The exquisite irony is that the cultural changes required to get the Blue growing again would make them Red. Neat, huh?

Diabolically clever!

Extend this to the black vote: when black families where two-parented and large, they voted predominately Republican; when black families began to fly apart under assault from welfare and aborting at thrice the rate of the rest of America, black became 90% Democratic voting block. Lesson: have big families and the values centered on concern for your children turn you Republican.

Ironically, the same people who breathlessly tell you "everything is read or blue" start foaming at the mouth whenever anyone suggests everything is "black and white" or "good or evil" or "your're with us or against us."

http://americanassembler.com/features/iq_state_averages.htm

bill:

They don't call conservatives the Stupid Party for nothin'.

We have several neighbors here in Lincoln Park in Chicago who don't say hello anymore. They started a conversation with "Can you believe that stupid Bush..." We cut them off by telling them that they aren't talking to whom they think they are. They just assumed our politics by where we lived.

Having lived as the political minority for most of my adult life, I'm not surprised at those reactions -- I get them practically everyday. Mostly for washed up hippies that transmogrified into worn out boomers.

In all honesty, I think this is less common at least in my generation (X), which is significantly more conservative than our predecessors and that the next generation is even further down that path.

Makes me wonder if Taranto is right.

For the record: I have read Guns and Ammo while eating California rolls (with large helpings of wasabi).

Personally my blood boils ever time I see one
of those 50+, ponytail wearing scummies get out
of their Volvo (with compulsory inane bumper-sticker).

I just want to say "get a job" but they are probably a stockbroker or something.

These people can't let go of their youth.

And yes I too enjoy downing Sushi while reading
through various right-wing tomes.

Yep, sushi and armaments make for a quality lunch hour, no doubt about it. But Chardonnay and barbecue? Blech.

I guess I live in a purple area -- all the family-oriented churchgoing any Republican could want, but they vote Democratic by huge margins.

Ain't it great how the Left suddenly finds that they love IQ tests when it supports their pet prejudices, but when someone like Murray (in The Bell Curve) tries to use the same sort of data to make a point, he's an evil racist bigot?

People confuse intellegence and stupidity as being opposites. They aren't. It's quite possible to be several sigmas above the mean in intellegence and still be as thick as wet cement-- a phenomena best described as being "educated beyond one's intellegence."

When I played a lot of D&D, we used to call it "Intelligence 18, Wisdom 3".

IQ is about as meaningful as a minor-league batting average - it tells you if you have the tools but not what you'll do with them. Michael Moore has more formal education than did Alfred Hitchcock, but I know whose films I'd rather watch. Bill Clinton is one of the most educated heads of state in the 20th Century; Winston Churchill finished last in his class at Harrow. Needless to say, I know who I'd rather have as a leader.

"Luckily the problem is self-correcting because the Blue region, like Europe, is terminal, while the Red is growing."

No, children from the red areas will move to the big city and become blues.

The Republicans have been systematically defunding education since the Reagan administration. Now it's clear that the goal was to produce more stupid people. Stupid people vote Republican. Brilliant!

SFP:

So you think government can make you smart?

This of course assumes that money spent on education = education. Anyone who sees how the U.S. fares in international academic competitions, or who has seen an unemployable college graduate, will know otherwise.