We Are Better Than You In Every Meaningful Way

Empirical research has proven in recent years that people who favor smaller government, by whatever label – conservatives, Tea Partiers, whatever – are smarter, better-informed, better-educated and more generally successful at life, are generally happier, more generous,  and are even better in bed than big-government people by whatever label (liberal, “progressive’, yadda yadda).

And now, we have proof that not only are we as a whole less racist than big-government advocates…:

Social scientists usually measure traditional racism against African Americans by looking at the survey responses of white Americans only. Among whites in the latest General Social Survey (2008), only 4.5% of small-government advocates express the view that “most Blacks/African-Americans have less in-born ability to learn,” compared to 12.3% of those who favor bigger government or take a middle position expressing this racist view (Figure 2). We social scientists sometimes like to express things in relative odds, especially for small percentages. Here the odds of small government whites not expressing racist views (21-to-1 odds) is three times higher than the odds of big-government whites not being racist (7-to-1 odds).

…but that we long-abused white male small-government are, empirically, the least-racist subgroup of all, by a whopping margin:

Figure 3 shows that, among whites, Republican advocates of smaller government are even less racist (1.3% believing that blacks have less in-born ability) than the rest of the general public (11.3% expressing racist views). Thus, in 2008 Republicans who believe that the government in Washington does too much have 10 times higher odds of not expressing racist views on the in-born ability question than the rest of the population (79-to-1 odds v. 7.9-to-1 odds).

How social conservatives who aren’t necessarily small-government – stereotypically southern?

Yep – still half as likely to be a racist as a typical American:

In 2008, only 5.4% of white conservative Republicans expressed racist views on the in-born ability question, compared to 10.3% of the rest of the white population.

An aberration – perhaps caused by all that messianic hopey-changey twaddle?

Nope:

In sixteen surveys from 1977 through 2008 (Figure 4), overall white Republicans were significantly less racist on the in-born ability question than white Democrats (13.3% to 17.3%), and white conservative Republicans were significantly less racist than other white Americans (11.7% to 14.7%), though in most surveys the differences were too small to be significant taken individually — and in the 1993 survey, the relationship was reversed: conservative Republicans were significantly more racist on the racial inheritance question than the rest of the public.

Another traditional racism question — on segregated neighborhoods — was asked on fifteen General Social Surveys from 1972 through 1996. Though the percentage of white Democrats and white Republicans who slightly or strongly agreed that “White people have a right to keep Blacks out of their neighborhoods” did not differ significantly in any one survey, overall white Democrats were significantly more likely to support segregated neighborhoods than white Republicans (30.4% to 26.3%).

Quite clearly, the legacy of Nixon’s “southern strategy” – which was never especially racist in its own right – is long dead.

The Dems’ “racism of low expectations” is, in fact, just racism.

Maybe we need some sort of outreach program to, I dunno, judge people by the contents of their hearts rather than the color of their skin.

44 thoughts on “We Are Better Than You In Every Meaningful Way

  1. This does not surprise me in the least. The thought that “most Blacks/African-Americans have less in-born ability to learn” is to me absurd. Applying one specific tendency to an entire group of people is not just stupid, it’s lazy thinking.
    Cue Angryclown making a Jesus riding a dinosaur comment.

  2. Little known facts:

    The KKK has been wearing blue hoods for the last 60 years.

    Burning crosses now made with recycled lumber.

    After cross burning buffet features vegan menu.

  3. And yet hundreds of thousands of people are marching in the streets protesting your agenda – perhaps some of that ‘better’ is in your minds rather than in reality.

    I noticed that your standard for evaluation, like the one ‘better in bed’ is entirely subjective, and therefore more likely to reflect how a group of people wish to be seen than how they perform.

  4. And yet hundreds of thousands of people are marching in the streets protesting your agenda.
    What are you even talking about, Dog Gone? Are you confusing the US with Egypt or Libya?

  5. hundreds of thousands of people

    FACT CHECK: Tens of thousands of people, maybe up to 100,000 depending on your estimate. In Madison – Berkeley with lakes.

    That’s about as impressive as getting a big turnout for a Second Amendment rally in Omaha, or for college football in Arlington, TX.

