Erratum to “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1), 34–51 - Verhulst - 2015 - American Journal of Political Science - Wiley Online Library

Erratum to “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1), 34–51 - Verhulst - 2015 - American Journal of Political Science - Wiley Online Library

The authors regret that there is an error in the published version of “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1), 34–51. The interpretation of the coding of the political attitude items in the descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed. Thus, where we indicated that higher scores in Table 1 (page 40) reflect a more conservative response, they actually reflect a more liberal response. Specifically, in the original manuscript, the descriptive analyses report that those higher in Eysenck's psychoticism are more conservative, but they are actually more liberal; and where the original manuscript reports those higher in neuroticism and social desirability are more liberal, they are, in fact, more conservative. We highlight the specific errors and corrections by page number below:

Pg. 39

Consistent with our conceptualization of ideology as a set of interrelated attitudes, we specified a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to capture three latent attitudinal dimensions from a Wilson-Patterson (1968) inventory: social attitudes (e.g., Gay Rights, Abortion), economic attitudes (e.g., Foreign Aid, Federal Housing), and defense/military attitudes (e.g., The Draft, Military Drill; see online Appendix 1), with higher scores indicating the more liberal response.

Pgs. 40–41

First, opposite our expectations, higher Ρ scores correlate with more liberal military attitudes and more socially liberal beliefs for both females and males.

…Further, we find a positive relationship between Neuroticism and economic conservatism (rfemales = −0.242, rmales = −0.239). People higher in Neuroticism tend to be more economically conservative. What is intriguing about this relationship is that it is in the direction of what past theories would predict (Fromm 1947; Wilson 1973), but opposite with more recent evidence (Gerber et al. 2010; Van Hiél, Pandelaere, and Duriez 2004). That is, neurotic people are less likely to support public policies that provide aid to the economically disadvantaged (public housing, foreign aid, immigration, etc). Moreover, Neuroticism is unrelated to social ideology (rfemale = −0.016, rmale = −0.050). This finding suggests that neurotic individuals cope with their anxiety by supporting more “conservative” economic policies rather than “conservative” social policies.

…Thus, it appears that people who are motivated to present themselves in a socially desirable light also present themselves as socially conservative.

…The analysis above extends the existing personality and politics literature in several important ways. Opposite our expectations, Ρ (positively related to tough mindedness and authoritarianism) is associated with social liberalism and liberal military attitudes.

Intriguingly, the strength of the relationship between Ρ and political ideology differs across sexes. We also find individuals higher in Neuroticism are more likely to be economically conservative. Furthermore, Neuroticism is completely unrelated to social ideology, which has been the focus of many in the field. Finally, those higher in Social Desirability are also more likely to express socially conservative attitudes.

Pg. 46

…Ρ is substantially correlated with liberal military and social attitudes, while Social Desirability is related to conservative social attitudes, and Neuroticism is related to conservative economic attitudes.

The error is important for descriptive purposes, but the main thesis of the paper, analyses, findings and theoretical contribution remain unchanged. The goal of the paper was to explore the nature of the covariance between personality and attitudes, and to test whether the relationship between several personality traits and political attitude dimensions was causal or correlational. The analyses rely on the magnitude of the cross-twin cross-trait covariation, and second moment of data, and are agnostic as to whether liberals or conservatives are higher or lower in any given personality trait. Thus, the direction of the correlation between the personality traits and attitudes was not relevant for our research question and subsequent analyses. As such, the main conclusions of the paper are unaffected. Specifically we find a pattern of relationships that implies a non-causal relationship between personality traits and political attitudes.

Four Years at a Liberal Arts College Turned Me into a Conservative | VICE | United States

Four Years at a Liberal Arts College Turned Me into a Conservative

Like everyone who cons themselves into attending a liberal arts college, I was captivated by the idea of changing the world by immersing myself in a diverse pool of academic thought, theory, and action. Boy, was I wrong! After my four-year stint at university, I was transformed from a plucky, young, free-thinking free spirit into a cranky, old, get-off-my-lawn conservative.

It all started with a quiet disdain for political correctness, a seed that grew—through the miracle of college—into a giant beanstalk. I quickly learned that, at liberal arts school, the general aim of each class was to identify something problematic, discuss it, and then refuse to do anything about it. We were expected to offer solutions, of course, but the only acceptable answers were noncommittal and intersectional. Any attempt to get to the actual root of a problem was generally seen as problematic too, and a politically correct policing was instituted to hinder any real solutions of important issues. Most group discussions devolved into us asking one another how to ask questions about something problematic without being problematic.

After a childhood and adolescence of being the only black kid in class, I never would have considered myself an enemy of political correctness. I was rather indignant about exposing cultural insensitivities until I was inundated with college classes that seemed dedicated to manifesting real and imagined enemies from every available shadow. So I began to check out and (much to my surprise) quietly echo the conservative sentiments against oversensitivity that I had once dismissed as bigotry.

After I became annoyed with political correctness, I started seeing it everywhere and gradually became convinced there was a conspiracy going on to brainwash me and my peers. Most of the guest speakers at my liberal arts school were leftist journalists, leftist activists, or leftist professors from other leftists schools. In my experience, the other slots were reserved for different types of sex workers: I attended a film lecture given by a very skilled paraplegic porn star who showed us some of her work and an art performance given by a woman who masturbated behind a curtain.

Once the initial thrill from exposure wore off, the lack of intellectual diversity was suffocating. I traveled further down a path of disillusionment and began to sympathize with those crazy conservatives who were always complaining about liberal media bias on FOX.

I needed some way to cope with all this. So I chose weed. I was typically high before, during, and after all of my classes. My best friend was the campus dealer, so I spent countless nights smoking spliffs on his dorm room floor and watching his clients stumble in and out.

Most of these clients are now working in New York finance or DC politics, which is what made me realize I'm a fan of limited government. The stupidest stoners I know are all on a fast track to becoming the future diplomats of the world, and I do not trust these goofs to make important decisions on our behalf. Their power must be constrained.

The only thing more pervasive than weed and irresponsible future leaders on a liberal arts college campus are useless majors. I'm not being judgmental, either—I have a degree in film and media studies and political science, which I chose mostly because they are subjects I like talking about. Many of my peers also chose to spend their scholarships and student loans on creative combinations of topics better learned on YouTube.

By the time graduation approached, none of us had developed any actual job skills, but we could sure as shit talk around important subjects. As such, the most we were prepared to do was spend more cash on grad school or go WWOOFing till we died. This led me to take a stance against providing free college education for all. No. Just, no. Let Europe have it. I only support the idea if those educations go toward protecting us against international hackers or figuring out sustainable agriculture. I'd only support giving a free education to a smart kid to get a degree in whatever the exact opposite of my degree is. Until the residual of the Bernie Sanders movement works through that loophole, I'm out.

I took on lots of debt attending college, but I never learned anything about how to manage it. I didn't learn about taxes either, but I was lucky enough to get a job right before my student loan payments kicked into gear. I accepted a corporate gig with a salary that felt exorbitant and immediately began plotting when I could move out of my parent's house. But everything changed when I got my first paycheck, and to my admittedly ignorant shock, I realized a helluva lot more money was missing than I anticipated.

"Income tax" seems like an abstract alien concept when you're not making any money, but it becomes much more real when cash has magically disappeared from your paycheck. I couldn't believe my peers and I had spent so much time shaming conservatives for wanting lower taxes. After making an income, the tax I paid on it was suddenly all I cared about. And stopping government waste seems way more important to me now than funding government programs.

A past version of myself would've called this prioritization problematically selfish. The current, cheerfully cynical version of me that college created knows I can spend my money much more wisely than any of the politically correct stoners with questionable degrees who are running the show in DC.

3 Ways to Talk About Conservatism With a Liberal

3 Ways to Talk About Conservatism With a Liberal

...a place to help you talk to the people in your life (think neighbors, co-workers, family, friends) about conservative issues.

Trust me, it’s possible.

While I will explore a wide variety of relevant topics in the weeks to come, I’d like to start with something basic and broad: the term “conservative.”

Connecting

If you look at The Heritage Foundation’s definition, you find that conservatism is five pillars: free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

So, there’s your answer, right? Just memorize and repeat when someone wants to know why you are conservative.

Wrong.

There is no faster way to kill a conversation than to categorize your perspective like it’s a to-do list.

When talking about any issue, you have to connect with the other person’s interests. And that starts by being a good listener.

If you find your colleague doesn’t give much insight into her ideology, ask questions. Find out what makes her tick by starting a conversation about her day at work or what’s going on in the news. It’s amazing how much you learn when you ask a question and then … stop talking.

