The liberal fertility gap?

[bluestateguy]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008831

The Fertility Gap
Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to multiply.

BY ARTHUR C. BROOKS
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

The midterm election looms, and once again efforts begin afresh to increase voter participation. It has become standard wisdom in American politics that voter turnout is synonymous with good citizenship, justifying just about any scheme to get people to the polls. Arizona is even considering a voter lottery, in which all voters are automatically registered for a $1 million giveaway. Polling places and liquor stores in Arizona will now have something in common.

On the political left, raising the youth vote is one of the most common goals. This implicitly plays to the tired old axiom that a person under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart (whereas one who is still a liberal after 30 has no head). The trouble is, while most "get out the vote" campaigns targeting young people are proxies for the Democratic Party, these efforts haven't apparently done much to win elections for the Democrats. The explanation we often hear from the left is that the new young Democrats are more than counterbalanced by voters scared up by the Republicans on "cultural issues" like abortion, gun rights and gay marriage.

But the data on young Americans tell a different story. Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.

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[TheFriedPiper]

1. Being smart enough to use birth control is a hinderance

Being smart in this country is a hinderance

Idiots rule while the rest of us wonder what happened.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Eugenics.

I understand the attraction of wanting to spread our superior liberal genes. But as it turns out Eugenics doesn't work.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

3. LOL! Damn, rePUKES get funnier every day in their desperation

this article stinks of desperation.

[Crankie Avalon]

4. Um...political persuasion is biological, now?

Liberals give birth to "liberal" babies, Neo-conservatives to "neo-conservative" ones?

[ellenfl]

13. there ya go! how many kids of conservative (especially

fundie conservative) parents don't rebel? i bet those conservatives making babies are not making strictly conservative babies . . . but they DO need to be educated. i had a co-worker who was a single mother (never married) who voted republican because her parents do. i don't know if she ever changed but i sure let her know the folly of those ways.

kids just have to be educated. my sister was climbing the republican social ladder for a while because her husband is very right wing. they divorced. she has now come back to the fold and their daughter is to HER left.

just because they are born to fundies doesn't mean they will be. yeah, i'd say that meme is desperation.

ellen fl

[sendero]

5. The problem with that is..

... my parents are die hard "conservatives" and I'm a liberal. Go figure :)

[SmokingJacket]

6. All right, orgy time, people! nt

[slampoet]

7. I can't afford to multiply.

The wealthy can afford to reproduce and I cannot.

[SoCalDem]

8. It's the intelligence factor (stupid!)

If you are a woman and you plan to have a career, would you rather schlep 4 kiddies to activities and daycare, or a couple?

Would you like to be responsible for college for a bunch, or a few?

You can have the whole parenting experience with a few (or even one)...

It's not (or should not be) a contest to see who can out-populate ..

Truly responsible people have children they want, love, and can afford to care for properly.

before contraception, parents had as many children as they "got", and did the best they could, but limiting family size is the only smart thing to do these days..

Who wants to buy car insurance and gas for 4 teenagers these days:scared:

[ComerPerro]

9. Conservatives irresponsibly have kids, usually 5 or 6

they don't believe in birth control, so they just keep reproducing.

[RB TexLa]

10. No way I'm helping out on this one

My life is how I like it and not giving up any aspect of it to raise children, sorry.

[bigbrother05]

11. This ranks right up there with the RePugnant

theory that Roe v. Wade started the demise of the Dems. All those liberals aborting their kids meant there were too few of them to vote Dem 18+ yrs. later.

If that were really true, don't you think they would quit chanting about "pro-life" issues and let the left just whither away?

[nashville_brook]

12. since when is liberalism a genetic trait?

many of us come from conservative families. or families divided on politics. or families who couldn't CARE LESS about politics.

[unpossibles]

14. is that why liberalism seems to be spreading more than shrinking?

I would say the American people are vastly liberal (even if afraid of that word).

RW politics discourages voting - there is lots of proof of that. So why would they discourage voting if they out-number us?

Also, my wife and I both have conservative parents, as do many, and have not "grown out of" it yet. Many older people I've met are liberal, including my own Lifetime Republican grandparents who told me they regretted voting for people who they later realized were screwing them over their whole lives.

this is silly. Liberalism spreads through learning and caring, not through genes - which is also why the RW disparages learning and intelligence.

[LostInAnomie]

15. Someone is always pushing the idea that some group is going to take over..

... because of their excessive breeding or the reluctance to breed of another. People used to be afraid that Catholics were going to take over the country because of their large families. John Gibson is worried that Mexicans are going over-run America because, according to him, white people are breeding fast enough to keep up.

[tomreedtoon]

16. This is the dirtiest thing I've ever posted, but it's appropriate.

Liberals would grow, and convince other people to become liberals...if they had balls.

As we know, that's not possible with the people considered "liberal leaders."



"Balls? What are balls? You silly..."