    It’s a non-sequitur, anyway; you’re comparing protests with empirical studies. Like comparing apples and house paint.

  6. I noticed that your standard for evaluation, like the one ‘better in bed’ is entirely subjective, and therefore more likely to reflect how a group of people wish to be seen than how they perform.

    Well, no – read the links. There are actual studies on the subject.

    Seriously, DG – going through life assuming everyone but you is an idiot may be self-satisfying, but it leads you down some dark intellectual alleys.

  7. And yet hundreds of thousands of people are marching in the streets protesting your agenda…

    Appropos of what, exactly? That there are hundreds of thousands of thugs willing to threaten violence on others to achieve their ends means that we should change our system of government? And that this makes the folks willing to do that somehow better than folks who are willing to work within the system to reform it? You’re a twisted little troll if you don’t think that these events were meant to be physically intimidating, with protests at legislators homes, death threats, and physical confrontations.

  8. Dark intellectual alleys. The standard thoroughfare of the liberal mind.

    “Hundreds of thousands”. The average estimate of a union Astroturf rally by a union “news” outlet.

  9. It makes perfect sense, really. The Democratic Party, since before the Civil War, has been the party that saw black people as a dependent class. They justified slavery on the grounds that black people were unable to care for themselves in a modern society, and needed masters. Today they justify the welfare state on the grounds that black people are still unable to care for themselves in a modern society, and need nursemaids.

  10. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/11/wolcott200611

    http://vox-nova.com/2009/06/30/chart-of-the-day-red-states-blue-states-and-morality/
    Chart of the Day: Red States, Blue States, and Morality
    See voting patterns by state and the incidence of divorce, teenage birthrates, and pornography usage.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126653602

    The states that voted Democratic in the last two presidential elections have the lowest rates of divorce and teen pregnancies. And the red states had the highest.

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0109/STDs_higher_in_Red_States.html

    By the measures of incarcerations for crime, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, secually transmitted disease, and porn use, those seem to be statistically higher in conservative voting states – using voting as a measure of conservativism, rather than self-labelling as these studies do.

    Gosh, that sure does’t strike me as the statistics I would correlate to being better in bed or more sexually satisfied.

    As to better educated or better informed? Well, sure you do like to think you are – but right wing news sources are consistently the least factual (which too often includes this blog)

    http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/john-farrell/2010/12/22/university-study-fox-viewers-more-misinformed

  11. this one source sums it up the best in one place

    http://prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=8971

    In red states in 2001, there were 572,000 divorces … Blue states recorded 340,000 … In the same year, 11 red states had higher rates of divorce than any blue state … In each of the red states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, 46.3 percent of all births were to unwed mothers … In blue states, on average, that percentage was 31.7 … Delaware has the highest rate of births to teenage mothers among all blue states, yet 17 red states have a higher rate … Of those red states, 15 have at least twice the rate as that of Massachusetts … There were more than 100 teen pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 in 5 red states in 2002 … None of the blue states had rates that high … The rate of teen births declined in 46 states from 1988 to 2000 … It climbed in 3 red states and saw no change in another … The per capita rate of violent crime in red states is 421 per 100,000 … In blue states, it’s 372 per 100,000 … The per capita rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in Louisiana is 13 per 100,000 … In Maine, it’s 1.2 per 100,000 … As of 2000, 37 states had statewide policies or procedures to address domestic violence … All 13 that didn’t were red states … The 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol dependence or abuse are red states … The 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol dependence or abuse among 12- to 17-year-olds are also red states … The per capita rate of methamphetamine-lab seizures in California is 2 per 100,000 … In Arkansas, it’s 20 per 100,000 … The number of meth-lab seizures in red states increased by 38 percent from 1999 to 2003 … In the same time frame, it decreased by 38 percent in blue states … Residents of the all-red Mountain States are the most likely to have had 3 or more sexual partners in the previous year … Residents of all-blue New England are the least likely to have had more than 1 partner in that span … Residents of the mid-Atlantic region of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were the most likely to be sexually abstinent … Residents of the all-red West South Central region (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana) were the least likely … Five red states reported more than 400 cases of chlamydia per 100,000 residents in 2002 … No blue state had a rate that high … The per capita rate of gonorrhea in red states was 140 per 100,000 … In blue states, it was 99 per 100,000.

