Liberal or Conservative Part II

On January 15, I shared my thoughts about predicting a person’s leaning toward liberal or conservative bias based on his/her experience and life situation  The categories, sub-categories and points I used in  my model are:

●     Age:  50 or over, +10 points, under 50, -10 pts

●     Education:  college degree in liberal arts, political science, education or journalism, - 50 pts; college degree in engineering, business admin, science, + 50 pts.  All other levels of education and degrees, 0 pts.

●     Gender:  Male, +10 pts, Female, -10 pts.

●     Employment:  Government, -50 pts, education, -50 pts, unemployed, -50 pts;  all other, 0 pts.

●     Race:  Afro-American, -40 pts, Hispanic, -25 pts, caucasian, +10 pts.

●     Religion:  Catholic and most protestants, 0 pts, Fundamental protestants, +30 pts, Islam, -30 pts, Jewish, -40 pts.

To use the model, score a person on ALL sub-categories and add the points.  A negative score indicates a liberal bias and a positive score a conservative bias.  Did it work for you?  Your friends?

Remember, this is just based on my experience.  To improve this model, liberal and conservative would be defined and measured by a questionnaire.  Then the results of interviewing many people would be run through a multi-regression analysis to determine sub-categories and points.

This is not about Democrats or Republicans or how you vote.  This is about how you think and interpret your world and the news.

So what does all this mean?  Does this mean our thinking about liberal and conservative is based on our life situation rather than our great intellect?  Can we wipe out past experiences and change?  Have our emails and discussions ever changed the thinking of anyone?

Beats me.  I’m just an old man who likes to think about what I see around me.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Little Things

I decided to write this short blog before the followup to the Liberal-Conservative one.

Sometimes, little things make a difference.

A few days ago, Aloma asked me to go with her to Bed, Bath and Beyond to shop for a new bedspread.  While she looked at bedspreads, I wandered around looking at kitchen gadgets.

An insulated coffee mug caught my eye.  I like to sip coffee slowly and like it hot.  My favorite insulated cup mysteriously disappeared at the beach in August.  I’ve tried a couple of cheap replacements.  They didn’t keep my coffee hot.

I spotted a stainless steel vacuum insulated mug for only nine dollars.  With Aloma’s discount, the cost was closer to seven dollars.  And it works great.  I now have hot coffee all afternoon.  I love it.

When we got home, Aloma presented me with a new pillow.  I like a small pillow on top of my regular pillow to cushion my head.  The new one has little beads in it that move to cushion my head perfectly.  I love it.

Sometimes, little things make life a pleasure.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Liberal or Conservative

I’ve been curious over the years how people become entrenched in their beliefs.  Information that I thought would encourage people to question their beliefs only caused them to become more entrenched.

I understand that deep-seated beliefs are independent of intelligence.  Liberal and conservative friends range from barely able to come out of the rain to near genius.  If intelligence does not predict a liberal or conservative leaning, then what does?

Based on discussions with people over the years, the following categories seem to influence liberal or conservative thinking.

Type of college degree

Type of job

Gender

Age

Race

Religion

I expanded each category into sub-categories.  I assigned points to each sub-category, e.g. age - under 50, -10 points; 50 or over, +10 points.  When I score an individual on all of the sub-categories and sum them, a negative score suggests a liberal and a positive score a conservative.  My quickie model is amazingly accurate but not perfect.  Out of 20 people I scored, one had a negative score and is VERY conservative.

I’ll continue this discussion on my next blog, list the sub-categories and point assignments so that you can test the model.

Meanwhile, whatever I hear or read will only strengthen my beliefs.  Isn’t that crazy?

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com