Wednesday 20th of August 2008

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Is The U.S. More Conservative or Liberal?

Which is it? The short answer is, no one knows. For all the talk we hear about Red States vs Blue States or how many more registered Democrats than Republicans there are, my take is that the issue is spun by both sides trying to buttress their respective claims to political ascendancy.

Jeff Jacoby, op-ed columnist for the Boston Globe defined Liberals and Conservatives as follows:

…Liberals (in American usage) are those who tend to favor government intervention as the response to any issue, while conservatives tend to favor private initiate and voluntary action. Liberals generally favor a reduction of choice in the economic realm, while conservatives tend to favor more choice. On social issues, liberals tend to favor the elimination of traditional restraints and taboos, while conservatives are more likely to support them.

So, how is it that we don’t know if the U.S. is more conservative or liberal? After all, isn’t it just a matter of counting heads?

Not really. “…putting all things in American Politics on to a single, one-dimensional, liberal or conservative scale is misleading at best and wholly inadequate at worst.” (nullbull.gnn.tv, 1 Mar 2007). “When you shove opinions about abortion, animal rights, big business, big government, the death penalty, foreign policy, gay rights, gun control, homelessness, immigration, labor unions, logging, Medicare, military power, national security, patriotism, property rights, race, taxation, the Ten Commandments in courthouses, voting machines, and welfare under one umbrella, something’s not going to fit.” (writersbbs.com, Liberal Vs. Conservative).

Looking at the U.S. through a Conservative vs Liberal prism reveals the following:

Mixed Positions on Issues
Those who are counted among the Left and Right often have mixed positions on various issues. For example, many Conservatives who oppose abortion may tend to be more liberal when it comes to social policies, such as education or health care.

Registered Democrats and Republicans
In the 2004 elections, “An estimated 201.5 million U.S. citizens age 18 or over will be eligible to vote…Of these about 55 million are registered Republicans. About 72 million registered Democrats.” Approximately 27.3% are Republican, 35.7% Democrat, 37.0% are not registered. However, party affiliation notwithstanding, President Bush won the election by three million votes, which may or may not mean the 62 million people who voted for him are Conservative. In addition, the so-called “Blue Dog Democrats” in the South have traditionally been more conservative on various issues than many Republicans, particularly those from the more Liberal states, such as New York or Massachusetts.

To further confuse the issue of whether the U.S. is more Conservative or Liberal, the respective parties in each state often do not have a platform that agrees with their national parties, and candidates from one party may win in a state or states in which they do not have a majority of the officeholders. For example, in 2004, Maine had two Republican Senators but John Kerry won in that state, while George W. Bush won North Carolina in both 2000 and 2004 but “its governor is a Democrat and both houses of its legislature have Democratic majorities.”

Education
“In 2004, college graduates were split equally at 49% for both Kerry and Bush: those with postgraduate degrees voted for Kerry by a 10% margin and those with Bachelor’s Degrees voted for Bush by a 6% margin.” (Wikipedia, Red States and Blue States)

Household Income
“…Kerry won in households with less than $50,000 in annual income, and Bush won in households consisting of married couples and those with greater than $50,000 annual income.” (Wikipedia, Red States and Blue States)

Blue States, Red States
The distinction between the so-called Red and Blue states is not clearly delineated. “The county-by-county and district-by-district maps reveal that the true nature of the divide is between urban areas/inner suburbs and suburbs/rural areas. Even in ‘solidly Blue’ states, the majority of voters in rural counties and a slighter majority in suburban areas voted for Bush…and even in ‘solidly Red’ states, a majority of those in urban counties…voted for John Kerry.” (Wikipedia: Red States and Blue States).

Electoral Votes
“One thing that has been consistent over this period (2000-2004) is that the average ‘blue’ state has a greater number of people and electoral votes than does the average ‘red’ state. (When George W. Bush won 31 states in 2004, he gathered 286 electoral votes (53% of 538 total) – an average of 9 electoral votes for each state won…” (Wikipedia, Red States and Blue States). As we saw in the 2000 election, it is possible to be elected with a majority of the electoral votes but garner less than a majority of the popular vote.

