Leftism

Why Most of Us No Longer Read The Economist

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I just received a press release promoting The Economist‘s new survey of academic economists about McCain’s and Obama’s respective economic programs. Here are the results:

What’s going on here?

This is a junk survey. Look at the data. Now look at the article.

Here’s The Economist‘s explanation of how they generated a survey sample:

Our survey is not, by any means, a scientific poll of all economists. We e-mailed a questionnaire to 683 research associates, all we could track down, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, America’s premier association of applied academic economists, though the NBER itself played no role in the survey. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither. This skewed party breakdown may reflect academia’s Democratic tilt, or possibly Democrats’ greater propensity to respond. Still, even if we exclude respondents with a party identification, Mr Obama retains a strong edge—though the McCain campaign should be buoyed by the fact that 530 economists have signed a statement endorsing his plans.

The stuff about 683 research associates and the NBER is meaningless. What matters is that this was an Internet poll arbitrarily restricted to academic economists and with a self-selected sample. This is a problem because:

-Academic economists are likely to be more leftist than economists as a whole.

-Only 14 out of the 142 respondents identified themselves as Republicans.

-There is no way to know why only 10% or respondents identified as Republicans, but several possibilities implying gross sampling error are obvious. In other words, either most academic economists lean as far to the Left as do other academics, which seems unlikely and would impeach the survey results, or the sample is unrepresentative and impeaches the survey results.

-The labels “Democratic economist”, “Republican economist” and “unaffiliated economist” are self-selected and may be inaccurate. My guess is that most of the unaffiliateds usually vote for Democrats even if they are not registered Democrats. In this regard I am reminded of media people who claim to be independent even though everyone knows they vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

So this is a worthless survey for research purposes. It is not, however, worthless, for business purposes, as I am sure it will generate a lot of discussion and outraged debunking by bloggers, and therefore a lot of traffic for The Economist‘s Web site. It may also help to get Obama elected, and perhaps that is part of the plan.

Where have we seen this kind of politically driven statistical analysis before?

UPDATE: The vagueness of the self-reported categorizations, “Republican”, “Democrat” and “independent” is obvious. One wonders why the survey did not also, or as an alternative, ask respondents to report for whom they voted in recent elections.

Shannon’s Prodigality

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I am thankful to Shannon for continuing his prodigal prodding (those words don’t work together very well, do they?) that leads us to define our own agreements with him and sometimes disagreements.   Mine keep outgrowing the comments section, so here’s another long-winded response.   It has moved from elitism to the last discussions between Shannon & Sean.   If you  want  more of that,  hit the key below.   If you don’t, don’t.    Reminder:    this is  someone who makes her living  in the nebulous (Shannon)  or uncertain (Sean) realm of the liberal arts.

 

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Explaining Elitism to Leftists

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I’ve been thinking about this subject for sometime now. When recent events prompted me to write I spun out over a thousand words on the subject. (I’m rushed, please forgive any typos.) That’s a bit long for a blog post so I’ve split it into a short version here and then the long version in the “Read the Rest…”.

Short version: Leftists believe that elitism arises from wealth and only from wealth. Non-leftists believe that elitism arises from the belief in an intellectually and morally superior of a minority. Elitists demonstrate their elitism by their lack of respect for the decision-making ability  of others.  

They confuse compassion for their “lessors”  with  respect for the  decision-making  ability of those same people.  Leftists view themselves as superhuman with the same relationship between themselves and the rest of the population as the relationship between adults and children. Since they have no respect for the  decision-making  ability or ordinary people, they seek to elect fellow extraordinary  people, i.e.,  supermen,  to political office.

Leftists hate Palin and non-leftists like her for the same reason: She represents a wide swath of Americans. She’s not a superman. Leftists can’t believe anyone would seriously elect an ordinary moron to the highest office in the land, instead of a superman. The same goes for McCain. Despite his wealth, people believe he would make the same decisions as an ordinary American.

The election comes down to whether people think of themselves as electing a superior person, someone who will make different and better decisions than ordinary Americans, or whether they think of electing someone who would make the same decisions that an ordinary American would make.  

[Update:(2008.9.18.13:51): Sometimes, it falls right into your lap. Read this before reading the long version]

Long version…

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Why Feminists Hate Sarah Palin

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(UPDATE [h/t Alan Henderson]: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose)

Via the usual source … well, if Cathy Young can diagnose it, so can I. Or rather, so can Spider Robinson:

I think one could perhaps make an excellent case for Heinlein as a female chauvinist. He has repeatedly insisted that women average smarter, more practical and more courageous than men. He consistently underscores their biological and emotional superiority. He married a woman he proudly described to me as “smarter, better educated and more sensible than I am.” In his latest book, Expanded Universe—the immediate occasion for this article—he suggests without the slightest visible trace of irony that the franchise be taken away from men and given exclusively to women. He consistently created strong, intelligent, capable, independent, sexually aggressive women characters for a quarter of a century before it was made a requirement, right down to his supporting casts.

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How the Left Imposes Its Values

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From Newsweek via Instapundit:

 

Belief in god, like getting pregnant, is a private matter between consenting adults (or one consenting adult and one or more deities) and is no one else’s business. I am on record in this blog (and have not budged an inch) as not objecting to any candidate’s religious views.
 
But I object strongly when anyone (and especially anyone with political power) tries to take their theology out in public, to inflict those private religious (or sexual) views on other people. In both sex and religion (which combine in the debates about abortion), Sarah Palin’s views make me fear that the Republican party has finally lost its mind.

I am a pro-choice atheist but the utter massive hypocrisy of the leftists’  conceit  that they do not impose their “private” values on others  nauseates  me. Leftist political doctrines,  especially  those involving sex, boil down to nothing but the imposition by state coercion of minority values on the majority.  

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