Once you gain insight into what issues someone cares about, the real work begins. You now have a blueprint for how to approach the conversation in a way that resonates with him or her, not you.

For example, if you find that your colleague talks about how expensive it is to run her side business, the free enterprise pillar is a good area to explore. Now, you’re off to the races.

Here are a few strategies that work well:

1. Common Ground

Don’t underestimate the power of establishing common ground. Doing so makes you seem reasonable and can go a long way in diffusing any tension or unwillingness to hear you out. If you’re in agreement with someone on the goal, like his business succeeding, he is more likely to stick around and listen to your solution.

2. Examples

Don’t underestimate the power of relatable examples, which can help people visualize your point. Often, the conservative principles we talk about can seem very abstract. Examples put issues into context, especially when you can illustrate a point using a reference from their daily lives. For instance, if you want to promote free enterprise, talk about all the regulations their business currently faces and how there would be significantly fewer if free enterprise was more valued by our lawmakers.

3. Words

Finally, you have to use the right words. Don’t even think about using the term “free enterprise.” Instead, steal a page from the liberals’ playbook: use emotion to push an agenda. Own words like “fair” or “choice,” and statements like “you know better than a bureaucrat in D.C.” Using emotional language will set you up for success.

Before you think that attempting a conversation is hopeless because “you don’t know how liberal my co-workers are,” keep in mind that people will listen if you talk about issues that matter to them. If done well, it’s possible they won’t recognize that you are approaching the conversation from a conservative perspective.

Take millennials. You may think it’s hopeless to talk to that generation about free enterprise since so many view themselves as socialists. But when millennials are starting more businesses than the baby-boomer generation there’s reason to question their dedication to socialism (Do they really know what socialism is?) and an opportunity to use their entrepreneurism as a gateway to talking about free enterprise.

So, talk to a liberal today. Employ the strategies we just discussed and see if you can have a meaningful conversation about conservatism on her terms. Identify her interests, choose one of the five pillars that align with her interests, and use examples.

No pressure, but you may be the only conservative that tries to challenge her world view. And if we are going to preserve the American dream, it’s going to take all of us doing our part by first talking to the people we know.

Finding the Real Conservative | FreedomWorks

Finding the Real Conservative | FreedomWorks

As yet another primary election season heats up, how do we cut through the rhetoric and evaluate candidates? One sure way is to have a measuring stick based on more than personal opinion.

One such standard is the word “conservative.” I hear candidates and elected officials use it all the time. What does it really mean? In my opinion, the late Russell Kirk spelled it out better than just about anyone. This all-but-forgotten man laid out ten principles of conservative thought many seem to have forgotten. See how many you recognize.

First, conservatives believe in an enduring moral order. This concept is much broader than religious dogma. Kirk said that human nature was a constant, and moral truths were permanent. That’s not surprising considering that 94% of Americans believe in God, according to pollster George Barna. Surprisingly, Kirk said that a society in which men and women are governed by an enduring belief in moral order—by a strong sense of right and wrong—and by personal convictions about justice and honor—that would be a good society, regardless of the political machinery. Politics do not determine the trajectory of a nation—the people do. Nancy Pearcy put it well when she said that politics is downstream from culture.

Second, tradition in a culture is important and should not be tossed out on a whim. Kirk actually calls this “continuity.” What he meant is that order and justice and freedom are the result of centuries of trials and reflections and sacrifice. Change should be gradual and calculated—never undoing traditions as a knee-jerk reaction. Often times, an election cycle bring cries for “change,” but true conservatives should always be wary of change. Wary doesn’t mean completely closed to some change though. It just means “slow change.” If you look at how our bi-cameral system of government loaded with checks and balances was designed, clearly our founders thought “slow” was good. For this reason, Presidential Executive Orders should be used sparingly.

Third, conservatives adhere to Edmund Burke’s mantra that the individual is foolish, but the species is wise. Using that advice, real conservatives stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before them and look to enduring wisdom. That means not only the Ronald Reagans, but other great thinkers and statesmen beyond our lifetime like T.S. Eliot, Adam Smith, Sir Walter Scott, and of course, Burke himself. Not sure you will see any of these authors on display as you walk in your local library.

Fourth, true conservatives look at the long-term consequences of laws and policies. I fear this principle frequently gets tossed in favor of reelection. Kirk said that rushing into legislation or policies without weighing the long-term consequences will actually create new abuses in the future. We should slow down and look as far as we can into the future.

Fifth, conservatives know good and well that you can’t totally level the economic playing field, and in fact, we should not aspire for it. Robbing one taxpayer to pay another truly violates conservative thought because it is not sustainable. In our society, we have tried to make charity the government’s job, and true conservatives have to take issue with that practice. Churches and non-profits should take serious their role in culture.

Sixth, mankind is messed-up. Kirk didn’t exactly quote the Bible, but conservatives believe that because man is flawed from birth that no perfect social order can ever be created. All that we can reasonably expect, Kirk said, is a tolerably ordered, just and free society, in which evil and suffering continue to lurk. Can morality be legislated? Kirk would say that all laws are an effort to legislate morality, and that is okay.

Seventh, conservatives know that great societies are built upon the foundation of private property. We see it in the Ten Commandments. Policies that seek to redistribute wealth and property should be an anathema to the real conservative. That is one of my issues with COP21, the Paris Agreement on the reduction of climate change, and the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Both are a form of wealth redistribution. While getting rich should not be the conservative’s chief aim, the institution of private property has been a powerful instrument for teaching responsibility, shaping integrity, creating prosperity, and providing the opportunities for people to think and act. It is the opportunity to go from rags to riches. This opportunity has given us the Truett Cathys (of Chick-fil-a fame) and others who worked their way up from nothing.

Eighth, conservatives favor smaller government at a federal level, and champion small governments such as county commissions and city councils. Decisions most affecting the lives of citizens should be made locally, and as Kirk would say, voluntarily. That is how I got started. I ran a city council race for a friend. A strong, centralized, and distant federal government tends to be more hostile to human freedom and dignity.

Ninth, the conservative believes in flattening the power—or limiting government. Real conservatives know the danger of power being vested in just a few even it is called benevolent. Constitutional restrictions are necessary, political checks and balance a must, and enforcement of the law a must—all the while balancing the claims of authority with the claims of liberty.

Finally, conservatives should be slow to change. Any thinking conservative would be resistant to hastily throwing out the old way of doing something in favor of something completely new—even in the name of “positive change.” Progress, or change, is important—for Kirk said a society would stagnate without it. Change has to be reconciled with the permanent though, and both are important.

When Kirk revised these ten principles in 1993 before his death in 1994, he said that the word “conservative” was being abused. If alive today, he probably wouldn’t be surprised that the distortion has not stopped.

Which States Are the Richest? The Answer May Surprise You | Power Line

Which States Are the Richest? The Answer May Surprise You | Power Line

Not surprisingly, the most prosperous place in the U.S. is the District of Columbia, with a per capita real income (chained 2008 dollars) of $59,759. In the Age of Obama, lobbyists reign supreme. But what state ranks number one? North Dakota, with a real per capita income of $57,367. Sure, you say, it’s all that fracking. Yes, but look who is number five: oil-free South Dakota, at $48,626. Both of the Dakotas, on a real per capita basis, are higher-income than New York ($43,603), California (a dismal $38,888), Pennsylvania ($43,173), Illinois ($43,063), Maryland ($45,702), Virginia ($44,313), Washington ($42,164) and just about every other state.
A few blue states are prosperous: Connecticut is number two and Massachusetts is number four, edging out South Dakota but far behind North Dakota. But most of the country’s wealthiest states are red or purple: in addition to the Dakotas, Wyoming (#3), Nebraska (#6), Iowa (#7) and Kansas (#11). (Maybe Kansas isn’t so dumb after all.)
BEA also calculated how much each state gained in real per capita income between 2008 and 2012. You can make of this what you will, but the top ten, in order, were North Dakota (with a whopping 23% increase), West Virginia, Mississippi, Ohio, Rhode Island, Montana, Arkansas, South Dakota, Tennessee and New Hampshire.
It is noteworthy, too, that states like New York, California and Illinois have much more income inequality than states like the Dakotas. If we saw the same data using medians instead of averages, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nebraska, etc. would look even better. The average person is remarkably better off in those states.
While one should rarely draw sweeping conclusions from a single data set, these numbers do cause one to wonder: the blue model has plainly failed at the state level, so why would anyone want to implement it at the federal level?

