This confuses conservative with not being open to changing ones ideas. But there are plenty of radical leftists who remain radical leftists into old age. Are they conservatives? Others change their views in old age and become conservative. I guess this makes them liberals! The whole idea of dividing the world into liberals and conservatives is a bit nutty or at least hopelessly imprecise. Is Justin Raimondo conservative or liberal. Obama is supposedly a liberal but on foreign policy issues such as Afghanistan he is more hawkish than Bush was.
Cheers, k hanly
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
--- On Tue, 7/7/09, Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au> wrote:
> From: Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Americans say they're moving right
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 1:03 AM
>
> Looks like it falls to me to point out that the the subject
> header is inconsistent with the story, Americans becoming
> more conservative doesn't equate with them moving to the
> right, as the subject header asserts.
>
> In fact the survey results don't even mean that the
> American population on the whole is becoming more
> conservative, it only indicates that individual Americans
> believe they are becoming more conservative.
>
> Hardly a revelation. Individuals usually do become more
> conservative as they get older, its a biological imperative.
> When we are young, we are open to new ideas a lot more,
> because we know nothing and have no ideas, we are a blank
> sheet. Then we learn and develop opinions about things,
> which means we are slightly less open to new ideas, because
> we have already formed opinions. As we get older, our brains
> become less agile and its harder to understand new ideas.
>
> Which is to say, more conservative.
>
> But then we die. And are replaced by younger people, with
> different ideas.
>
> So this survey is utterly meaningless. Not least because it
> is purely subjective. It just means that individuals
> consider themselves more conservative than when they were
> younger.
>
> I consider myself more conservative than I was 20 years
> ago. Its subjective of course, but I consider that being a
> socialist is quite a conservative political stand. Not
> radical in the least.
>
> So I wouldn't read much into this survey, its a statement
> of the bloody obvious.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas
>
>
> At 10:53 AM -0400 6/7/09, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > <http://www.gallup.com/poll/121403/Special-Report-Ideologically-Moving.aspx>
> >
> > July 6, 2009
> >
> > Special Report: Ideologically, Where Is the U.S.
> Moving?
> > Nearly 4 in 10 Americans say their views have grown
> more conservative
> >
> > by Lydia Saad
> >
> > PRINCETON, NJ -- Despite the results of the 2008
> presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say
> their political views in recent years have become more
> conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42%
> saying they have not changed. While independents and
> Democrats most often say their views haven't changed, more
> members of all three major partisan groups indicate that
> their views have shifted to the right rather than to the
> left.
> >
> > ...
> > ___________________________________
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>
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