Well while there's still a lot wrong with that post, it's not a big deal. Thanks for the love bro.

Oh god, this is so statistically misleading. They give points for averages instead or ranges. That's something EVERYONE who's taken a even the smallest amount of statistics should know is a no no. The article says the difference is "statistically significant" but gives no indication of what alpha is. If alpha's .3, "statistically significant" doesn't really mean much. The study mentions large samples, but gives no indication as to the actual number. All the data is gathered retroactively, that is, gathered from old surveys and reports, which is never as good as data gathered during the study. We have no idea how good the statistics were from these reports/surveys were either.

The fact that they use points instead of ranges, and their refusal to give numbers when it comes to alpha and sample sizes makes this data very questionable.

To the people talking about liberal vs. conservative and poor vs. rich, general trends are as follows (taken from a Government and Politics course): Conservatism increases with money, but decreases with education. Education tends to have a more powerful effect than money. However, conservatism also increases with age.

Liberalism and conservatism are largely false constructs of political movements who want to divide people into two distinct categories; primarily to change the tone of the debate into an "Us vs. Them" argument. On most issues there are a myriad of possible stances that people can take; and very few of these positions would fall into a crisp/clear Conservative or Liberal category.

Take the current healthcare debate for example, most Americans would probably agree that healthcare reform is important but there are massive disagreements about what this reform should look like. Some people want to return the private system to function as intended and would focus on removing barriers to that happening, other people would be looking to scrap the private system and replace it with a public universal system, even more people might believe that both systems could co-exist, and another group might believe in a hybrid system; at the same time other people might be thinking that the out of control costs are simply a symptom of the greater problem of Americans becoming less healthy, and another group might believe that the concept of Healthcare is flawed and we should focus on preventing illness rather than curing it. This isn’t even close to being a comprehensive list of the views people might have on healthcare, and there are already a half a dozen valid viewpoints.

Unfortunately, the political system is very backwards and it seems like most people are evangelizing the beliefs of the party rather than forcing the party to subscribe to their values; and this just means that the diversity of positions and ideologies is largely being destroyed and everyone is being forced into a unnatural binary system.

Zing!

I think plenty of Atheists hate the idea of God. If they were to hate God then they would have to acknowledge he exists.

Well, of course, it's not black and white; it's a continuum.  That's why I said conservatism "increases" with money instead of "people with lots of money are conservative."  If you define conservatism as wanting a smaller, less active government, that's generally true.  It can even be applied to your healthcare example.  Holding all other variables constant (i.e. education, geographics region, etc.) a rich person can afford his own healthcare, and would probably prefer healthcare reform to involve minimal government control (since nationalizing an industry has NEVER made it better in the US).  A poorer person who can't afford the quality of healthcare he desires (or health care at all), would probably want healthcare to have more government involvement, since it would increase the quality of their healthcare.

Introduce education into the mix, and we have things like existentialism, ideals about equality and human rights, etc. that leads to thinking beyond one's self, questioning the accepted, and a variety of other things that trump the influence of money.  This means thinking about the best healthcare for everyone (the majority of which can't afford ZOMGawesome healthcare) And since education frequently makes becoming rich easier, there's no clear correlation between money and political outlook, mostly because you can't hold all vairables but income constant in the real world.

Of course, none of these rules are always true.  That's why I use the word "general trends" in my first post.

@tarheel91

I have a much simpler answer as why many of the educated are liberal.

Education is hard, and if your an elitist, the more education you achieve, and the easier life becomes, the more you think others can't obtain what you have, because not everyone can be as smart/good as you.

To be an educated wealthy liberal, first you must think your better then those who you want to give resources too.

I am a well educated man who thinks I am no better then the next guy, so if the next guy wants the advantages I have, he needs to go get them, just like I did.

Just my 2 cents.

The problem is that it is not really a continuum in the sense that people think because there is not a linear progression from one point to another; political ideals tend to be best represented as a vast, often disjointed, multi-dimensional space. You can’t even separate modern liberal and conservative ideologies based on government control because in many/most cases they both want greater government involvement but in very different ways; consider crime and order, where many conservatives believe that the government should have greater involvement in enforcing crime and punishing criminals, where many liberals believe that the government should have greater involvement in promoting "Social Equality" to prevent these crimes. Neither side is currently willing to consider reducing government at this point in time ...

As for the trends in education and age being related to the politics people follow it is generally not true. I don't know if it is still the case but a couple of years ago Alberta was the province in Canada with the youngest and highest educated population in Canada and was dramatically more conservative than all other provinces. While Ed Stelmach (the current premiere of Alberta) has screwed it up dramatically, the reason for this is pretty easy to explain. The small government approach of Alberta is very effective at producing a vibrant economy, and young people from around Canada fled their failing local economies to get a job in Alberta; when they arrive in Alberta and see that we’re not the backwards hicks we’re portrayed to be, and saw small government conservatism work so well, they were (essentially) forced to realign their ideology.

Now, among successful people there seems to be a drastic difference in how conservatives and liberals see their success and the potential for other people’s success. In most cases successful conservatives would say that "If I can be successful anyone can be successful" and their belief would be best expressed as "Hard work equals success"; in contrast many successful liberals would say that "Even though I was successful, few people like me can be successful" and their belief would be "The hard work and sacrifice to become successful is beyond what most people can sustain" ... Both views are actually correct, and anyone can be successful if they choose to be but the reason why the rewards are so great is the work and self sacrifice limits the number of people who will every be able to achieve it.

I recognize that there is a space of political ideologies, but that's because there are thousands of variables that influence one's ideology.  You have to understand, though, that when I talk about rich vs. poor, I'm talking about those when you're holding ALL other variables constant.  In that sense, it really does work like a continuum.  It's just hard to see it in the real world because you can't hold all other variables constant.  Your example about Alberta doesn't really apply for the same reason.  There are thousands of other variables that influence political ideology.  Correlation does not equal cause unless all other variables are held constant, so you can't say Alberta is a definite counter example as you can only prove correlation, not cause.

My trends are taken right from pretty much THE AP Government and Politics textbook for the US.  I'm pretty sure they know more about this stuff than we ever will.

all that i can think after reading the OP and then this entire thread, is how absolutely shit it is to be a girl.

i wish i was a d00d.