Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger advocated forcible sterilization and concentration camps to isolate genetic undesirables from the fertile populace. Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich promoted a lottery award for couples who limited reproduction and called for military force to stop Indians from reproducing. Paul Watson, a founder of Greenpeace, counsels: "Don't bring any more humans into being." All of this anti-human agitation on the Left is apparently having an effect.

"Simply put," Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks writes in the Wall Street Journal, "liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections."

Yes, but as Steve Sailer frequently points out open borders negate this issue for Democrats as the birthrates of South American and Asian immigrants remain very high and both groups vote 70-80% democrat. This certainly explains a good bit of the Democratic support for open borders, particularly when it would seem to be so clearly bad for what was a traditionally major constituency of theirs, the labor unions and working class. This is also a major factor in why California went so solidly Democrat after having been historically Republican.

Gee...could this disparity result at least partially the result of the significantly higher number of future Liberals than never survive gestation? You know, what James Taranto calls the Roe Effect?

This just confirms that Dems/libs are so conflicted about their social and political philosophies that the guys suffer from ED and the women are frigid.

Thom: That's certainly a better explanation than Dan's suggestion that a rarely-espoused and rarely-practiced belief against having children is the reason for the difference, rather than the currently widespread conservative value of abstinence before marriage that's causing premature marriage in order to have sex (and consequently, a high divorce rate among conservative Christians). Combined with a religions objection to birth control for some, and a lack of education on the matter for some others, they are getting married earlier and starting their families earlier.

Even if both liberals and conservatives had the same number of children on average in their lifetimes, having children earlier would cause a random sample of conservative adults to have more children on average than a random sample of liberal adults. And although they would still have a higher population growth rate, it would not be accurate to say that liberals have less children.

Regardless, there isn't enough data to predict the ideological trend of the population. Sure, it sounds like a big difference, but it's smaller once you run the numbers. In this simple example, I will assume that the 20% that does not vote with their parents switches to the other side. If among 147 children of liberals, 80% retain their parents' values, and 20% of the kids of conservatives join the liberals, there will be 159 liberals in the new generation. Similarly, the new generation is left with 196 conservatives. Now the differences is only 23%.

But wait... We never even got a breakdown of that 80% figure into the two groups. I have a hard time believing it's exactly the same for both sides. If liberal and conservative populations are of equal size, and about 85% of liberals and 75% of conservatives vote the same way as their parents, it is enough to sustain the 50-50 split.

Its incalcuable, by either side. Assuming a 10% higher rate of liberals voting like their parents did is unreasonable.

Likewise, some of the assumptions made in Brook's calculations are unreasonable.

Brian,

You are mistaken when you dismiss Brooks for doing some sort of shady "random sampling." He referred to the statistics released in the "2004 General Social Survey" and then illustrated those findings by the example of picking 100 random conservative adults and 100 random liberal adults. That is very different from what you imply he did. If you want to argue w/ those statistics you would need to show the methodological flaws in the GSS, which I have never read and so can't imagine how it was done or its credibility.

As for your bigotry towards Christians, that illustrates another reason the Democrats have problems relating to a huge chunk of the American electorate.

You repubs are so funny!!

You assume that parents pass their political beliefs on their children, rather than them making up their minds on their own.

I'm one of six children from a conservative catholic family, and I vote Democrat. Why??

Because conservativism is a dangerous cult.

Anyone who still supports this President after he failed to prevent the deadliest attack on our nation, then failed to find those resposible, then attacked a random Muslim country, and then failed to secure the peace isn't seeing rality.

The 32% out there that still supports Bush does so becuase conservatism has become a cult.

The topic here would dictate that you guys better stop worrying about Bush the President and start getting busy thinking about another kind of bush.

Don't worry your mom's next asdf

No. Yours! I love conversing like an adolescent. Let's do it some more! Seems only appropriate when talking to a lib.

Anyone who still supports this President after he failed to prevent the deadliest attack on our nation, then failed to find those resposible, then attacked a random Muslim country, and then failed to secure the peace isn't seeing rality.

The 32% out there that still supports Bush does so becuase conservatism has become a cult.

Posted by HaHa at August 24, 2006 10:27 AM

I do recall President Clinton had Bin Laden in the CIAs sight twice but failed to act because he was too busy playing golf with celebrities. Typical Liberal.

Ben,

It only takes a deviation of five percentage points from the average for each group to even things out. It is unreasonable to assume, without data, that both groups are within five points of the overall average. In statistics, proving that the data you have is consistent with your interpretation is meaningless if you can't disprove the alternative. We need more data.

Bruce,

When did I attack the validity of the statistical data? The problem is not with the professional statisticians in charge of the surveys. It is with the amateurs and the people with no statistical training. One case of this is Dan Flynn's assumption that liberals have less children in their lifetime, based on the fact that a random sample of liberals show less children on average. A group that starts having children at an older age would show less children on average currently, but that does not mean they won't have more children in the future and are being "anti-human."

How is it bigotry to point out a known statistic that conservative Christians marry and have children at a younger age than average?

Don't get me started on Clinton and Bin Laden.

That man did more to fight Al-Queda than Bush ever has or will.

We were attacked on Bush's watch, its time for him to be a man and take resposibility.

Be a man? And take responsibility? What would the milquetoast libs know about "being a man"?

I will give you this: Clinton did erect 14 miles of boarder fence/wall but did little else to address the real national security issue facing this country. Bush has been completely derilelict in his duty.

Yeah you're right.

Democrats are sissys.

Why? Because they're smarter than you?