second. I don’t know about Westboro Baptist, but the ACLU has defended white supremecists and Ku Klux Klan marches exactly on the grounds of their free speech.
And I’m lost as to how this came up. The comment seemed to be about Christians and whether any of them defend Westboro Baptist (the “God Hates Fags” group) on the grounds of “judge not lest ye be judged”. How did the ACLU enter the equation? I’m not aware of the ACLU being a Christian group. (It presumably has members who are christians, but christianity is not any part of the requisites for membership).
I think he meant Obama. I don’t think anyone characterized GW as “the messiah”.