Education and Political Affiliation.

Recnetly one of our posters, Aquapub, had these gems to offer to the DP community:

**Liberal books boms, conservative books do great. Liberals don't read. That's not hate, it's called reasoning.

**Conservative books beat the crap out of liberal ones because conservatives read and liberals are generally brainwashed, uneducated hysterics.

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It was hidden in the 'Lexis Nexus is biased' thread, which was unsucessfully trying to justify the bias of a search engine.:3oops:

That aside, I thought it needed to be pulled out into a poll, and it's own thread.

So here it is:
Which group could, by all measureable means, be considered more educated: Liberals, or conservatives?

I offer this to the discussion--now this is just a start, and some interesting data--nothing concrete here about which group is more educated:

Here is a map of The Percent of Persons 25 Years and Over with Bachelor's Degree or Higher
Notice the bible belt has up to 15% fewer people with a college degree. Also notice the 'blue states', including NY, CA, etc are some of the highest 'bachelor degree or higher' rates.

And here's a map of Persons 16 to 19 Years Not Enrolled in School and Not a High School Graduate:Notice the hgiher percentage of kids not attending high school in the bible belt. Notice most of the 'red states', including Texas, Missippi, Georgia, Carolinas, and Alabama with the lower rates of high school attendance.


And lastly, a map of 2004 voting results.
This speaks for itself.

Clearly no concrete conclusion can be drawn from this data, and no studies that I know of have ever attempted to correlate education and voting patterns. some assumptions could be made here, but that is all. More than Aqua had to offer, that is for sure.

I'll leave you with this quote:
“As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing” - Karl Rove

I like that Rove quote.

To me it seems that wealth can make you uncompassionate, and Intelligence can make you more open minded. But what happens when someone becomes educated and wealthy... libertarian?

I think it's true, the reading, that is, to an extent.

However, many of the conservative books are reactionary to the "liberal agenda".

I love being unchallenged, to me it is the same as winning.:2razz:

I put together this simple chart to show the data in another form. again, this is simply for observation, not stating any certainties.

The colors (red/blue)indicated what the state voted in 2004, next to the percent of residents over 25 years of age that hold a bachelor's degree.
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NOTICE A TREND?


source

Funny, I consider myself to be liberal, and I read more than anyone else I know. I'll read just about anything I can get my hands on, whether it be for entertainment or for knowledge. And my parents never encouraged me to read as a child...oh, sure, they'd buy books for me, but they more often encouraged me to go run around outside. I'd happily go outside and plop down under a tree, book firmly still in hand.

You could hardly call me brainwashed - I don't blindly tow partisan lines, and I don't buy into any mass hype or jump on any bandwagons without good reason.

I'm hardly uneducated - I may not have a college degree (yet), but I received top grades all through my school years, and have taken a few college classes. I make a point of doing research on topics that are of interest to me, and I do research on topics that don't particularly interest me, at least so I'll know what people are talking about when those topics come up.

And hysterical? Well, maybe in a comedic sense. :mrgreen:

Stace said:

Funny, I consider myself to be liberal, and I read more than anyone else I know. I'll read just about anything I can get my hands on, whether it be for entertainment or for knowledge. And my parents never encouraged me to read as a child...oh, sure, they'd buy books for me, but they more often encouraged me to go run around outside. I'd happily go outside and plop down under a tree, book firmly still in hand.

You could hardly call me brainwashed - I don't blindly tow partisan lines, and I don't buy into any mass hype or jump on any bandwagons without good reason.

I'm hardly uneducated - I may not have a college degree (yet), but I received top grades all through my school years, and have taken a few college classes. I make a point of doing research on topics that are of interest to me, and I do research on topics that don't particularly interest me, at least so I'll know what people are talking about when those topics come up.

And hysterical? Well, maybe in a comedic sense. :mrgreen:

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But wait, according to Aquapub's stellar logical thought processes, since you don't buy political books by authors like Michael Moore, Al Franken, or any 'lefty' equivelant to Ann Coulter, you simply don't read as much as conservatives do, and are therefore uneducated.

Don't you get it?
Maybe if you read more chomsky you could grasp this whole 'perfectly sensical' concept

What do you make of the data in this post? Interesting, to say the least. don't ya think? Notice how this thread has been avoided like the plague....

I think it is funny that Aqua thinks that reading a pundit's book is educating yourself, regardless of which side you are on. Most people just read books that reaffirm what they already believe in. Do you think that conservatives challenge themselves by reading authors that suggest they might be wrong? Could it be that business might have something to do with what kind of books are sold. The right-wing agenda market is just a business decision. They just crank out the crap because they know they have a bunch of scared people that want to justify their belief systems.

