By Samuel M. & Alison Moore Smith On August 11, 2012, a politically charged discussion began on Facebook among some church members. One man posted a link to an article written by his former dissertation advisor, Steve Schneck. While the article did little to claim ownership of “subsidiarity,” it did bring out some strong opinions. [Note: The Facebook post and comments referenced here were not private. They were posted on a wall that (at this writing) is still set to public availability. Originally this post quoted the actual conversation as it occurred. I was asked to remove some of the actual quotes and the names. I have done so, but would have preferred to leave the real quotes so that the reader could judge the veracity of the statements as opposed to a paraphrased version. I will do my best to leave the actual intent intact. If the commenters are willing to have their names and/or actual quotes presented here, I will be happy to oblige.] The first comment on the thread referred to Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. It stated that they were a Mormon and a Catholic who didn’t care for the poor. I (Alison) responded next: Or maybe “caring for the poor” is about personal responsibility, not taking from others so we can sleep better. A third commenter, piped up stating that I had demonstrated myself to be a second Mormon who did not care for the…
Tag: conservative
Do daughters make you more conservative?
Tyler Cowan revisits the topic in a post today (HT: Sheldon). I vaguely remember someone in the bloggernacle posting on this in years passed, but my cursory search didn’t turn up much. So, as I’m curious what others make of the research, I thought I’d throw it out to the wolves again. Cowan quotes a new article that states in relevant part: Washington (2008) finds that, controlling for total number of children, each additional daughter makes a member of Congress more likely to vote liberally and attributes this finding to socialization. However, daughters’ influence could manifest differently for elite politicians and the general citizenry, thanks to the selection gradient particular to the political process. This study asks whether the proportion of female biological offspring affects political party identification. Using nationally-representative data from the General Social Survey, we find that female offspring induce more conservative political identification. We hypothesize that this results from the change in reproductive fitness strategy that daughters may evince. (Perhaps this plea is laughably in vain, but let’s avoid the banal partisan tit-for-tat).
Jer3miah, The Great Mormon Novel, and The Problem with Mormon Media
The Book of Jer3miah phenomenon has been noticed on Salon, coincidentally just as an ill-advised Mormon Times essay touched off strong reactions by suggesting that the Great Mormon Novel could never exist.