Things Progressives Know That Just Aren't So, Part I - Greed [WeirdDave]

Things Progressives Know That Just Aren't So, Part I - Greed [WeirdDave]

This is the first in a series of occasional posts in which I will muse upon things that our progressive brothers and sisters take as a given, and why they are so wrong.
Greed. This is one of the big arrows in the prog's ad hominem quiver. "Why are you conservatives so greedy?". "Corporations are greedy.". "The greed of the 1% keeps us sterling OWS 99%ers poor! Wah!". And so on, and so on, and so on. Let's examine this, shall we?
Conservatives are far more greedy than progressives Really? The core of our philosophy is the right of the individual to keep the fruits of their labors. We're not the ones who seek to take more and more money from other people in order to "do good". We don't think that it's right to redistribute wealth by force in the name of "social justice". Conservatives believe "Keep it, you earned it" while progressives say "Gimmie, I can use it better than you can, you don't deserve it, I do". Conservatism is a philosophy of greed while progressives are altruists? In a pig's eye. Greedy conservatives even give more to charity than kind hearted progressives. Which philosophy encourages greed again?
Greed is good? Good old Gordon Gecko. The famous "Greed is good" diatribe, liberal Hollywood's distortion of the words of Milton Friedman, deployed to make the business community look like heartless bastards. The thing is, most conservatives, listening to that speech, find it hard to discount it completely, because it comes so close to expressing the core principles that we believe. Seeing our hesitation, the prog pounces: "HA! You DO think greed is good! Greedy right wing bastard!" and then uses this straw man to dismiss our arguments. Greed is not "good", because greed implies the desire to possess something not earned, something that one is not entitled to. In the climactic paragraph, Gecko says "greed-for lack of a better word-is good". Well, I have a better word, several in fact. If billionaire Gecko could have spent $4.95 on a thesaurus, he might have come out with something that every conservative would embrace and defend without hesitation. Try this:
"Ambition is right. Desire works. Drive clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. An individual's desire to better them self, in all of its forms -- in life, financially, in love, in knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. And that drive -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."
Same basic speech, same basic words, but now it's a clear statement of conservative principle that I would be proud to claim as my own. This is tactic # 5 in the progressive playbook: Distort the clear meaning of words to muddy the argument. So, if greed is not good, what is it?
Greed is natural Greed is part of the flawed human condition. Everyone is greedy to a greater or lesser extent. Some people are greedy for money. Some for power. Some for love, some for recognition, some for fame, some for Hummel figurines. Some for all of these things, some for none. The fact of the matter is that greed lives in the human heart, and all of the wailing and moaning in the world won't change that one simple fact. Even progs recognize this, though they're loath to admit it, which brings us to the final point on our journey.
Greed must be constrained And here's where the prog goes completely off the rails, although he winds up in the
same place he always does. His solution to containing greed is to empower the government. More rules, more laws, more regulations. Tighter and tighter control. Gotta reign in those evil conservatives, those nasty corporations, those distasteful free thinking individuals. Tighten the screws, lock down the hatches, Mr. Spock, we need governmentwarp factor 10! You can blow this all out of the water with one simple question, and in so doing the only answer left to the prog is the same sad one that's been repeated throughout human history. "Mr. Prog", you will ask, "What makes you think that people in government are any less greedy that people outside of government?"
Stammering will ensue, but if he's real hard core, he'll give you the only answer left to him: Well, government can train greed out of people. Yup, all we need is total control, we'll teach children not to be greedy, we'll stigmatize greed right out of the human condition. In other words, the solution is to create the New Soviet Man, again. As soon as humans stop being human, why, it'll be Nirvana. Anyone who has studied history knows how that ends.
The conservative knows that in order to constrain greed, we need a system that does it naturally. Fortunately, we have just such a system: The free market. Corporations and governments may both be inclined towards greed, but the market naturally punishes corporations for indulging. How long would Wal-Mart stay in business if it made a habit of screwing its customers, priced its goods exorbitantly or really abused its employees the way leftists want you to believe that it does? Not long. Everybody would go to Target. The market naturally restrains greed. Government, on the other hand, protects greed. Over 1000 vets died so that government workers in Phoenix could get their bonus checks. Nobody went to jail, nobody has even lost their job. Can you honestly say that a corporation that callously killed 1000 folks would walk away unscathed? Of course not. That corporation would be out of business (spare me cigarette companies please, they provide something that an individual uses to kill himself. Different situation altogether. Guns too), people would stop patronizing them. Let me say it again: The market naturally restrains greed. Government, on the other hand, protects greed. Progs believe the opposite.
And that right there is what progs know about greed that just isn't so.

Jonah Goldberg's G-File on National Review Online

Link: http://old.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200505111449.asp (via shareaholic.com)

What is, and what is not, conservatism?

Among other things,

The Conservative Faith

In Tuesday's column, Derbyshire listed six tenets of Anglo-American conservatism (I prefer Russell Kirk's but these will do): 1. a deep suspicion of the power of the state.
2. a preference for liberty over equality.
3. patriotism.
4. a belief in established institutions and hierarchies.
5. skepticism about the idea of progress.
6. elitism. 

Does This Really Read Like a Declaration of War on Women to You? - By Kathryn Jean Lopez - The Corner - National Review Online

Link: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/314723/does-really-read-declaration-war-women-you-kathryn-jean-lopez (via shareaholic.com)

Seriously, Americans ought to read the Republican party platform's explicit language on life instead of read about it: 

The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life

Faithful to the self-evident truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion, permitted States to extend health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by enacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties to health care providers who fail to provide treatment and care to an infant who survives an abortion, including early induction delivery where the death is intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective abortions – gender discrimination in its most lethal form – and to protect from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain; and we applaud the U.S. House of Representatives for leading the effort to protect the lives of pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a revision of federal law 42 USC 289.92 to bar the use of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose the killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
We also salute the many States that have passed laws for informed consent, mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and health-protective clinic regulation. We seek to protect young girls from exploitation through a parental consent requirement; and we affirm our moral obligation to assist, rather than penalize, women challenged by an unplanned pregnancy. We salute those who provide them with counseling and adoption alternatives and empower them to choose life, and we take conform in the tremendous increases in adoptions that has followed Republican legislative initiatives.

Israel’s ‘You Built It’ Culture | FrontPage Magazine

Link: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/daniel-greenfield/israel%E2%80%99s-you-built-it-culture/ (via shareaholic.com)

Most offensively Israel's economic success has kept pace with its transition from socialist collectives to free enterprise, going from a "You didn't build that" culture to a "You built it" culture. While the Palestinian Authority and most of Israel's Muslim neighbors still operate under government monopolies, Israel's tech industry revolution has boosted its international trade while making it possible for a few army or air force veterans to cobble together a company that brings a revolutionary new product to market.
USB flash drives and instant messaging software came out of that "You built it" culture. On the other side of the border malaise and misery, bombs and fanatics, have come out of the economic monopolies wielded by military rulers, tribal leaders and religious despots.

Crime rates in liberal cities shockingly higher than in conservative cities - Orlando Political Buzz | Examiner.com

Link: http://www.examiner.com/article/crime-rates-liberal-cities-shockingly-higher-than-conservative-cities (via shareaholic.com)

A few years ago, the Bay Area Center For Voting Research listed the most conservative and most liberal cities in the United States. They did this by looking at how every American city with a population of at least 100,000 voted in the 2004 presidential election. Every vote for George W. Bush was counted as a "conservative" vote, and every vote for John F. Kerry counted as a "liberal" vote. Ballots cast for third party candidates were counted similarly, with votes for the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party nominees counting as "conservative" votes, and votes for the Green Party nominee, the Peace and Freedom Party nominee, and Ralph Nader counting as "liberal" votes.

Cities with more conservative votes than liberal votes are considered conservative cities, and cities with more liberal votes than conservative votes are considered liberal cities. Cities with the highest percentages of conservative votes were deemed the most conservative cities, and cities with the highest percentages of liberal votes were deemed the most liberal cities. Simple enough.

The 15 most conservative and 15 most liberal cities are listed below, along with their violent crime rates.

The 15 most liberal cities in the US:

- Detroit, Michigan - 24 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Gary, Indiana - 15 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Berkeley, California - 5 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Washington, DC - 13 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Oakland, California - 16 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Inglewood, California - 8 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Newark, New Jersey - 11 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Cambridge, Massachusetts - 5 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- San Francisco, California - 7 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Flint, Michigan - 24 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Cleveland, Ohio - 14 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Hartford, Connecticut - 13 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Paterson, New Jersey - 11 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Baltimore, Maryland - 15 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- New Haven, Connecticut - 15 violent crimes/1,000 residents

The national average is four violent crimes/1,000 residents. Every one of the 15 most liberal cities in the US has a higher violent crime rate than the national average.

