Studies Find Conservatives Are More Honest

Post Reply New Topic

Maybe the study lies.

Conservative is just a ridiculous label that makes no sense. A conservative is really someone who just wants to hoard money and impose his ways on everyone else. If they were truly conservative they would go live a modest life somewhere, preferably in the wilds. That's the true meaning of the word conservative. Moderation and austerity for yourself, not everyone but you.

Rum Rome and rebellion anybody??

So give me a ticket. I posted a link to the article. There was no link to the studies that the article was based on. Can't post what I didn't see.

No, I encouraged open discussion and counter arguments to my post. I know that's a alien concept to some of you liberals.

Yeah, I'm sure you do find it peculiar that there's someone that doesnt get all wrapped around the axle and butthurt over a political discussion forum. I'm not running for election or trying to shape world opinion and policy via a message board.

Your guess is as good as mine but I'm not particularly worried about it one way or the other.

Then the label of liberal makes no sense since they really just want to steal other people's money and impose their will on everyone else.

Liberal should mean someone who wants everyone to be free while conservative should indicate people who want to live an austere life without bothering anyone.

Besides, if everyone is conservative like conservatives wish there wouldn't be much money for the conservative to obtain, would there? Conservative means slow growth, little development. See, we are conserving resources, money, time, effort. It's all about living on very little. Conserving.

Ronald reagan vs FDR anyone?

You mean there are still liberals in the US? I thought there was nothing left on that side but partisans.

At this point those who continue to defend the current administration can't really claim any principle higher than "Better my gang than the other gang."

$20 on the Gipper!

i had to look up gipper just to get the reagan reference

A quote from your, "journal article". "Peter Schweitzer blames this not on liberals being bad people, but on them having been corrupted by a bad ideology:" Seriously, "corrupted by a bad ideology:"? No respected journal would publish works with such bias language, nor do they have comment sections on their page. If you think this is an accurate source of info, your education, or lack there of, has failed to instruct you on how to be a good consumer of information. I honestly feel sorry for you.

The article in the OP is 6 years old and it contains no links to the polls/studies mentioned.

Can we have those, please?

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/05/29/ ... crats.html

Almost everybody lies about something. From time to time there will be threads in the General forum saying that all autistic people are an exception to that rule but subsequent posts in these threads will show that it is only a minority subset who doesn't lie.

Which is to say that everybody (of statistical significance) studied in the various studies lies, but about what, exactly? The article gives a few sample questions but without the studies (of which several were cited) it's impossible to know exactly what was found out. Which is a shame, because what the data actually shows could tell us some interesting things about ideology. One commentor was right- it is ideology that defines what people lie about. But it isn't that one group is more honest while the other group is more deceitful. It's that personal values define what a person lies about. Some will be proud about flouting certain laws and will be honest about cheating on their taxes because they disaprove of the taxes while others will be ashamed of having cheated on the taxes and lie about having done it. Some will be honest about that cheating in an anonymous poll but lie in a face to face poll or phone poll because it's more personal. Some won't cheat on their taxes at all- they must be sorted out from the ones who did but lied about it to a pollster.

So the actual studies are where the information is, not an interpretive article.

Some information that can be gleaned only from actual studies:
1)If it was anonymous and written, there will be the highest level of truthful answers. This will remove most of the shame-based lying. It allows you to see (some of) what people are really honest about and what they lie about. But you can only figure that out if you have the full list of questions. The article cherry picks so there is no way of knowing.

If a person (truthfully) tells you that they cheat on their taxes but not on their wife and another person (truthfully) tells you that they cheat on their wife but not on their taxes, that tells you some things about both people (maybe). It might tell you that one person is contemptuous of the government and proud of cheating on taxes and links 'cheating on' with contempt and so would never cheat on their wife because of their feelings for her. It might tell you that the other person values being a law abiding citizen and would not dream of breaking the law by cheating on taxes but cheating on your wife is not illegal. [It doesn't actually tell you either of those things- another flaw in speculating from studies]. One thing it definately doesn't tell you is which man is more honest, because both lied but about different things. But it is interesting to see if there are correlations between how a person politically identifies and what things they are and aren't honest about.

2)If it was over the phone or face to face, the personal honesty falls precipitously. A level of anonymity has been removed and suddenly people will lie about what they lie about. You can no longer tell what people are honest about or lie about but you can tell what people value being honest about (even if they violate that honesty over the phone). Then you can gather some data about ideology (but not about how likely people are to violate it). Somebody with the ideology of "property is theft" may be more likely to proudly recall shoplifting. Somebody with the ideology that property laws are a necessary part of civilization will be more likely to say they never shoplifted and possibly even to have never shoplifted.

So you can tell about ideology (but not honesty) from that type of survey. The article hinted at that with "liberals believe truth is flexible", but without the actual questions, you can't really tell.

3)A study that wasn't interview based at all would tell you what people actually did as opposed to what they said they did. Crime statistics could be correlated with how electoral districts voted. If an electoral district that elected a liberal candidate also had a high number of shoplifting incidents, you could say that liberals approve of shoplifting. But that might tell you more about class than about values since a different district with wealthier people could also elect a liberal candidate but have a lower shoplifting rate since rich people tend to shoplift less (but not never- Winona Ryder).

Or you could correlate politicians involved in scandals and crimes with their political affiliation and see if any crimes and scandals showed up more in democrats or in republicans. But generalizing that past the politicians and onto their democrat and republican (or liberal and conservative, although not quite the same) constituents would not be valid.

All in all, you can't have a meaningful discussion without the actual studies.

The true conservatives are people who manage to live on very little. All else is lies and ego stroking, disguises for greed and avarice and a tool to attempt controlling the minds of others.
I am much more conservative than anyone who claims to be and I don't label myself as one.

How do you know when a conservative is lying?Their lips are moving.