Age/Location Correlates to Political Inclination?

[the number 42]

"The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at forty he has no head."
-- Aristide Briand (1862-1932)

The quote ... says that the inequities of society are sufficient to arouse the passions, and that is what determines the politics of young people, but the answers to the problems are deeper than socialism, which is of greater weight with mature people.

I like this interpretation except for two things; it implies that the passions of the young will not be stirred by capitalism, and the minds of the old will not turn to socialist ideas to solve social problems. Neither of these propositions seem more true that their reverse, which makes me think again that the saying may be a triumph of style over substance.

This is an appropriate opinion for Briand, who appears to have been a policy wonk.

(PS What is a 'wonk'? ).

 

[the number 42]

You're also a lot more likely to be on the wrong side of the redistribution of wealth when you're forty.

Astute indeed!

 

[the number 42]

Indiana and the states surrounding it (most of them anyway) are on the extreme right. The people believe that Bush was sent from God as he has said so many times .

At least there is a chance they might crucify him.

As you can see, most democratic states are states that aren't too religious (example: California), and the republican states are very religious (excluding a few states such as florida in which it was rigged in 2000 and will probably be rigged in election 2004 also).

An interesting analysis. Is this widely accepted? Do you think Kerry is trying to grab a few religious votes back by claiming to be a Catholic?

 

[BobG]

"The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at forty he has no head."
-- Aristide Briand (1862-1932)

Maybe he had kids late. My parents went from extremely conservative to extremely liberal after they finally got the kids out of the house (or did I just go from liberal to conservative).

Current location has little to do with my political beliefs, since I've lived in Kansas, Ohio, Nebraska, and Colorado.

But, considering my current location (Colorado), maybe I'm a soft conservative. At least, I always thought I was a conservative until I moved here found out I'd really been a liberal all those years.

 

[Moonbear]

This is an interesting thread. I actually like the idea of people stating a few of the things they are for/against and seeing how they rate themselves on the left/right scale. I think that self-rating is more likely to reflect the state you live in than where you actually fall on the scale. My own political beliefs haven't changed dramatically over the years, maybe a little, but I used to think I was conservative when I lived in New Jersey, and now that I live in Ohio, I feel like I'm practically a bleeding heart liberal compared to those around me! In reality, I'm independent and have voted pretty equally Republican and Democrat. I think overall I lean slightly left of center.

On some of those big issues:

Pro-choice (that's not pro-abortion...I think abortion should be the absolute last resort, but it should be an option).

Pro-capitalism (or whatever you want to call it...survival of the fittest economics perhaps? :-) In other words, if you work hard or get lucky and stumble upon a great product, good for you if you get rich).

Pro-keeping our noses out of other countries' business (I no longer have a clue whether this is a left or right view...basically, I'm in favor of greater emphasis on domestic policy and a foreign policy where we don't "help" countries that don't ask for help first).

Less government regulation of everything (we already have laws for most things that are important, we don't need more)

Anti-marriage (okay, that's a weird way of saying I'm for gays having the right to get married as long as anyone else can get married, but I don't know what exactly is so special about being married that we have to do it to get an assortment of rights...for example, I'm not married, so that means if something happens to me and I'm unconscious, my "next of kin" get to make all the decisions of what gets done to me...there is nothing I can do to override that and appoint a very close friend who knows me better than my family and who I trust more to make those important decisions and I don't think I should have to marry that person to get that right, and I'm pretty sure his wife doesn't want me marrying him either).

Pro-welfare reform...the kind of reform that gets people off welfare and into jobs, but without leaving them in worse shape than while on welfare. Basically, I believe welfare should be used to supplement a low income to a living wage and should reward those who at least try to get a job, even if it's a minimum wage job rather than punishing them. Reduce but don't cut off benefits when they first get a job until they are stable enough to do without. And if you don't have at least a part-time job or children too young to be in school (you can work part-time while kids are in school), after a certain amount of time to give you a chance to find a job, you don't get welfare. And I think welfare should cover birth control pills. I think people on both the right and left would see this as crazy, but it's my opinion.

In high school, I did earn the label ultra-moderate because I could never choose a side (in politics, I very often think both sides are wrong). I probably have started to lean a tad toward the left since then, but I also have some pretty extreme right views on some issues, so who knows?

 

[the number 42]

In high school, I did earn the label ultra-moderate because I could never choose a side (in politics, I very often think both sides are wrong).

I can identify with this blurring of traditional left & right, it might be a generation X thing.

Two options is said by some to be a definition of a dilemma, and its only when you have a third choice that you have real choice in the usual sense of the word. In the UK, the two main parties of the left and right have merged in their views - the Conservatives even openly accusing Labour of stealing their policies - so much that its hard to distinguish between them. Come election time if you want to vote for the next largest party - the Liberal Democrats - you know there is no real chance that they will get in as they are usually so far behind the other two in the opinion poles come election time. So you end up voting for the party you dislike least out of the main two. Proportional representation would solve this problem, to an extent. But of course who is in favour of PR? Only the small party who has no chance of election in a 'first past the post' system.

No wonder so many people lose faith in the voting system.

 

[Moonbear]

I can identify with this blurring of traditional left & right, it might be a generation X thing.

I'm a bit older than Gen X-ers.

 

[Janitor]

Middle-of-the-road Democrat with zero party loyalty, down over here in the Southwest corner of the country. Got about 200 gray hairs.

Hey, does anybody remember the Duane Schneider character on that sitcom about 25 years ago? That's me!