The 15 most conservative cities in the US:

- Provo, Utah - 2 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Lubbock, Texas - 9 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Abilene, Texas - 5 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Hialeah, Florida - 4 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Plano, Texas - 2 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Colorado Springs, Colorado - 5 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Gilbert, Arizona - 1 violent crime/1,000 residents

- Bakersfield, California - 6 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Lafayette, Louisiana - 8 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Orange, California - 1 violent crime/1,000 residents

- Escondido, California - 4 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Allentown, Pennsylvania - 6 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Mesa, Arizona - 4 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Arlington, Texas - 5 violent crimes/1,000 residents

- Peoria, Arizona - 2 violent crimes/1,000 residents

Again, let's note that the national average is four violent crimes per 1,000 residents. You'll notice that eight of the 15 most conservative cities have violent crime rates at or below the national average. Only two of the 15 have violent crime rates that are twice as high as the national average. The most dangerous conservative city (Lubbock, Texas) is safer than all but four of the liberal cities.

So there is a clear correlation here: Cities with a lot of violent crime tend to vote Democratic, while cities with relatively low levels of violent crime tend to vote Republican. But what is behind this discrepancy? Is it that conservative cities have tougher anti-crime laws than liberal cities, which work to deter violent criminals? Is it that conservatives are more likely to be armed than liberals, so cities full of conservative citizens act as a deterrent against violent crime?

PJ Lifestyle � 7 Reasons Why The Right Should Not Seek to Convert The Left

Link: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/06/08/7-reasons-why-the-right-should-not-seek-to-convert-the-left/?singlepage=true

Those who think Dennis Prager took a decade to write one book will find themselves mistaken upon picking up Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. The 30-year talk radio veteran and longtime syndicated columnist actually delivers a trilogy of books mapping out the big ideological fights of today with greater clarity than anyone else.
...
Here are 7 Reasons Why The Right Should Not Seek to Convert The Left. In laying out these points I’m going to: A) Show what happened when I presented some Prager-style arguments to a leftist. B) Propose strategies for how American values should be promoted today. C) Stress the importance of connecting the ideas of Still the Best Hope with the themes Prager developed in his previous books and I hope he pursues for his next. D) Present a buffet of ideas in a multimedia format combining text, image, and some of my favorite videos from Prager University.

For my first point, I’ll address the path to victory this fall before dealing with the bigger question of the problem with evangelizing conservatism in the remaining 6 points.

7. There are More Than Enough Apolitical People Out There Whose Minds Remain Unconquered by the Left.

With the yelling debates on the cable shows it’s easy to stumble into the belief that America is a “deeply divided” country. When looking at the numbers, though, actually only a small percentage of Americans participate in the Left vs. Right battle. There are plenty of other untapped pools of persuadable voters apart from those preset to oppose us.

...

6. “You Cannot Reason Out What Was Not Reasoned In.” — often attributed to Jonathan Swift

Just because someone reads a book, it doesn’t mean they’re going to grasp what the author is saying.

...

5. Evil Is Something That Cannot Be Explained to Those Who Do Not Know What It Is. It Can Only Be Experienced.

Be happy for your “liberal” friends. They’ve been blessed not to comprehend evil yet. They’re still living in the Garden of Eden. Good for them. Maybe they’ll be lucky and never have to put their ideas to the test. Maybe they’ll never experience what Irving Kristol talked about, what it means for a liberal to be “mugged by reality.” Maybe they’ll never have to look a real evil person in the eye and experience the pain they can cause.

...

4. Today the Conservative Movement Lies Fragmented, Infiltrated, Compromised, and Corrupted.

How can we fully rebut the Left’s smears of the Right when there’s usually an element of truth to every attack?

And who are the crackpots at the edges who live up to the Left’s demonizations about bigotry, cronyism, rigid ideology, and selfishness?

• Antisemitic Paleo-Conservatives (Pat Buchanan)
• Admitted White Nationalist Racists who write well
• Anti-American and Antisemitic Anarcho-Capitalists and Paleo-Libertarians (Ron Paul’s cult reviving the ideas of the Old Right) who see nothing wrong with Iran going nuclear
• Conspiracy Theorists making a fast buck peddling Birtherism and other nonsense like the US merging with Canada and Mexico
• People who really do Hate Gay People and are just using opposition to gay marriage as cover for their bigotry
• Stealth Jihadists Subverting the GOP’s Commitment to a Foreign Policy of Peace through Strength (See the Center for Security Policy’s full dossier on Grover Norquist and his protege Suhail Khan here.)
• Theocrats (Exhibit A: Those who refuse to support Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon.)
• Anti-Abortion Fanatics (Not the same as sane, pro-life activism that aims to change hearts through love and reason rather than shock and judgment.)
• Narcissists who want to Turn Themselves into a Brand so they can transform their political connections into Greek cruises and large credit accounts at Tiffany’s.
• Corporatists who peddle influence.

All these groups and tendencies compete within “the Right” and “the Conservative movement” for money, power, and converts. And their roots go too deep to be upended.

...


PJM Lifestyle
« Training Programs Can Lead to a Big Bump in Pay for Men
Douglas Rushkoff on Village Voice: ‘Its Inability to Find a Business Model That Doesn’t Depend on the Adult Sex Industry is Its Own Fault’ »
7 Reasons Why The Right Should Not Seek to Convert The Left
An appreciation of Dennis Prager and multimedia celebration of his magnum opus, Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.

by
Dave Swindle

Bio
June 8, 2012 - 7:00 am
Email
Print
Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size

This article features 13 large images like this juxtaposing Still the Best Hope excerpts, graphics, and other surprises.

Those who think Dennis Prager took a decade to write one book will find themselves mistaken upon picking up Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. The 30-year talk radio veteran and longtime syndicated columnist actually delivers a trilogy of books mapping out the big ideological fights of today with greater clarity than anyone else.

Don’t let the 440 pages intimidate. The three books within Still the Best Hope are:

220 pages defining Leftism as a religion, explaining why its adherents embrace their beliefs, the techniques used to manipulate people into joining the political cult, and the price the world paid during the 20th century enduring the movement’s quests to remake the world.
70 pages defining Islam and Islamism, the relation between the two, and their moral record.
And 80 pages — a single chapter — laying out America and Its Unique Values, as symbolized by three terms struck on our coins: “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” and “E Pluribus Unum.” These pillars of American exceptionalism stand in opposition to the political theologies of Leftism and Islamism which value Equality over Liberty, Idolatry over God, and group rights over universal human rights.

Taken alone, each section stands as a succinct summary, analysis, and polemic. Even those already well-versed in the subject matter will appreciate Prager’s innovative arguments, precise research, respectful manner, and inviting prose voice. It’s a portable distillation of everything that makes The Dennis Prager Show so engaging each day.

Also making the leap from Prager’s radio program is an emphasis on a subject many would rather avoid: the effect political ideas have on the lives and personalities of those who embrace them.

Leftist ideas are not just wrong because they bankrupt governments but because the people who advocate for them suffer in their personal lives. One example Prager provides is how the messages young women hear about sex at college can lead them down paths they’ll later regret.

In grappling with the intellectual and cultural battles between Leftism, Islamism, and Americanism, it’s often easy to forget that real flesh and blood bodies try to put these theories into practice. Observe the connection between Barack Obama’s mother marrying two foreign-born men and her career as an anthropologist immersed in third-world cultural study and advocacy. Then consider the unhappiness that came as a result: both marriages ending in divorce and a young Barack Obama left to live a rudderless life leaping from one questionable father figure to another.

This piece of the pie should be considered when thinking about the challenge PJ Media’s CEO Roger L. Simon posed on May 9, when he lamented the frequency in which political blogging becomes little more than preaching to the choir:

What we really want is a way to get our message out to the other side so that they actually read and consider it.

The tragedy of democracy in our times is that this may no longer be possible. People do not want to be disturbed by opposing views. They don’t even want to think about them. Too much — life, careers, family, friends — is at stake. Why upend it for anything so mundane as the future of our country?

There are two competing components of Roger’s appeal: Yes, we want progressives to consider conservative ideas. But we also have the practical world in mind. We need to formulate arguments so people will wake up now, realize the dangerous economic and terrorist threats exacerbated by the Obama administration, and vote for Mitt Romney this fall.

Is that too much to ask for? Reading Still the Best Hope and its encyclopedic collection of arguments, some might be tempted to think Prager has crafted the ultimate tool for converting leftists to the Right. And just in time for the election too! They’d be wrong.