  12. in 2001
    in 2002
    from 1988 to 2000
    As of 2000
    from 1999 to 2003
    in 2002

    Timely, Mrs. Teasdale.

  13. “Seriously, DG – going through life assuming everyone but you is an idiot may be self-satisfying,”

    Actually, I go through life assuming DG is an idiot. It’s neither satifying nor unsatisfying. It just is.

  14. DG, I swear – these discussions feel like “debating” someone whose sole source of news is MSNBC (circa years and years ago, as D correctly points out).

    The states that voted Democratic in the last two presidential elections have the lowest rates of divorce and teen pregnancies. And the red states had the highest.

    This was completely shredded four or five years ago, DG. The difference, in both cases, is entirely attributable to the fact that Red states have vastly higher rates of marriage and lower abortion rates. Blue staters are more likely to live together (or stay single) and kill off their oopses.

    By the measures of incarcerations for crime, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, secually transmitted disease, and porn use, those seem to be statistically higher in conservative voting states –

    Incarcerations: the figures – especially those in the “Prospect” article – are skewed by the southern states (which have higher crime rates than the rest of the country, and always have, no matter which way they voted) and the fact that they also are more likely to jail criminals per capita than blue states.

    As to STDs and porn use – um, suffice to say those stats are pretty squishy.

    Do try to stay on subject, DG; the study that is the subject of my post has been in progress for a few decades; it documents the fact (had you read it, which you clearly did not) that the GOP did, twenty-odd years ago, test more racist than the Dems. That’s completely changed.

    Leaving aside the fact that everything you’re citing is long-debunked (most of it on this blog, at one time or another), it’s also an illogical digression.

    I’ve seen no empirical studies that Conservatives are better at basic logic, but the anecdotal evidence is pretty overwhelming.

  15. I think the Republican’s lack of racism actually hurts them with minorities. We don’t pander or pity peoples of color because we don’t think they need pandering or pity. We treat everyone the same. Why should I treat someone differently based on what continent their ancestors came from.

    Then the Democrats go to minorities and tell them how horrible their society is and how Mother Government is going to give them free stuff and pass laws so they get special treatment.

  16. DG…..the divorce and other social rates….the real divide deals with wealth and education. Rich doctors tend to have fewer divorces than low income unskilled workers.

    If it was political affiliation, then Wyoming, Utah and North Dakota would be the divorce and abortion capital of the world, and Detroit would be like Mayberry.

  17. prospect.org = “At the dawn of a new progressive era and a time of economic transformation for the United States and the world”

    Socialist Bastards, Surprise, Go Figure!!!

    “Residents of the mid-Atlantic region of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were the most likely to be sexually abstinent …”

    That’ll happen when they can’t find a date.

  18. The “porn use” study that I remember used Utah as an example.
    The study could have been used as a textbook example of how to use social science research to push a pre-determined political objective.
    To cite just one example of how to do a “study” that confirms the expectations of the researchers & the intended audience, research online porn use by state (rather than county) and do not link party or political belief to the porn user.
    You can end up with a “study” that shows a red state like Utah having a high rate of online porn viewing even if every single pornography user in Utah was a registered democrat.

  19. DG

    comparing Louisiana to Maine as your prospect.org blurb did is unequivocally racist. Do you endorse and stand by that racism?

  20. Let’s cross-reference zip code to crime rate and the ratio of caucasions to non-caucasians and then use those numbers to formulate public policy.
    I’m sure the HHH institute would agree that that is an appropriate use of social science!

  21. Deegee purported “The states that voted Democratic in the last two presidential elections have the lowest rates of divorce”
    To which Mitch accurately replied “The difference, in both cases, is entirely attributable to the fact that Red states have vastly higher rates of marriage”.
    People that shack up don’t need to divorce when the going gets tough.

    I love seeing a meme sink under the weight of it’s own stupidity.

