Oh, for fish's sake. It's well established that intelligence is positively correlated with income and wealth, and negatively correlated with things like single motherhood, criminality, and chronic unemployment. The Democratic Party is very vocal about being the party of the poor, of the chronically unemployed, and of single mothers. They're also the ones behind the push to restore voting rights to convicted felons, and there's a reason for that.
Now, it's one thing to say that this isn't strong enough proof for my claim, but another to write it off as mere prejudice or say that it's "shocking."
But here's stronger proof: a tabulation of AFQT test scores with party identification using the NLSY79 data. I excluded those who declined to state a party identification or gave some party identification other than Republican or Democrat. Note that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 2:1 overall. Decile 0 is 0-9.99th percentile, Decile 1 is 10-19.99th percentile, etc.
I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I suspect that a breakdown by field of study and party affiliation would help in making sense of it. My sense is that lawyers, teachers, and academics lean left, whereas doctors and MBAs lean right.
In point of fact, the least intelligent Americans tend to gravitate towards the Democratic Party. People of low intelligence tend to have low incomes, and thus have the most to gain and least to lose from the Democrats' tax-and-spend policies.
We’re not trying to ram our morals down your throat.
Unique to Japanese culture, probably not, but it is interesting that the government didn't step in to stop it. I'd be surprised if this were allowed to go through in the US.
This is unfortunate, given that the logical converse of "You shouldn't disapprove of anything legal" is that you should make something illegal if you don't approve of it.
I was looking for something a bit more falsifiable. I see this claim made a lot, but the details are always elided, so it's neither clear to me what exactly is being claimed, nor how that claim might be evaluated. Maybe I'm just overlooking something, but the transformative power of the liberal arts just isn't as obvious to me as it seems to be to many others.
Like Murray, I agree with John Stuart Mill’s sentiment that “Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and cultivated human beings.”
"Can’t you say something equivalent for almost any major political philosophy, though?"
Right. That's what I meant about "philosophical disaster" being a bit redundant. Political philosophy tends to be very hand-wavy, as people are mostly just doing the best they can to justify their intuitions. It's not the philosophers' fault, really---you just can't get very far in political philosophy without the hand-waving.
My main objection is to the lexigographic preference for improving the welfare of the least well-off. It's one thing to weight improvements to their welfare somewhat higher, but lexicographic orderings pretty much never stand up to scrutiny. Rawlsianism as applied tends to be even more of a train wreck, with a great deal of sloppiness around identifying the least well-off and accounting for indirect effects of measures taken to improve their welfare. But I'm not sure whether that can be pinned on Rawls.
There is an express mechanism for ruling laws unconstitutional. Specifically, the Supreme Court has the authority to decide all cases arising under federal law or the Constitution. When they declare a law unconstitutional, they're essentially preemptively ruling in favor of any legal challenge to the government's attempts to enforce it.
Of course, it isn't true that everyone behaves in exactly the same way. A welfare state must necessarily have beneficiaries and funders. In theory, everyone could be getting out exactly what he pays in over the course of a lifetime, but I guarantee that's not how it works in practice.
On “You Know Folks, Tom Is Very Clearly Right”
Oh, for fish's sake. It's well established that intelligence is positively correlated with income and wealth, and negatively correlated with things like single motherhood, criminality, and chronic unemployment. The Democratic Party is very vocal about being the party of the poor, of the chronically unemployed, and of single mothers. They're also the ones behind the push to restore voting rights to convicted felons, and there's a reason for that.
Now, it's one thing to say that this isn't strong enough proof for my claim, but another to write it off as mere prejudice or say that it's "shocking."
But here's stronger proof: a tabulation of AFQT test scores with party identification using the NLSY79 data. I excluded those who declined to state a party identification or gave some party identification other than Republican or Democrat. Note that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 2:1 overall. Decile 0 is 0-9.99th percentile, Decile 1 is 10-19.99th percentile, etc.
Decile 0: 83.2% Democrat
Decile 1: 84.5% Democrat
Decile 2: 80.2% Democrat
Decile 3: 73.2% Democrat
Decile 4: 63.8% Democrat
Decile 5: 55.1% Democrat
Decile 6: 52.5% Democrat
Decile 7: 44.1% Democrat
Decile 8: 44.0% Democrat
Decile 9: 45.3% Democrat
"
I'm a bit puzzled that you consider this even to be nonobvious, much less shockingly implausible. Could you elaborate?