There are other, more effective ways to spread American values and set the country back on the right course other than through a single-minded focus on the Left vs. Right model. Here are 7 Reasons Why The Right Should Not Seek to Convert The Left. In laying out these points I’m going to: A) Show what happened when I presented some Prager-style arguments to a leftist. B) Propose strategies for how American values should be promoted today. C) Stress the importance of connecting the ideas of Still the Best Hope with the themes Prager developed in his previous books and I hope he pursues for his next. D) Present a buffet of ideas in a multimedia format combining text, image, and some of my favorite videos from Prager University.

For my first point, I’ll address the path to victory this fall before dealing with the bigger question of the problem with evangelizing conservatism in the remaining 6 points.

7. There are More Than Enough Apolitical People Out There Whose Minds Remain Unconquered by the Left.

With the yelling debates on the cable shows it’s easy to stumble into the belief that America is a “deeply divided” country. When looking at the numbers, though, actually only a small percentage of Americans participate in the Left vs. Right battle. There are plenty of other untapped pools of persuadable voters apart from those preset to oppose us.

Four facts about American political participation to keep in mind:

Only about half of Americans vote for president.
Just over a third of Americans vote in non-presidential elections.
For the 2010 cycle, only 0.19% of the population donated $200 or more to a political candidate, party, or PAC. This group of donors accounted for 66.5% of the money received.
In Septemer 2009 Pew polled on political participation in the previous 12 months. They selected 11 different political acts and found that 63% of Americans had engaged in at least one ranging in involvement from just signing a petition (32%) to attending an organized protest (4%.) Thus, the Pareto principle holds for politics too: “Taken together, 34% of all adults did one or two of the above activities this year, while an additional 16% took part in 3-4 activities. A highly-engaged 13% of Americans have taken part in five or more of these activities in the last year.”

A few facts related to those numbers:

Only half of adults can name all three branches of government.
Only 74% of Americans know that the United States declared independence from Great Britain.
Only 54% can define “free enterprise.”
Only 7% of Americans can name the first four presidents and only 30% know Thomas Jefferson was the third.
73% of Americans have no idea the United States fought communism during the Cold War.

Keep that last number in mind as I now explain six reasons for the futility of trying to shift others from Left to Right.

6. “You Cannot Reason Out What Was Not Reasoned In.” — often attributed to Jonathan Swift

Just because someone reads a book, it doesn’t mean they’re going to grasp what the author is saying.

From the dust jacket: “A Few Books Can Change The Way People Think. Still the Best Hope Is One of Them.”

But what if people don’t think? Or if they don’t even know how to think? What if they “think” with their heart or some other body part (like their skin or their genitals)? What good will Prager’s arguments be for them?

That’s the conundrum faced in trying to shift people from Left to Right through rational argument. When dealing with leftists, emotions sit on the throne. Often in dialogue they’ll say “I feel like you’re saying” and then spit back to you a garbled, straw-man version of what you actually said. You’ll regularly hear “I feel like” when they’re describing how they analyze some political issues. More rarely will you hear “I think.” This is a Freudian slip revealing that they’re not actually reasoning at all and are just ducking and weaving based on raw instinct.

****

A few weeks ago, like a smoker picking up a pack of cigarettes after a long hiatus, I returned to one of my bad habits: arguing with my old college friends about the political views that we no longer shared.

The Facebook friend whose name and image I’ve hidden with orange below is a graduate student who teaches math. During our undergraduate years we shared space on the college paper’s editorial page. When I graduated in 2006 he carried on the “Bush is a War Criminal,” “Republicans are Evil and Stupid” drum beat that I’d become known for in my 3 years as a weekly columnist.

Mr. Orange’s views have changed little since our college days. He never left the academic bubble, transitioning from undergrad to graduate school quickly. But I made the mistake of “going out into the real world.” The experiences of working two and a half years of “pay-the-bills” jobs was a chance to study capitalism and human nature up close in their natural habitats. Thus as I built up my freelance writing career part-time, I surrendered to one “conservative” understanding of life after another. When the opportunity presented itself to make the leap to full-time New Media troublemaker (an editorial position), it was for “right-wing” online publications. The ideas that I’d demonized and caricatured in college I’d now come to embrace.

So of course most of my progressive college pals defriended me. And I don’t blame them. Why would they want to hear my explanations for why I’d come to reject the views they still worshipped?

But to his credit, Mr. Orange has still stuck around, even though at times over the years our arguments have grown heated and personal. So when he posted one of the president’s propaganda images I saw an opportunity to give Prager’s arguments a test run and challenge my thesis. Is it really a waste of time to try and persuade leftists? I would try not to be too mean.

Little doubt where this was headed.

Yes, the color Pink is chosen intentionally to represent a friend of Mr. Orange. I had not encountered him before but soon he revealed himself as a history grad student working on his dissertation. He claimed to specialize in American slavery and it was not long into our conversation before he claimed mixed race parents but a black identity (as opposed to the bi-racial descriptor many with his background choose).

To demonstrate America’s racism, he presented this paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research that claims those with “black names” like Lakisha and Jamal have a harder time finding jobs because of racist whites. I knew just the book to pull out to answer this, the same one that had changed my mind years ago. Here’s the first of 10 Tips for How To Talk to a Marxist Who Thinks He’s a Liberal (If You Must)*.

And yes, I am aware of the irony of including 10 tips for arguing with Marxists in an article advocating that we shouldn't try and convert leftists. The choice of verb is the distinction. By all means argue with Marxists. Just don't get your hopes up that you're accomplishing anything more than amusing (or depressing) yourself.

Get used to feeding ideas into the meatgrinder of the progressive mind and getting mutilated caricatures of what you’re saying fed back to you. That’s what they need to do in order to continue avoiding the next point.
*Apologies to Ann Coulter for borrowing her title.

5. Evil Is Something That Cannot Be Explained to Those Who Do Not Know What It Is. It Can Only Be Experienced.

Be happy for your “liberal” friends. They’ve been blessed not to comprehend evil yet. They’re still living in the Garden of Eden. Good for them. Maybe they’ll be lucky and never have to put their ideas to the test. Maybe they’ll never experience what Irving Kristol talked about, what it means for a liberal to be “mugged by reality.” Maybe they’ll never have to look a real evil person in the eye and experience the pain they can cause.

I never understood or appreciated talk radio until encountering Los Angeles traffic. Being stuck inching on the 405 or backed up because of construction on Sepulveda Boulevard isn’t that bad when a skilled host is there, perhaps interviewing a world class intellectual about his new book.

When PJ Media managing editor Aaron Hanscom and I carpool into the office (usually once a week for meetings), we try to time our commute so it overlaps with Prager’s broadcast here in Los Angeles (from 9 AM to noon). One of our favorite features on the show is when Prager takes calls from progressives who air their disagreements with his “offensive” views. As we hear Prager respond to an irate caller and ask precise questions, we’ll swap stories of times when we’ve been in similar discussions with friends and family members. We’ll compare the things we’ve said and the incredulous or angry responses we get back. Here’s an example of the kind of calls Prager takes on his show:

The discussions usually end with Aaron and me stumped as we try and think of things we could say to persuade those who have no interest in being persuaded.

Then one day while driving in to work it hit me. As we were talking and Prager played in the background, the traffic moving at a reasonable pace, I said something like: “You know maybe we should just be happy for them that life hasn’t given them a kick in the ass yet. Do we really want them having the kinds of experiences we had that changed us? Do we really want them to understand the fact that there’s more dangerous problems in the world threatening their well-being than ‘climate change’ and the right to have your contraception paid for by somebody else?”

Here’s another excerpt from my debate with the history grad student (the guy who’s going to be teaching your kids about America if he isn’t already):

4. Today the Conservative Movement Lies Fragmented, Infiltrated, Compromised, and Corrupted.

How can we fully rebut the Left’s smears of the Right when there’s usually an element of truth to every attack?

Something to note in Prager’s terminology: he chooses “Americanism” not “Rightism” or “Conservatism.” This is an important distinction and one he mentioned in his interview with PJTV.

Conservatives and those on the American political Right may articulate American values, but these two interrelated (and not synonymous) movements are not based in promoting them. “The Right” in any country refers to the side of the political spectrum that embraces a nationalist identity over an internationalist one. Thus, among the American Right there are numerous nationalist tendencies, and they don’t all agree about just what it means to be an American — just that it’s important for us to be one. Likewise among those in William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Conservative movement” there’s a general agreement about “standing athwart history yelling stop,” and the need to conserve American greatness. But there’s plenty of disagreement about what really needs to be conserved and how to do it.

