Jon Ray
Editor's Note: These are comments published by Jon Ray of Dissecting Leftism about a particular article - but that article is not below, it is however linked. RK
The article below is an amusing example of "spin". They report research which shows that conservatives are innately more cautious -- something that no-one I know would argue with. We rather celebrate it, in fact. Caution is almost the definition of conservatism. But the galoots below seem to think that they have shown something new.
The only way they justify that is by seeing caution as "fear". But even that is unoriginal. Conservatives do indeed have realistic fears and make no apologies for it. They particularly fear the outcomes of the madcap schemes that Leftists embark upon -- such as the"Affordable Care Act", which has deprived many Americans of healthcare altogether -- via the huge deductibles that are now often asked before any care is given.
The article is rubbishy in other ways too. The sample consisted of people taking an online survey. But such surveys routinely give a different picture from a proper random sample. The generalizability of the findings is therefore unknown. You can only generalize to a population if you have taken a random or otherwise representative sample of that population.
And they make quite a point about a suspicion of minorities being associated with a germ model. I quote: "For centuries, arch-conservative leaders have often referred to scapegoated minority groups as “germs” or “bacteria” that seek to invade and destroy their country from within."
Curiously, they don't name any such leader. But there certainly is one leader who did that: Adolf Hitler, a socialist. Arch-conservatives, such as Winston Churchill opposed him. He wasn't one of them.
Hitler even used the old revolutionary slogan "Alles muss anders sein" (Everything must change). Is that arch conservative? He wanted to "fundamentally transform" Germany, just as Obama wanted to do to America. It is an old Marxist lie that Hitler was conservative.
The article seems to imply that the changes they made in people's attitudes were permanent. But there is no evidence of that given. It is improbable.
There are some further critical comments on the study here
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