Posted on 03/04/2011 1:43:05 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The perfect companion to this story describing how social cons are coping with the idea that their interests are momentarily subordinate to fiscal conservatism. Rather than quote, let me toss out a few of Pew’s graphs so that you can see how dramatic the trends are. The silver lining for conservatives: Support for gun rights is way up too.
Libertarian fee-vah — catch it?
And the gun rights data:
A near majority of independents (49/45) favors marijuana legalization and clear majorities of indies side with the overall majority on the other three. The long-term national trends explain the results on gay marriage and marijuana, and spiking support for gun rights is obviously a reaction to having a Democrat in the White House (and the Supreme Court’s Heller decision, natch), but I’m surprised by the abortion numbers. Shortly after Obama was first sworn in, Gallup saw a huge swing from pro-choice to pro-life, which I assumed at the time was also a backlash to having a liberal as president. The more you perceive the government as a threat to a right you believe in, the more ardent your support of that right is apt to be. (Although that clearly wasn’t the case for abortion during the Clinton years.) The recent surge is probably due in part to the GOP takeover of the House, with panicked leftists rallying around choice to protect it from any Republican attempts to limit it, but it looks like the trend was already on its way up before the November elections. I’m not sure why, especially since there’s no corresponding bounce for gun control. Any theories? Is it just reversion to a modern norm after a moment of panic following Obama’s inauguration?
Update: This is a poll of adults, by the way, not likely voters, but with Democratic turnout guaranteed to be up for The One’s reelection bid and independents perpetually coveted by both sides, it’s worth bearing these trends in mind.
Update: Some commenters are naturally challenging the sample, which is 32D/26R/36I. That’s not representative of the midterms, but midterm samples and presidential election samples are different. In 2008, the split in the national exit poll was 39D/32R/29I. Will they have that same advantage in 2012? Probably not, given how motivated conservatives are to beat Obama, but much depends on who the nominee is and of course intervening “events.”
How do they prove they are gay?
I kind of believe it. Fiscal conservatism is back but social conservatism continues to take a hit. The pendulum keeps swinging to the left as they advance their vision of America: sexual, ethic, racial, political, cultural liberation. The death of Christian values (secularism) accounts for a lot of it, as well as Cultural Marxism that dominates the university, the media, Hollywood and the courts. The left’s bastion and stronghold is the university — take that back and it stops future generations of students from being indoctrinated into activists and sympathizers. Even the various churches are feeling the effects of the left which calls for the redefinition of the family and gay marriage as part of social liberation. Nothing — not even the traditional protection of children — is safe from the reaches of the left. We are advancing to a Brave New (mostly Pagan) World. This, in great measure, I believe has come about through romanticism and a luxuriant, secular culture that ultimately spells out its own doom. The spelling goes like this: If God is dead... all is permitted.
Pew refers to the stench of this phony poll.
People in favor of GM seem to be the same people that shop at Whole Foods because the produce is “natural”. Goats keep to the left, please!
And soon they will be telling us that pedophiles have a right to be loved by our young children, they can’t help how they are so our 8 and 9 year old’s need to be willing to love older men and women and even marry them.
Decades of leftist indoctrination of our young, specifically in the university, Hollywood constantly pushing perversity, more and more politicians involved in sex scandals, i.e. Bill Clinton, making such scandals seem irrelevant and of course, the distinct leftist tilt of just about all the ‘news’ media combine with public apathy to ensure that traditional social values are going to slowly but surely be abandoned. Too many Americans believe that ‘gay marriage’ has no downside (to them) and endorse it (in a poll, not a vote, which is telling) as an indication of their lack of ‘bias’ toward homosexual perversion, which has become the new ‘civil right’. Abortion is becoming less socially acceptable, despite this slanted poll, but again, many Americans are eager to appear ‘compassionate’ toward unwed mothers and any woman seeking an abortion so, when the pollster calls, they say they favor it. The Pew poll is slanted and offer erroneous statistics but it also indicates the moral ‘drift’ of much of America. That is not good.
Just more proof that America doesn’t exist anymore. This country is full of nothing but a bunch of lowlife rats and vultures fighting over the carcass of what was once the greatest country on Earth.
Ugh, dopeheads.
I’m one of the young folks and that really pisses me off. I don’t want that garbage legalized.
Pew... something stinks.
It's about the economy.
In a stable, growing economy, having children is an endeavor with a certain amount of risk, but the rewards outweigh the risks.
In a recessionary, shrinking economy, the risk of having children outweighs the rewards. Starting a family and having children becomes a high-risk endeavor.
This is why so many young adults still live at home and fail to launch. It is why the attitudes toward abortion are swinging back to the pro-choice position. People are fearful of their futures and want abortion to be there as an option in case it's needed.
This poll is a testimony to the lies told by the political class and their MSM that everything is getting better every day. People are looking at the closed businesses, empty storefronts and their own grim prospects for a job, and they are feeling cognitive dissonance. Some absolutely know the political class and the MSM are lying, and those who don't, sense that something is very wrong but can't put their finger on what it is.
There is a way to see if my guess is right. As the economy continues to deteriorate, and the dollar goes into freefall and collapses, public attitudes toward abortion should liberalize more and more. Keep an eye on the tie between these two trends. It will tell you a lot about the state of the American psyche.
I support partial-birth defecation while smoking weed.
I don’t, however, particularly want to get married to another man while I’m doing all that. Or even when I’m not.
Pew is not a polling company. Nor are they a disinterested foundation.
They are a liberal pressure group -- one that took credit for manipulating the political environment and creating the polling data that eventually resulted in McCain-Feingold.
Thus, like any liberal mouthpiece, they are not to be trusted.
I think the tip off is when they try to get married to a person of the same sex.
That does not prove it.
Agree.. Take a look at Sunday morning, if this was religous country we should have traffic jams to churchs.. But when I go to church, not many people on the road. sad.
Time flies... that vote was Nov 2008, not Nov 2010.
How deluded. Forcing everyone to recognize same-sex unions as marriage is anything but libertarian.
I'm not a libertarian, but this is an easy issue to determine who is a real libertarian and who is just signaling his progressive attitudes.
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