In Chapter 3 Prager discusses “Why the Left Succeeds.” His third point: demonization of the Right. He notes the frequency with which leftists employ charges of racism, homophobia, and other smears.

Beyond the scope of the book, though, is the reality of a Conservative movement that tolerates a whole host of individuals and ideas in direct opposition to the American values Prager describes.

Ann Coulter in March:

“And just a more corporate problem is I think our party and particularly our movement, the conservative movement, does have more of a problem with con men and charlatans than the Democratic Party,” she said. “I mean, the incentives seem to be set up to allow people — as long as you have a band of a few million fanatical followers, you can make money. The Democrats have managed to figure out how not to do that.”

And who are the crackpots at the edges who live up to the Left’s demonizations about bigotry, cronyism, rigid ideology, and selfishness?

Antisemitic Paleo-Conservatives (Pat Buchanan)
Admitted White Nationalist Racists who write well
Anti-American and Antisemitic Anarcho-Capitalists and Paleo-Libertarians (Ron Paul’s cult reviving the ideas of the Old Right) who see nothing wrong with Iran going nuclear
Conspiracy Theorists making a fast buck peddling Birtherism and other nonsense like the US merging with Canada and Mexico
People who really do Hate Gay People and are just using opposition to gay marriage as cover for their bigotry
Stealth Jihadists Subverting the GOP’s Commitment to a Foreign Policy of Peace through Strength (See the Center for Security Policy’s full dossier on Grover Norquist and his protege Suhail Khan here.)
Theocrats (Exhibit A: Those who refuse to support Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon.)
Anti-Abortion Fanatics (Not the same as sane, pro-life activism that aims to change hearts through love and reason rather than shock and judgment.)
Narcissists who want to Turn Themselves into a Brand so they can transform their political connections into Greek cruises and large credit accounts at Tiffany’s.
Corporatists who peddle influence.

All these groups and tendencies compete within “the Right” and “the Conservative movement” for money, power, and converts. And their roots go too deep to be upended.

In the book Prager notes how he apologized to Rep. Keith Ellison who accepted it and told him his mother was a fan of his show...

3. Embracing American Values Does Not Require One to Join “the Right” or to Convert to Some Ideology Called “Conservatism.”

...

2. Left Vs. Right Is not the Fight That Has Gripped Humanity Since Ancient Times.

To see the direction America’s defenders need to go we should look backwards at Prager’s previous books and forward to the one I hope he writes next.

...


PJM Lifestyle
« Training Programs Can Lead to a Big Bump in Pay for Men
Douglas Rushkoff on Village Voice: ‘Its Inability to Find a Business Model That Doesn’t Depend on the Adult Sex Industry is Its Own Fault’ »
7 Reasons Why The Right Should Not Seek to Convert The Left
An appreciation of Dennis Prager and multimedia celebration of his magnum opus, Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.

by
Dave Swindle

Bio
June 8, 2012 - 7:00 am
Email
Print
Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size

This article features 13 large images like this juxtaposing Still the Best Hope excerpts, graphics, and other surprises.

Those who think Dennis Prager took a decade to write one book will find themselves mistaken upon picking up Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. The 30-year talk radio veteran and longtime syndicated columnist actually delivers a trilogy of books mapping out the big ideological fights of today with greater clarity than anyone else.

Don’t let the 440 pages intimidate. The three books within Still the Best Hope are:

220 pages defining Leftism as a religion, explaining why its adherents embrace their beliefs, the techniques used to manipulate people into joining the political cult, and the price the world paid during the 20th century enduring the movement’s quests to remake the world.
70 pages defining Islam and Islamism, the relation between the two, and their moral record.
And 80 pages — a single chapter — laying out America and Its Unique Values, as symbolized by three terms struck on our coins: “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” and “E Pluribus Unum.” These pillars of American exceptionalism stand in opposition to the political theologies of Leftism and Islamism which value Equality over Liberty, Idolatry over God, and group rights over universal human rights.

Taken alone, each section stands as a succinct summary, analysis, and polemic. Even those already well-versed in the subject matter will appreciate Prager’s innovative arguments, precise research, respectful manner, and inviting prose voice. It’s a portable distillation of everything that makes The Dennis Prager Show so engaging each day.

Also making the leap from Prager’s radio program is an emphasis on a subject many would rather avoid: the effect political ideas have on the lives and personalities of those who embrace them.

Leftist ideas are not just wrong because they bankrupt governments but because the people who advocate for them suffer in their personal lives. One example Prager provides is how the messages young women hear about sex at college can lead them down paths they’ll later regret.

In grappling with the intellectual and cultural battles between Leftism, Islamism, and Americanism, it’s often easy to forget that real flesh and blood bodies try to put these theories into practice. Observe the connection between Barack Obama’s mother marrying two foreign-born men and her career as an anthropologist immersed in third-world cultural study and advocacy. Then consider the unhappiness that came as a result: both marriages ending in divorce and a young Barack Obama left to live a rudderless life leaping from one questionable father figure to another.

This piece of the pie should be considered when thinking about the challenge PJ Media’s CEO Roger L. Simon posed on May 9, when he lamented the frequency in which political blogging becomes little more than preaching to the choir:

What we really want is a way to get our message out to the other side so that they actually read and consider it.

The tragedy of democracy in our times is that this may no longer be possible. People do not want to be disturbed by opposing views. They don’t even want to think about them. Too much — life, careers, family, friends — is at stake. Why upend it for anything so mundane as the future of our country?

There are two competing components of Roger’s appeal: Yes, we want progressives to consider conservative ideas. But we also have the practical world in mind. We need to formulate arguments so people will wake up now, realize the dangerous economic and terrorist threats exacerbated by the Obama administration, and vote for Mitt Romney this fall.

Is that too much to ask for? Reading Still the Best Hope and its encyclopedic collection of arguments, some might be tempted to think Prager has crafted the ultimate tool for converting leftists to the Right. And just in time for the election too! They’d be wrong.

There are other, more effective ways to spread American values and set the country back on the right course other than through a single-minded focus on the Left vs. Right model. Here are 7 Reasons Why The Right Should Not Seek to Convert The Left. In laying out these points I’m going to: A) Show what happened when I presented some Prager-style arguments to a leftist. B) Propose strategies for how American values should be promoted today. C) Stress the importance of connecting the ideas of Still the Best Hope with the themes Prager developed in his previous books and I hope he pursues for his next. D) Present a buffet of ideas in a multimedia format combining text, image, and some of my favorite videos from Prager University.

For my first point, I’ll address the path to victory this fall before dealing with the bigger question of the problem with evangelizing conservatism in the remaining 6 points.

7. There are More Than Enough Apolitical People Out There Whose Minds Remain Unconquered by the Left.

With the yelling debates on the cable shows it’s easy to stumble into the belief that America is a “deeply divided” country. When looking at the numbers, though, actually only a small percentage of Americans participate in the Left vs. Right battle. There are plenty of other untapped pools of persuadable voters apart from those preset to oppose us.

Four facts about American political participation to keep in mind:

Only about half of Americans vote for president.
Just over a third of Americans vote in non-presidential elections.
For the 2010 cycle, only 0.19% of the population donated $200 or more to a political candidate, party, or PAC. This group of donors accounted for 66.5% of the money received.
In Septemer 2009 Pew polled on political participation in the previous 12 months. They selected 11 different political acts and found that 63% of Americans had engaged in at least one ranging in involvement from just signing a petition (32%) to attending an organized protest (4%.) Thus, the Pareto principle holds for politics too: “Taken together, 34% of all adults did one or two of the above activities this year, while an additional 16% took part in 3-4 activities. A highly-engaged 13% of Americans have taken part in five or more of these activities in the last year.”

A few facts related to those numbers:

Only half of adults can name all three branches of government.
Only 74% of Americans know that the United States declared independence from Great Britain.
Only 54% can define “free enterprise.”
Only 7% of Americans can name the first four presidents and only 30% know Thomas Jefferson was the third.
73% of Americans have no idea the United States fought communism during the Cold War.

Keep that last number in mind as I now explain six reasons for the futility of trying to shift others from Left to Right.

6. “You Cannot Reason Out What Was Not Reasoned In.” — often attributed to Jonathan Swift

Just because someone reads a book, it doesn’t mean they’re going to grasp what the author is saying.

From the dust jacket: “A Few Books Can Change The Way People Think. Still the Best Hope Is One of Them.”

But what if people don’t think? Or if they don’t even know how to think? What if they “think” with their heart or some other body part (like their skin or their genitals)? What good will Prager’s arguments be for them?