Fiscal Responsibility
Not all Conservatives are fiscally responsible, nor are all Liberals fiscally irresponsible, in spite of their respective rhetoric, so this issue can hardly be considered the basis for judging whether America is more Conservative or Liberal. The current Republican administration has been one of the biggest spending parties in history, to the great displeasure of most true Conservatives.

Immigration
Until recently, the current Republican administration advocated a “Liberal” policy toward illegal immigration, that is, until they were forced to adjust their policy, at least ostensibly. But, it was not until a major grassroots campaign was mounted by “the people” that Congress changed its position.There are a host of other issues, including the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, which many Conservatives having now adopted the Liberal position in opposition, all of which further illustrates the difficulty of trying to determine with any degree of certainty whether the U.S. is more Conservative or Liberal. To the great frustration of both sides, sometimes the country is more Conservative, sometimes it is more Liberal.

© 2007 Harris R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved

October 30, 2007 | Filed Under Blue states, Boston Globe, Democrats, Jeff Jacoby, Red states, Republicans, conservative, government, liberal | Leave a Comment 

Al Gore’s Peace Prize

Al Gore receives the Nobel Peace Prize - for what? Misrepresenting the facts about “Global Warming,” that’s what. I am amazed that this man, who claimed to have invented the Internet, would win a coveted Peace Prize for what amounts to a PowerPoint presentation that is riddled with inaccuracies, misstatements and outright misrepresentations. So much so, that a “British court recently found his film, An Inconvenient Truth, to be politically biased and ruled teachers must warn students of that bias before showing the film.” (Source: Gore’s price: A fraud on the people, Union Leader, October 14, 2007).

British High Court Rules “An Inconvenient Truth” Partisan Politics
James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute, elaborating on factual errors in the film that were identified by the court, noted: “Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, represents ‘partisan political views’ and must be treated as such by teachers in British schools, a British High Court judge has indicated. The British court was swayed by numerous factual inaccuracies portrayed in the movie,” which Mr. Taylor listed as follows:

–The film claims global warming is responsible for the gradual retreat of the alpine glacier atop Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro. Scientists have conclusively demonstrated no such link exists.

–The film presents graphs indicating that fluctuating carbon dioxide levels have always preceded and caused global temperature fluctuations. In fact, temperature changes have always preceded carbon dioxide changes.

–The film suggests global warming caused Hurricane Katrina. Few hurricane experts believe this, and substantial scientific evidence indicates global warming is having no impact on hurricane frequency or intensity.

–The film asserts global warming is causing Central Africa’s Lake Chad to dry up. In fact, land use practices are causing the drying up of Lake Chad, and Central Africa is in an unusual and prolonged wet period.

–The film asserts global warming is leading to polar bear deaths by drowning. Yet the only documented drowning deaths occurred due to a freak storm, and polar bear numbers are growing substantially.

–The film claims global warming threatens to halt the Gulf Stream and initiate a new ice age. The vast majority of scientists who have studied the issue have determined such a scenario is implausible.

–The film asserts global warming is causing the destruction of coral reefs through bleaching. Scientists have identified other causes for coral bleaching and have additionally noted bleaching is a natural process by which coral continually selects ideal symbiotic algae.

–The film asserts Greenland is in danger of rapid ice melt that will raise sea levels by 20 feet or more. The scientific consensus is that any foreseeable Greenland ice melt will be gradual and will take centuries to substantially raise sea levels.

–The film asserts the Antarctic ice shelf is melting. In fact, only a small portion of Antarctica is getting warmer and losing ice mass, while the vast majority of Antarctica is in a prolonged cold spell and is accumulating ice mass.

Also highlighted in court arguments was Al Gore’s admission in Grist Magazine that “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it [global warming] is.”

The British High Court’s ruling also stated, “As a result of the partisan political nature of Gore’s film, school teachers will not be allowed to show the movie without telling their students the film i