[SerycegeBunny]

Professor James Lindgren, of Northwestern University in Chicago, found those who favour the redistribution of wealth are more envious than those who do not.
We've got an Ignobel contender right there.

[bely832new]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...rch-shows.html

They missed out the bit where liberals are statistically more likely eat babies and set fire to kittens.

[wsbizwsa]

Originally posted by Cort Haus




They missed out the bit where liberals are statistically more likely eat babies and set fire to kittens. He has to save something for next week.

[rockboyzaza]

I'm not bringing out my artillery, because there's nothing in that hogwash in the OP that's worth shooting at.

[Vegeinvalge]

Come on Rufus. Get with the program and shoot the messenger like everyone else.

[Czrzftmz]

Originally posted by Panag


its mortar fire , ....

take cover , the liberal lovers are using large calibers , ... Naah, by and large they're a bunch of handwringing gun bannin' types.

[popillio]

Of course he's not real. Liberals don't have guns!

And Turner a socialist? He's pretty cutthroat in business.

[sapedotru]

Otoh, aren't right-wingers often true believers?

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=178100

Chicken or the egg?

[annouhMus]

You might want to look up the author of this piece. He's a notorious wingnut of the Ann Coulter persusasion, IIRC.

Again, there's an obvious reason why egalitarians aren't going to have as much faith in charity. They know it produces a suboptimal outcome. Barbra Streisand is actually being rational here: your money is better spent on trying to change the welfare laws than on futile acts of private charity. Private charity is subject to market failure. Left wingers are smart enough to see this. Right wingers, not so much, since they're usually dumber and have an aversion to government programs. So all this says is that right wingers are more likely to engage in their preferred method for alleviating poverty. The problem with their method is that it's stupid, like most of their other methods.

The following seems deranged:

Setting up a computer game that allowed people to accumulate money, they gave participants the option to spend some of their own money in order to take away more from someone else.

The result? Those who considered themselves 'egalitarians' (i.e. Left of centre) were much more willing to give up some of their own money if it meant taking more money from someone else. Duh... they are egalitarians. There's not enough information about the experiment here. One possible reason is that being egalitarians they care more about equality and are willing to give up some of their own money to prevent extreme inequalities, or the experiment was self evidently a game and this was an obvious strategy for winning. If I was playing it, I would purposely spend money to reduce the incomes of others because I don't like misers and money grubbers and enjoy watching them get all sad and pathetic.

If this mook wants to play science and politics, let him go read the academic literature on authoritarianism. It tells you more or less where the nazis, religious kooks and bigots cluster, and it isn't in contemporary liberal circles. In fact, there's a good case to be made that the left/right distinction in our societies is simply a crude approximation of the authoritarian/anti authoritarian scale.

[Jeffery]

You might want to look up the author of this piece. He's a notorious wingnut of the Ann Coulter persusasion, IIRC. Wow an ad-hominem from a philo prof. Stunning.

Barbra Streisand is actually being rational here: your money is better spent on trying to change the welfare laws than on futile acts of private charity. Private charity is subject to market failure. So what you are saying is that right wingers are more likely to give their own money to people in need, while left wingers are more likely to give other people's money?

Thanks Aggie, I'm glad to hear you admit this.

Right wingers, not so much, since they're usually dumber and have an aversion to government programs. So all this says is that right wingers are more likely to engage in their preferred method for alleviating poverty. The problem with their method is that it's stupid, like most of their other methods. Charity isn't perfect, but it's better then welfare for several reasons. First, it's voluntary. You aren't forcing people to pay into something they don't believe in. Secondly, it's less conducive to fraud. Surely, you don't see welfare fraud as a huge problem? Third, it encourages relationships between people rather then dependence on the state. Fourth, because it is decided by the market, it is more efficient in terms of dollars spent then welfare.

The result? Those who considered themselves 'egalitarians' (i.e. Left of centre) were much more willing to give up some of their own money if it meant taking more money from someone else. Sounds like a perfect experiment. Go read Harrison Bergeron, it is the wet dream of egalitarians.

If I was playing it, I would purposely spend money to reduce the incomes of others because I don't like misers and money grubbers and enjoy watching them get all sad and pathetic. QFMFT!

If I were playing I'd give money to the other players.

If this mook wants to play science and politics, let him go read the academic literature on authoritarianism. It tells you more or less where the nazis, religious kooks and bigots cluster, and it isn't in contemporary liberal circles. In fact, there's a good case to be made that the left/right distinction in our societies is simply a crude approximation of the authoritarian/anti authoritarian scale. Maybe they aren't Nazis, kooks or bigots, but they sure sound like thieves and wastrels.

