You are aware that parties change over time, right? You are also aware that there aren't any of the politicians from that era on either side of the aisle that are still holding, elected office, right?

The current GOP, is definitely bigoted, you don't need anybody to tell you that as their own part platform is a litany of homophobia, sexism, islamophobia and general xenophobia. What happened decades ago with different politicians has very little to do with the current situation.

If you're still voting for GOP candidates either you live in an extremely rightwing district or you shouldn't be bitching about being called out for voting for politicians that hold those views.

At this point, few intelligent people vote GOP as it's not a tenable position to take. It's not just the intolerance it's the incredibly shoddy party platform and the aggressively anti-intellectual stance that they take on things like global warming, evolution and women's rights.

It's not a matter of outsiders pigeon holing the GOP, it's a matter of them retreating to more and more extreme views and narrowing their agenda to appeal to an ever more radical subset of their traditional base voters.

These opinions aren't my own, these are pretty much the only ones that one can reasonably have based upon the statements of the party itself with very little interpretation.

Well, yeah. He's the only guy I know that would shut down a federal government for not getting a window seat.

I think part of the problem is that the GOP and right-wing ideologies are not inherently evil as some seem to believe.

Although people like myself don't subscribe to a fully free market philosophy, there are valid and arguable reasons in favour of it, and this is part of the core of what is broadly defined as "right-wing". There are valid economic and social arguments for restricting immigration, although again, I personally don't subscribe to them.

The problem is that the right wing has been hijacked by self-obsessed, hate-filled asshats for no other reason than the right wing provides them with a suitable platform to enforce, promote and protect their own interests and express their own hateful tendencies.

The right wing is by definition about conservatism, i.e. conserving tradition and the status quo. This has nothing specifically to do with immigration, race or the free market.

As an example, it's logical that some people may feel that their traditions are being compromised, so racists jump on the bandwagon because it provides the best basis from which they can convince people that foreigners are evil.

It doesn't mean that "right wing" or "left wing" ideologies can be pigeon-holed as you say. It's just that right-wing ideology is like a pile of shit in the most figurative sense - it attracts flies and parasites.
I actually thought that this was some English euphemism and that my English was somehow failing me until I did some research about how that was literally meant. What an asshole.

No, "window seat" doesn't mean some kind of transparent pane upon which to sit and let foreign businessmen look up your skirt. I meant the seat on a plane next to the window, as opposed to the "aisle seat", or the "middle seat" if there are three columns of seats.

Studies like this are just a bunch of elitist liberal horse dung.

My definition of un-intelligent is a party that refuses to acknowledge that it is spending us into oblivion and has not the common sense or political will to make the hard decisions. How long has it been since we've had a budget? And the latest budget proposal does absolutely nothing to address the mounting debt in the least.

And how about a president that believes he has the power to "mandate" what people must buy, and what services private companies need to provide, and what they are allowed to charge for those services.

My definition of unintelligent and irresponsible would be voting for these people.

Arrogance at it's finest. "You can believe in what you want, but if you don't believe in what I believe, then you're a fucking idiot."

nevermind

I could twist this maybe a houndred (or I do not know how many) ways I just don't want to bother or "the bother"......
Basically the resarchers here must be plain idiots that thinks in t he way of "wishful thinking" or twisting things to fit their own agenda (or the agenda of those who influences/"control" them) !!!!

Would you think the same of it if the study showed a correlation between lower intelligence and left-wing opinions?

Not that I'm keeping tabs on everything about current U.S. politics, but didn't your current administration inherit a thing or two from the Bush jr. period?

What about Obama's tax proposals?

Anyway. Scientific studies can easily be misinterpreted, used out of context etc. The way I'm reading this one (having only read the abstract), it doesn't say that e.g. a majority of people who endorse some right-wing ideologies have low general intelligence.

It might however indicate that a significant amount of people who have low general intelligence tend to endorse some right-wing ideologies.

Actually, I believe there has been such a study making exactly the opposite claim. Note that this study wasn't saying that gamers were more studious or better earners, but simply better and more rational thinkers. As soon as I find it again I'll post it. Of course, there have been studies claiming the opposite.

Studies examining supposed correlations between intelligence and some aspect of society that you don't like are as old as time. There have been studies studying correlations between rock and roll and intelligence, violent movies and intelligence, atheism and intelligence, religious association and intelligence, sports and intelligence, and the sole purpose of many of these has basically been to discredit the people in that social group.

Where do these studies fall flat? Namely in the way that a study will always crop up claiming the complete opposite.

The problem with far-right affiliation, however, is that the results of the various studies out there are extremely consistent. This study examined only a US data set, but its findings have been confirmed by YouGov based on UK data and by the University of Giessen in Germany.

The publication discussed in this thread is based on data sets with both UK and US respondents, according to the abstract.

Anyway, studies using methods which are sufficiently valid, reliable and adjusted according to relevant norms (?) should produce more or less consistent results when examining similar data sets within a limited time scope, right? Confirmation bias is also an issue, but I expect most scientists to be fully aware of that.

And then you have peer reviews etc. I don't know how this site (SAGE Publications) treats this stuff, though.

And in your eyes there is ofcourse no "global agenda" that would benefit from "manufacturing" the same claims from more places on the globe ???? - Yes , and I meant "manufacturing" as in "manufactured results"........

I don't know if there is such an agenda at work here (I doubt it), but you might want to scrutinise some of the work done in this area if you are serious about your accusations. Everything contained in these studies should be presented in a way which fully allows it to be tried and checked over and over again.

Again, I don't think the results from this work and similar studies need to be interpreted as an attack on political conservatives in general. Perhaps some right-wing parties in these countries appeal more to some people with lower general intelligence?

Again, I haven't examined this material thoroughly, but does it have to be all alarming and insulting?

Yes, the deficit did increase under Bush, but the levels to which the current administration has increased our deficit in less than half the amount of time is just plain staggering. I don't think it is out of line to ask just what all this deficit spending (stimulous?) has bought us. We certainly know what it is costing us and will cost our children and grandchildren.

I have no problem with increased taxes as long as it is married to serious cuts. You don't balance the budget by taxing the 50% that pay taxes more. The math just doesn't add up. The hard decisions need to be made now, or we will be forced to make them in the not so distant future the way Greece is now.

As others have commented, I think you can pretty much make a study that says whatever you want it to by playing with the data. What bothers me is that all this talk of bigotry and racism is just a distraction from the real financial crisis that is knocking on our door.