Old definitions:
Liberals: Favor social freedoms, but not economic freedoms.
Conservatives: Favor economic freedoms, but not social freedoms.New definitions:
Liberals: Believe in evolution, but not biology.
Conservatives: Believe in biology, but not evolution.
Mar 16 2007
The IRS reports, For tax year 2004...Taxpayers with an AGI of at least $328,049, the top 1 percent of taxpayers, accounted for 19 percent of total AGI, representing an increase in income share of 2.2 percentage points from the previous year. These taxpayers accounted for 36.9 percent of the total income tax reported, ...
Mar 15 2007
While watching 300 for the second time today, I kept remembering David Stannard's description of America's Founding Fathers as "slaveholding philosophers of freedom." There's a lot of high-minded talk in 300 about free Greeks standing against Persian tyranny (not to mention quasi-Randian denunciations of "mysticism"!)...
Mar 15 2007
Quoth Patri Friedman: Old definitions: Liberals: Favor social freedoms, but not economic freedoms. Conservatives: Favor economic freedoms, but not social freedoms. New definitions: Liberals: Believe in evolution, but not biology. Conservatives: Believe in biology, but not evolution.
READER COMMENTS
Tom Myers
Mar 15 2007 at 12:55pm
It might be a good idea to replace “biology” with “genetic variability”, both times.
talboito
Mar 15 2007 at 1:45pm
In other words:
Liberals believe in science, but aren’t racists.
Conservatives are racists, but believe God made them that way (the races and themselves).
Fundamentalist
Mar 16 2007 at 12:28pm
talboito: “Conservatives are racists”
Where did that come from? How do you get “Conservatives are racists” from “Conservatives: Believe in biology, but not evolution?”
Tom West
Mar 16 2007 at 1:04pm
I *think* he means “racist = believer in significant race-based ability/behaviour differences”.
Me, I’d stick with “racist = promulgator of race-based ability/behaviour differences”, although that might be a bit unfair to those who *truly* believe that they aren’t responsible for the consequences of what they say.
TGGP
Mar 16 2007 at 1:48pm
Even if our species did not have the population clusters that it does (for example, if in the future there is basically random mating for a long time), human-biodiversity would still be a fact of life ignored at our peril. Male vs female differences would also be far more difficult to eliminate.
Patri Friedman
Mar 16 2007 at 6:41pm
Tom – brevity is the soul of wit.
Bryan – glad someone appreciated the quip
Comments are closed.