[Derrida]

This is all very stupid. Right wingers should be considered mean hearted by definition. Look at what they stand for.

[VarenHokalos]

Originally posted by Cort Haus




They missed out the bit where liberals are statistically more likely eat babies and set fire to kittens. The kittens may be totally screwed but as long as the liberals are getting $65 (or whatever it is these days) a pop the babies should be safe.

[THOUTHCAW]

So they're nicer? They work to maintain a system that is oppressive and exploitive. Adolf Hitler could have been the nicest mother-****ing person in history. That doesn't make him good.

[SueveDobe]

Originally posted by Agathon
Look at the UNHDI. Look at the countries at the top. Look at how many of them aren't rich, but have developed welfare states. Wikipedia article on UNHDI

I'm not looking that carefully, but I see a pretty strong correlation between wealth and the HDI.

[ZwHRoTTn]

I hate it when people make this mistake. Ask yourself how far you would get in this world without making judgements about the reliability of sources. True, but we don't assess sources by saying "he's just like Ann Coulter."

That's an ad hominem.

Compare: "I'm not going to the psychic to cure my infection" or "I'm going to believe the consensus of established scientists, and not the wingnuts" with "I'm not going to take Ann Coulter seriously". Actually, that elevates his reliability in my eyes. Whether that comparison increases or decreases his reliability has to do with your political persuasion, which is why it's a poor measure. Reliability ought to be independent of your politics.

Nope. Left wingers would happily give their own money, as long as everyone else who was able to had to do the same. It's a small difference, but a big one. So until everybody else ponies up, liberals won't give a cent? Sounds like ol' Ebeneezer to me. Why should it matter what other people give before you choose to step forward?

Tough. Parking fines aren't voluntary either. Neither is paying to support the military. Citizens derive a benefit from the military that applies to everyone in the state. Parking fines are a violation of private property, if you choose to park there and break their regulations, they ought to be able to fine you.

How does someone benefit from welfare payments in the same way that they do from the military?

Sometimes voluntary payment produces worse results for everyone than coercive payment. It's called a collective action problem. Both your examples show cases of this, but how is that also true in Welfare? The cases are not analogous. How does welfare benefit everyone?

In a modern society people want things that markets cannot fund efficiently. There are obvious public goods that benefit everyone, such as the police and the fire department. There are also goods that substantial portions of the population want, but others don't. Such as? Seems to me everyone wants and benefits from police and fire services.

Thus we have a social contract. Some of my tax goes to pay for churches (or to offset the tax breaks they get – same thing) WTF? No. The two are not the same thing at all. Churches have to pay for everything they do. The ONLY thing they are exempt from is property taxes on their buildings, that is all. They still have to pay for maintenance, utilities, etc, they pay to purchase the building and the land in the first place.

How is giving someone a tax break, the same as you paying their taxes for them?

that I don't like, and religious people pay some tax that supports state funding of conceptual art with naked lesbians, which I like. It would be fair if you had to pay the salary of the priests, whereas you are already paying the salary for these artists.

No. Because it isn't. Tax fraud is a much greater problem. It is a huge problem. You can't just ignore it because it's inconvenient.

I'd rather it worked more efficiently to combat poverty than to foster relationships between people who could find better things to do. Well Charity is more efficient at combatting poverty because people are more likely to get out when they know other people give a **** about them.

It seems you understand neither efficiency nor welfare if you say that. Welfare is an efficiency promoting institution. People don't consciously realize this, although their continued support for the welfare state shows that they understand it on some level.. Well sure they support the welfare state. Free money when they don't want to work? They have self-interest in it that has nothing to do with 'efficiency' but everything to do with getting in line for the trough.

You say welfare is efficient. What percentage of the total amount disbursed is consumed by administration?

[KevinDonae]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
While that's true, what's interesting are the poor countries that are in the upper-middle tier of development, like Cuba, which makes one of the biggest jumps. Well, Cuba's full of people who'd rather be alive than free.

[masteryxisman]

The Daily Mail? It must be true then

[hopertveyk]

I'm a nice person in some regards, and not-nice person in others. Only idiots would think something like this "article" adequately covers what being "nice" entails.

(That is me being "not nice" by calling roughly half this country idiots. Of course reverse the "article" to focus on the not-nice things right wingers do, and the other half (roughly) of the country would end up being the idiots. I'm a real meanie-head.)

[Pszinygv]

"Not-nice" things, as in wanting to protect the unborn child from being callously killed because mama finds the baby's life inconvenient?

[Soassesaisp]

The bullshit in the OP doesn't make sense to me, as being liberal or conservative does not determine whether or not you're a nice person.

There are nice people who are liberals, and there are conservatives who are nice people.