"
I assure you that Republicans have equally inane rebuttals to charges of how they're trying to ram their morals down our throats.
"
I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I suspect that a breakdown by field of study and party affiliation would help in making sense of it. My sense is that lawyers, teachers, and academics lean left, whereas doctors and MBAs lean right.
"
Welfare. Minimum wage. Smoking bans. Laws against private discrimination. Food police. Helmet laws. Anti-globalization movement.
"
"In addition to Blaises argument above, I would offer up the their embrace of inequality..."
This is funny, because every time I see someone objecting to inequality, full stop, I revise my mental estimate of his IQ downwards.
"
I didn't say the Republicans aren't---just that it's pretty absurd to claim that the Democrats aren't trying to ram their own morals down our throats.
"
In point of fact, the least intelligent Americans tend to gravitate towards the Democratic Party. People of low intelligence tend to have low incomes, and thus have the most to gain and least to lose from the Democrats' tax-and-spend policies.
We’re not trying to ram our morals down your throat.
Right. And I'm not wasting time on the Internet.
"
And even those who don't call it "The Party of Stupid and Evil" refuse to refer to the Republicanic party by its proper name.
On ““They Will Take Up Serpents…””
I support producing this movie.
On ““So What are The League Contributors Really Like In Real Life, Anyway?””
Memorial Day specifically, or all Sundays and holidays?
On “Libertarianism in a Nutshell”
Unique to Japanese culture, probably not, but it is interesting that the government didn't step in to stop it. I'd be surprised if this were allowed to go through in the US.
"
This is unfortunate, given that the logical converse of "You shouldn't disapprove of anything legal" is that you should make something illegal if you don't approve of it.
"
Normally I would be inclined to describe this sort of attention-whoring as wankery, but that seems inappropriate, given the specifics of the case.
On ““College is not for everybody””
That was an exceptionally substantive and intelligent comment, M.A.
"
I was looking for something a bit more falsifiable. I see this claim made a lot, but the details are always elided, so it's neither clear to me what exactly is being claimed, nor how that claim might be evaluated. Maybe I'm just overlooking something, but the transformative power of the liberal arts just isn't as obvious to me as it seems to be to many others.
"
Like Murray, I agree with John Stuart Mill’s sentiment that “Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and cultivated human beings.”
What does that actually mean?
On “Comment Rescue: The Right Answer?”
What I’m really getting at is that he who is smarter is right is no better than he who os stronger is right.
The latter, though not true in all cases, is a much better heuristic.
On “Why Can’t the Leftists Teach Their Children How to Speak?”
See also my comments on Murali's post here.
Spoiler: I survived.
"
"Can’t you say something equivalent for almost any major political philosophy, though?"
Right. That's what I meant about "philosophical disaster" being a bit redundant. Political philosophy tends to be very hand-wavy, as people are mostly just doing the best they can to justify their intuitions. It's not the philosophers' fault, really---you just can't get very far in political philosophy without the hand-waving.
"
My main objection is to the lexigographic preference for improving the welfare of the least well-off. It's one thing to weight improvements to their welfare somewhat higher, but lexicographic orderings pretty much never stand up to scrutiny. Rawlsianism as applied tends to be even more of a train wreck, with a great deal of sloppiness around identifying the least well-off and accounting for indirect effects of measures taken to improve their welfare. But I'm not sure whether that can be pinned on Rawls.
"
Unfortunately, Rawls’ project, whatever its philosophical merits, is a rhetorical disaster.
It's a philosophical disaster, too. Though in practice that term tends to be a bit redundant.
On “Presuppositional Constitutionalism”
There is an express mechanism for ruling laws unconstitutional. Specifically, the Supreme Court has the authority to decide all cases arising under federal law or the Constitution. When they declare a law unconstitutional, they're essentially preemptively ruling in favor of any legal challenge to the government's attempts to enforce it.
On “Talk radio, taxes, and the Bible”
Of course, it isn't true that everyone behaves in exactly the same way. A welfare state must necessarily have beneficiaries and funders. In theory, everyone could be getting out exactly what he pays in over the course of a lifetime, but I guarantee that's not how it works in practice.
On “Hexalogue”
Can we all drop the politics and get back to the important topic here, which is how best to combine chocolate and Chinese food?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.