You learn something new every day:
On Fox News this morning, Mitt Romney explained that his positions today are more conservative than those when he was the governor of Massachusetts because “living a life tends to make you more conservative.” This echoes a saying often attributed (perhaps apocryphally) to Winston Churchill. It usually goes something like this: If you’re not a liberal at 20 you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at 40 you have no brain.
Whatever the heartlessness or brainlessness of any given ideology, the conventional wisdom that people get more conservative as they age is wrong, according to sociological research.
At any given time older people are likely to be more conservative than contemporaneous young people. But relative to themselves as young people, today’s older folks have generally become more liberal than they once were.
That said, why are there so many cranky old conservatves out there? That's probably because so many of today's 50s-and-over came of age in the white working class backlash that started in the mid-1960s and lasted through the Reagan years. Those people may actually have been more conservatve once. Scary, huh? Also, I wonder if the studies are really measuring liberalism or its first cousin, tolerance. I think people generally become more tolerant as they age, because they're exposed to more people and more situations that challenge their original way of thinking. Look at Dick Cheney -- an ultra-conservative guy who learned that one of his daughters is gay, and then became fairly moderate on gay rights issues. That kind of thng happens a lot -- and the world is somewhat better for it.
What sociological research? And I ask that as someone who voted for McGovern and Carter, but only once. 10,000 Black men a year killed by black men every other year ought to give you a clue as to why. Liberalism is only good for those who profit personally from it.— tr88
Comment removed.- When you are a teenager you have no responsibility, so it's expected that you will act irresponsibly. When you get older you start taking responsibility for yourself, your family, your neighbors, your employees.— Mr. Smith
- Tolerance? This coming from the guy who called Corbett dumb, joked about Christies weight, and once said that the Chinese would walk in the snow while doing calculus?— RG
- Here are the tolerant ones---Will, who said it?--------The modus operandi of these thought police at Color of Change and ADL is to brand as racists and anti-Semites any writer who dares to venture outside the narrow corral in which they seek to confine debate.
All the while prattling about their love of dissent and devotion to the First Amendment, they seek systematically to silence and censor dissent.
Without a hearing, they smear and stigmatize as racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic any who contradict what George Orwell once called their "smelly little orthodoxies." They then demand that the heretic recant, grovel, apologize, and pledge to go forth and sin no more.— tr88 - Somebody's reading their Pat Buchanan, as the good little Fox News minions do!— Susie from Philly
- Why is that where you read it? Isnt it time you left the plantation and thought for yourslef, susie?— tr88
- Why is that where you read it? Isnt it time you left the plantation and thought for yourslef, susie?— tr88
- Why is that where you read it? Isnt it time you left the plantation and thought for yourslef, susie?— tr88
- Mr. Bunch, liberalism is like the wooden rocking horse in "Inherent The Wind, all shine but no substance. As a kid in the 1960's and 70's, I argued passionately with my father over a wide variety of topics. I was extremely liberal, my father staunchly conservative. After he died, I grew up, got married, raised four kids. Along the way I became a conservative. Life in the really real world does that. I often wish my father had lived long enough for me to look him in the eye and tell him how right he was. By the way, please don't try to equate liberalism with tolerance. Liberalism is all about demonizing anyone with a alternative point of view. Don't believe me, go ask Maxine Waters.
— Tom Stevenson - The GOP has been getting shellacked on the wedge issues recently. They really think they can rally people against oral contraception and gay marriage. lol— chasing history
- "Oral contraception"? It's as much about that as me demanding a gun be provided to me because it's my second ammendment right.
Frame it however you need to decieve people, when people realize it's a religious liberty issue, you will lose.— Tannhauser - Religous liberty issues? lol....that's rich. It's really about keeping women in their place. Just read this gem from Foster Friess, the billionaire backer of Rick Santorum’s campaign: “Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.” — chasing history
- If Will actually thinks that as one ages they become more liberal then he deserves to lose his job.— RufusG
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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