That’s the conundrum faced in trying to shift people from Left to Right through rational argument. When dealing with leftists, emotions sit on the throne. Often in dialogue they’ll say “I feel like you’re saying” and then spit back to you a garbled, straw-man version of what you actually said. You’ll regularly hear “I feel like” when they’re describing how they analyze some political issues. More rarely will you hear “I think.” This is a Freudian slip revealing that they’re not actually reasoning at all and are just ducking and weaving based on raw instinct.

****

A few weeks ago, like a smoker picking up a pack of cigarettes after a long hiatus, I returned to one of my bad habits: arguing with my old college friends about the political views that we no longer shared.

The Facebook friend whose name and image I’ve hidden with orange below is a graduate student who teaches math. During our undergraduate years we shared space on the college paper’s editorial page. When I graduated in 2006 he carried on the “Bush is a War Criminal,” “Republicans are Evil and Stupid” drum beat that I’d become known for in my 3 years as a weekly columnist.

Mr. Orange’s views have changed little since our college days. He never left the academic bubble, transitioning from undergrad to graduate school quickly. But I made the mistake of “going out into the real world.” The experiences of working two and a half years of “pay-the-bills” jobs was a chance to study capitalism and human nature up close in their natural habitats. Thus as I built up my freelance writing career part-time, I surrendered to one “conservative” understanding of life after another. When the opportunity presented itself to make the leap to full-time New Media troublemaker (an editorial position), it was for “right-wing” online publications. The ideas that I’d demonized and caricatured in college I’d now come to embrace.

So of course most of my progressive college pals defriended me. And I don’t blame them. Why would they want to hear my explanations for why I’d come to reject the views they still worshipped?

But to his credit, Mr. Orange has still stuck around, even though at times over the years our arguments have grown heated and personal. So when he posted one of the president’s propaganda images I saw an opportunity to give Prager’s arguments a test run and challenge my thesis. Is it really a waste of time to try and persuade leftists? I would try not to be too mean.

Little doubt where this was headed.

Yes, the color Pink is chosen intentionally to represent a friend of Mr. Orange. I had not encountered him before but soon he revealed himself as a history grad student working on his dissertation. He claimed to specialize in American slavery and it was not long into our conversation before he claimed mixed race parents but a black identity (as opposed to the bi-racial descriptor many with his background choose).

To demonstrate America’s racism, he presented this paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research that claims those with “black names” like Lakisha and Jamal have a harder time finding jobs because of racist whites. I knew just the book to pull out to answer this, the same one that had changed my mind years ago. Here’s the first of 10 Tips for How To Talk to a Marxist Who Thinks He’s a Liberal (If You Must)*.

And yes, I am aware of the irony of including 10 tips for arguing with Marxists in an article advocating that we shouldn't try and convert leftists. The choice of verb is the distinction. By all means argue with Marxists. Just don't get your hopes up that you're accomplishing anything more than amusing (or depressing) yourself.

Get used to feeding ideas into the meatgrinder of the progressive mind and getting mutilated caricatures of what you’re saying fed back to you. That’s what they need to do in order to continue avoiding the next point.
*Apologies to Ann Coulter for borrowing her title.

5. Evil Is Something That Cannot Be Explained to Those Who Do Not Know What It Is. It Can Only Be Experienced.

Be happy for your “liberal” friends. They’ve been blessed not to comprehend evil yet. They’re still living in the Garden of Eden. Good for them. Maybe they’ll be lucky and never have to put their ideas to the test. Maybe they’ll never experience what Irving Kristol talked about, what it means for a liberal to be “mugged by reality.” Maybe they’ll never have to look a real evil person in the eye and experience the pain they can cause.

I never understood or appreciated talk radio until encountering Los Angeles traffic. Being stuck inching on the 405 or backed up because of construction on Sepulveda Boulevard isn’t that bad when a skilled host is there, perhaps interviewing a world class intellectual about his new book.

When PJ Media managing editor Aaron Hanscom and I carpool into the office (usually once a week for meetings), we try to time our commute so it overlaps with Prager’s broadcast here in Los Angeles (from 9 AM to noon). One of our favorite features on the show is when Prager takes calls from progressives who air their disagreements with his “offensive” views. As we hear Prager respond to an irate caller and ask precise questions, we’ll swap stories of times when we’ve been in similar discussions with friends and family members. We’ll compare the things we’ve said and the incredulous or angry responses we get back. Here’s an example of the kind of calls Prager takes on his show:

The discussions usually end with Aaron and me stumped as we try and think of things we could say to persuade those who have no interest in being persuaded.

Then one day while driving in to work it hit me. As we were talking and Prager played in the background, the traffic moving at a reasonable pace, I said something like: “You know maybe we should just be happy for them that life hasn’t given them a kick in the ass yet. Do we really want them having the kinds of experiences we had that changed us? Do we really want them to understand the fact that there’s more dangerous problems in the world threatening their well-being than ‘climate change’ and the right to have your contraception paid for by somebody else?”

Here’s another excerpt from my debate with the history grad student (the guy who’s going to be teaching your kids about America if he isn’t already):

4. Today the Conservative Movement Lies Fragmented, Infiltrated, Compromised, and Corrupted.

How can we fully rebut the Left’s smears of the Right when there’s usually an element of truth to every attack?

Something to note in Prager’s terminology: he chooses “Americanism” not “Rightism” or “Conservatism.” This is an important distinction and one he mentioned in his interview with PJTV.

Conservatives and those on the American political Right may articulate American values, but these two interrelated (and not synonymous) movements are not based in promoting them. “The Right” in any country refers to the side of the political spectrum that embraces a nationalist identity over an internationalist one. Thus, among the American Right there are numerous nationalist tendencies, and they don’t all agree about just what it means to be an American — just that it’s important for us to be one. Likewise among those in William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Conservative movement” there’s a general agreement about “standing athwart history yelling stop,” and the need to conserve American greatness. But there’s plenty of disagreement about what really needs to be conserved and how to do it.

In Chapter 3 Prager discusses “Why the Left Succeeds.” His third point: demonization of the Right. He notes the frequency with which leftists employ charges of racism, homophobia, and other smears.

Beyond the scope of the book, though, is the reality of a Conservative movement that tolerates a whole host of individuals and ideas in direct opposition to the American values Prager describes.

Ann Coulter in March:

“And just a more corporate problem is I think our party and particularly our movement, the conservative movement, does have more of a problem with con men and charlatans than the Democratic Party,” she said. “I mean, the incentives seem to be set up to allow people — as long as you have a band of a few million fanatical followers, you can make money. The Democrats have managed to figure out how not to do that.”

And who are the crackpots at the edges who live up to the Left’s demonizations about bigotry, cronyism, rigid ideology, and selfishness?

Antisemitic Paleo-Conservatives (Pat Buchanan)
Admitted White Nationalist Racists who write well
Anti-American and Antisemitic Anarcho-Capitalists and Paleo-Libertarians (Ron Paul’s cult reviving the ideas of the Old Right) who see nothing wrong with Iran going nuclear
Conspiracy Theorists making a fast buck peddling Birtherism and other nonsense like the US merging with Canada and Mexico
People who really do Hate Gay People and are just using opposition to gay marriage as cover for their bigotry
Stealth Jihadists Subverting the GOP’s Commitment to a Foreign Policy of Peace through Strength (See the Center for Security Policy’s full dossier on Grover Norquist and his protege Suhail Khan here.)
Theocrats (Exhibit A: Those who refuse to support Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon.)
Anti-Abortion Fanatics (Not the same as sane, pro-life activism that aims to change hearts through love and reason rather than shock and judgment.)
Narcissists who want to Turn Themselves into a Brand so they can transform their political connections into Greek cruises and large credit accounts at Tiffany’s.
Corporatists who peddle influence.

All these groups and tendencies compete within “the Right” and “the Conservative movement” for money, power, and converts. And their roots go too deep to be upended.

In the book Prager notes how he apologized to Rep. Keith Ellison who accepted it and told him his mother was a fan of his show...

3. Embracing American Values Does Not Require One to Join “the Right” or to Convert to Some Ideology Called “Conservatism.”

We don’t like to say it much in the conservative blogosphere but it’s true: you can still be a Democrat and live American values. The number of Blue Dog Democrats may be dwindling and Joe Lieberman may be an independent, but the patriotic, non-Marxists do still have a sizable presence even though right now the Soros-funded Alinskyites run the show.

In advocating for American values we’re really not asking for much. I can tolerate a pretty wide range of thought from my progressive friends. But everyone should be able to recognize that the Nation of Islam is a racist, antisemitic cult — and therefore has no place in our civic life. We have to at least be able to agree on the boundaries of discourse before we can make progress on much else.