::Major_Baker:: said:

But wait, according to Aquapub's stellar logical thought processes, since you don't buy political books by authors like Michael Moore, Al Franken, or any 'lefty' equivelant to Ann Coulter, you simply don't read as much as conservatives do, and are therefore uneducated.

Don't you get it?
Maybe if you read more chomsky you could grasp this whole 'perfectly sensical' concept

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Meh, the pundits don't much interest me. I have read one of Michael Moore's books, and I've read bits and pieces of books from some of the others, from both sides of the spectrum, but I'd never buy the garbage again.

About 6 or 7 months ago, I purchased two books: "How the Republicans Stole Christmas (The Republican Party's Declared Monopoly on Religion and What Democrats Can Do to Take It Back)" by Bill Press, and "The War On Christmas (How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought)" by John Gibson.

I found Mr. Press' book to be quite informative, as it covered much more than merely the whole War on Christmas topic. Mr. Gibson, however......I couldn't even make it through the entire book, and that's rare for me. Nothing but hate mongering and a flair for the dramatics.

What do you make of the data in this post? Interesting, to say the least. don't ya think? Notice how this thread has been avoided like the plague....

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Interesting, but as you've already stated, inconclusive, really...Now, if the country were segregated to where all liberals lived, worked, and attended school in blue states, and the same were true of conservatives, it'd be MUCH easier to see a pattern, but alas, that is not the case.

Haven't been avoiding it, I just now found it. Education does not necessarily equate to intelligence, and no insult intended toward those who have degrees.
I don't read the pundits, either. Don't listen to them on TV, except on rare occassions.
My news comes from both CNN and FOX. Amazing the different ways two channels can present the same story.
The truth of the matter is, rather than people of either party being patriots anymore, they are partisan. It is no longer American. Now it is Democrat or Republican.
And this is the stupid sh!t that is going to continue to drag this country down.

Blue Collar Joe said:

Haven't been avoiding it, I just now found it. Education does not necessarily equate to intelligence, and no insult intended toward those who have degrees.
I don't read the pundits, either. Don't listen to them on TV, except on rare occassions.
My news comes from both CNN and FOX. Amazing the different ways two channels can present the same story.
The truth of the matter is, rather than people of either party being patriots anymore, they are partisan. It is no longer American. Now it is Democrat or Republican.
And this is the stupid sh!t that is going to continue to drag this country down.

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That is exactly right on all counts. Not that you need my justification, but I couldn't agree more.

Blue Collar Joe said:

Haven't been avoiding it, I just now found it. Education does not necessarily equate to intelligence, and no insult intended toward those who have degrees.
I don't read the pundits, either. Don't listen to them on TV, except on rare occassions.
My news comes from both CNN and FOX. Amazing the different ways two channels can present the same story.
The truth of the matter is, rather than people of either party being patriots anymore, they are partisan. It is no longer American. Now it is Democrat or Republican.
And this is the stupid sh!t that is going to continue to drag this country down.

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this post was a response the the assertion Aquapub made that since conservative political books sell more copies than liberal books do, that liberals do not read as much and are therfore not as well educated.

So I searched for data on the most 'measurable' aspects I could think of to show that this is untrue, and came across some interesting data that I thought I'd share.

I'd love it is the parties could stop being so hostile to eachother, but as long as we give sniveling 5-year old pundits like Coulter the money out of our pockets so that she can continue exacerbating this divisivness, we will have to keep listening to it.

::Major_Baker:: said:

this post was a response the the assertion Aquapub made that since conservative political books sell more copies than liberal books do, that liberals do not read as much and are therfore not as well educated.

So I searched for data on the most 'measurable' aspects I could think of to show that this is untrue, and came across some interesting data that I thought I'd share.

I'd love it is the parties could stop being so hostile to eachother, but as long as we give sniveling 5-year old pundits like Coulter the money out of our pockets so that she can continue exacerbating this divisivness, we will have to keep listening to it.

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There is a lot more than just Coulter. She uses the screaming she-bitch with no batteries for her toy role. The left has Moore, who uses the 'America is Evil' angle.
I still say we need term limits to stop this crap.

Blue Collar Joe said:

There is a lot more than just Coulter. She uses the screaming she-bitch with no batteries for her toy role. The left has Moore, who uses the 'America is Evil' angle.
I still say we need term limits to stop this crap.

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I agree, both sides have their rotten apples.