  22. The left has been abusing the truth for decades.
    Back in the 80’s the left wanted the public to pay for more AIDS research. Problem was that people with aids were overwhelmingly people who the general public did not particularly identify with — intravenous drug users and people (mostly men) who had frequent sexual encounters with multiple partners.
    So a concerted effort was made by the political and social left to depict people with aids as people the public had more sympathy for — hemophiliac children, who were a miniscule percentage of AIDS sufferers.
    If you are on the left statistics have only two purposes, to confirm your prejudices and to push your agenda.

  23. While dissing on DG is like shoulder-punching the window licker on the short bus, I feel I must point out she actually linked to a VANITY FAIR article as an authoritative source. If that’s not grabbing at the first Google result that fits a preconception, I don’t know what is.

  24. First line in the Vanity Fair piece:
    “If the blue states are sinkholes of moral decay, as right-wing pundits insist . . .”
    Which “right-wing pundit” ever insisted that “blue states are sinkholes of moral decay”?
    The criticisms that I have read from “right-wing” pundits isn’t about “blue states” as much as it is about large, democrat-run cities. The complaints are that they have a poor business climate, they are tax-happy, and that their public schools and high real estate values make them family-unfriendly.

    It would be nice, if, when a liberal writer makes a statement like “”If the blue states are sinkholes of moral decay, as right-wing pundits insist ” they would give an example of a right-wing pundit insisting that blue states are sinkholes of moral decay so we all know what they are talking about.
    Or maybe this is an example of left-wing “dog whistle” politics?

  25. Back in the 80′s the left wanted the public to pay for more AIDS research. Problem was that people with aids were overwhelmingly people who the general public did not particularly identify with — intravenous drug users and people (mostly men) who had frequent sexual encounters with multiple partners.

    Bad joke from back when I was in college, when AIDS first became news:

    “Q: What’s the worst thing about getting AIDS? A: Convincing your parents that you’re Haitian”

  26. Which “right-wing pundit” ever insisted that “blue states are sinkholes of moral decay”?
    David Gergen?

  27. And I am not now, nor have I ever been, been Haitian. I have sent money to Haiti for hunger relief, but that’s a different topic.

  28. And yet hundreds of thousands of people are marching in the streets protesting your agenda. Really, Doggy? Are your really that big of an idiot?

    Are those the same thousands of entitled, elitist, miscreants that damaged the WI State Capitol building to the tune of $7.5 M? As usual, we can always count on libturds to cause severe damage to everything they touch!

    I swear Doggy, if your brain was gas, you wouldn’t have enough to power a piss ant’s motorcycle half way around a BB!

  29. Which “right-wing pundit” ever insisted that “blue states are sinkholes of moral decay”?

    Andrew Sullivan?

  30. Which “right-wing pundit” ever insisted that “blue states are sinkholes of moral decay”?

    The Little Green Footballs dude?

  31. Which “right-wing pundit” ever insisted that “blue states are sinkholes of moral decay”?
    Alan Colmes? Michael Bloomberg? Oh, I know! The Prince of Wales!

  32. C’mon. We all know that Glenn Beck is appointed spokesman for all things conservative. If he is not available, O’Reilly will step in.

  33. to be fair to Norm I think he’s moved further right, endorsing Emmer last year for gov. Heck I remember him on the floor trying to swing votes between the 1st and 2nd ballots. He’s positioning himself for a rematch with Franken in 2014.

  34. Pingback: links for 2011-03-17 « Marty Andrade

  35. Please, please don’t run Norm again!!!! Sadly we’re stuck with Diaper Boy for another 4+ years. Very soon we need to find the one that will retire Androgynous Amy, and I pray we don’t run Norm. There are plenty of other very good conservative candidates that could run.

  36. Scott, outside of Amy Koch or Teresa Collett I see our bench being very thin this time around, please name some ‘very good conservative candidates’ that we have.

  37. Scott, outside of Amy Koch

    …who need to run for Governor in 2014, if she keeps going like she is.

  38. Bachmann v Klobuchar, I’d like to see that.
    Watch list for the future:
    Amy Koch – I think she’d rip Klobuchar, Dayton, or Franken to shreds.
    Dave Thompson
    Jason Lewis – I think he may be contemplating something.

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