Conversations about the self-evident unconstitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate are a long way away from where we actually need to start today. This is how low the moral bar needs to be set: having to explain why murdering political opponents disqualifies an organization from a place of respect in the culture.

Roger again, thinking about approaches for reaching through to the other side:

One tactic might be to take a more psychoanalytic/emotional rather than a logical/ideological tack. Look for areas where there is unconscious agreement. In some Hollywood movies, as my colleague Lionel Chetwynd recently pointed out, the film’s message is conservative even though its creators believe it to be liberal. (Lionel was speaking of The Hunger Games in which the masses are ruled by oppressive know-it-all elites who seem much like progressives taken to the next level.)

This approach argues for abandoning buzz words (conservative, liberal, progressive, libertarian) and focusing on issues. Hollywood filmmakers aren’t the only ones who espouse conservative ideas when they don’t identify them with the “c” word.

But even if this is a good idea, it’s not easy to execute and does not necessarily translate into votes. And votes are what are necessary for change in this epoch.

It’s not easy to come up with new ways to frame American values apart from the Left/Right, Liberals/Conservatives models. So maybe the answer isn’t to go forward with a new map, but to take the oldest one and apply it to today in a new way.

2. Left Vs. Right Is not the Fight That Has Gripped Humanity Since Ancient Times.

To see the direction America’s defenders need to go we should look backwards at Prager’s previous books and forward to the one I hope he writes next.

One map is rarely adequate for anything but the simplest tasks. While Still the Best Hope provides an important service in mapping out the intellectual contest between Leftism, Islamism and their war to destroy Americanism, there’s a problem if one relies solely on it. By focusing exclusively on thinking about the fight as Americanism vs. Leftism and Islamism, we don’t realize other threats. We focus only on the enemy as something apart from us. As something “out there.” We rationalize ignoring threats within our own movement and we neglect defeating our own internal demons.

And so for this point and the next I’ll connect Still the Best Hopes with three other streams of Prager’s thought, and argue for understanding them in an integrated fashion. In addition to his analysis of political ideology and values, Prager also offers engaging thinking on three other subjects: Judaism, the differences between male and female sexuality, and the way to lead a happy life.

As much as I appreciate Still The Best Hope, if I had to pick one Prager book to air-drop copies of all around the world then it would be Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism, which he co-wrote with his best friend Joseph Telushkin. (See also their first book, Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism.)

Why the Jews explains the uniqueness of antisemitism and its root. Why do we find the hatred of the Jews as such a universal? What is it about the Jews that unites the radical Left, the paleo-Right, orthodox Islam, cults like the NOI and the KKK, and fringe pseudo-Catholic fundamentalists like Mel Gibson?

They hate what the Jews brought into the world: ethical monotheism. If you read only one Prager article, make it his summary of ethical monotheism, a key portion of which I’m including below:

Monotheism means belief in “one God.” Before discussing the importance of the “mono,” or God’s oneness, we need a basic understanding of the nature of God.

The God of ethical monotheism is the God first revealed to the world in the Hebrew Bible. Through it, we can establish God’s four primary characteristics:

1. God is supranatural.

2. God is personal.

3. God is good.

4. God is holy.

Dropping any one of the first three attributes invalidates ethical monotheism (it is possible, though difficult, to ignore holiness and still lead an ethical life).

God is supranatural, meaning “above nature” (I do not use the more common term “supernatural” because it is less precise and conjures up irrationality). This is why Genesis, the Bible’s first book, opens with, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” in a world in which nearly all people worshipped nature, the Bible’s intention was to emphasize that nature is utterly subservient to God who made it. Obviously, therefore, God is not a part of nature, and nature is not God.

It is not possible for God to be part of nature for two reasons.

First, nature is finite and God is infinite. If God were within nature, He would be limited, and God, who is not physical, has no limits (I use the pronoun “He”" not because I believe God is a male, but because the neuter pronoun “It” depersonalizes God. You cannot talk to, relate to, love, or obey an “It.”).

Second, and more important, nature is amoral. Nature knows nothing of good and evil. In nature there is one rule—survival of the fittest. There is no right, only might. If a creature is weak, kill it. Only human beings could have moral rules such as, “If it is weak, protect it.” Only human beings can feel themselves ethically obligated to strangers.

Thus, nature worship is very dangerous. When people idolize nature, they can easily arrive at the ethics of Nazism. It was the law of nature that Adolf Hitler sought to emulate—the strong shall conquer the weak. Nazism and other ideologies that are hostile to ethical monotheism and venerate nature are very tempting. Nature allows you to act naturally, i.e., do only what you want you to do, without moral restraints; God does not. Nature lets you act naturally – and it is as natural to kill, rape, and enslave as it is to love.

In light of all this, it is alarming that many people today virtually venerate nature. It can only have terrible moral ramifications.

One of the vital elements in the ethical monotheist revolution was its repudiation of nature as god. The evolution of civilization and morality have depended in large part on desanctifying nature.

Civilizations that equated gods with nature—a characteristic of all primitive societies—or that worshipped nature did not evolve.

If nature is divine, and has a will of its own the only way for human beings to conquer disease or obtain sustenance is to placate it – through witchcraft, magic, voodoo, and/or human sacrifice.

One of ethical monotheism’s greatest battles today is against the increasing deification of nature, movements that are generally led (as were most radical ideologies) by well educated, secularized individuals.

When you’re a child first learning Bible stories in Sunday school, they can’t tell you the truth about what was actually going on in human societies in the Middle East 4000+ years ago. When you watch The 10 Commandments, the sequences where the Israelites start worshipping the golden calf just resemble a big, swinging party. They’re always vague about Sodom and Gomorrah. That’s because to depict what was actually happening in the world at the time you’d need a XXX-rating. And it just so happens that such films have been made today. One of the worst movies of all time, Caligula staring Malcolm McDowell as the mad emperor, depicts what happens when people engage in Idolatry. And it’s not sexy or erotic or fun. Instead you get wall-to-wall incest, torture, murder, and rape. Sex and violence are a unified force in the natural world. From the Praying Mantis biting her mate’s head off in the act to male lions cannibalizing the cubs of previous males — the natural world is a terrifying place. In worshipping animals or any aspect of nature, then human beings replicate that destructive impulse in their own lives.

That’s what the Bible is really about, though we don’t like to talk about it because it’s so disgusting and scary: the ancient Israelites’ battle against nature-worshiping sex cults that practiced human sacrifice. I always wondered why idol-worship was so important as to be above things like murder and stealing in the 10 Commandments. Aren’t those much worse than someone just praying to a rock? Nope. The Commandments are just listed in the order that they’re broken. Idolatry — worshipping an image, worshipping a noun — comes before any other evil act. Within the ethical monotheist tradition, God is not a thing we can comprehend. God is transcendent — God is a verb. Thus to worship God is to worship a verb — to transform into understanding ourselves as a state of permanent change and growth, not a static, defined image.

The male tendency to become absorbed by images is something built into us by nature, Prager argues in this video from Prager University on the power of the visual to the male:

Every man has a choice to make not just intellectually but sexually between idolatry and ethical monotheism. What does the man do with the snake between his legs? It’s the same choice the ancient Israelites faced over and over again: The animal thrill of holy prostitution with Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite or any sex goddess (nouns) vs. living based around the transcendent experience of a lifelong commitment to love one person in marriage (verb).

Does a man live his life seducing a new woman each week? Or does he commit himself to his wife? Does he fritter away his sexual energy fulfilling his lusts, or does he develop some self-control to transform his passion into creating and supporting a large family? (It is this subject — which Prager addresses regularly on his radio show — I hope he explores more for his next book. See the essays in Think A Second Time for more of the arguments he’s already made.)

Do we let our animal natures control us or do we take responsibility for becoming mature adults? We see this question answered in the lives of those who have sought the presidency and the families they brought along with them:

"When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."

The image of oneself as a persecuted minority is one form of idolatry challenging the American value of a Rule of Law which applies equally to all.

1. What Really Changes Leftist Hearts and Minds Is Not Words but Acts.

Just being a good person living a happy life will do more to shift your leftist friends than you can ever know. The way to be a good person is through imitating God. Note: one does not need to believe in God in order to imitate God. (Though as an agnostic theist I recommend both.) More important than what you think you are is what you are doing and how you are doing it. A person’s actions and their practical effects are more important than his intentions or beliefs in doing them. More important than believing in God is struggling with Him. You have to fight to rise up beyond your animal nature. That’s what “Israel” means — to wrestle with God. A very different way of finding happiness rather than through submission to an idol.