An Apology to Liberals

This is a hart felt apology to all my liberal friends and acquaintances. I have often in the past entered into heated debates on health care, property rights, taxes, welfare, and the like. I've consistently presented historical evidence and libertarian views. Whether or not they realize it; virtually all these debates center on economics. I'm sorry; the research has confirmed what others have written about, and I failed to accept. Liberals do not, and possibly cannot, understand basic economics. In the Buturovic and Klein article in the Econ Journal Watch, Economic Enlightenment in Relation to College-going, Ideology, and Other Variables: A Zogby Survey of Americans, it was shown that regardless of education level, liberals do not understand basic economics.


In his Wall Street Journal Opinion based on his research Klein writes

Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.

Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.

. . .

In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.

The huge disparity between liberals and libertarians cannot be ignored. Liberals do not understand economics. Now when faced with economic facts, not opinions, liberals dismiss the facts as irrelevant, because they desperately want a desired outcome, the will sacrifice freedom and liberty against all rationality to reach their desire. I found Buturovic’s and Klein’s conclusions about liberals in education to be compelling.


I dismissed a 2007 book by Psychologist Dr. Lyle Rossiter, because I thought it may be politically not scientifically motivated, I must also apologize to Dr. Rossiter. I was wrong. His observations were exactly correct, the Buturovic and Klein confirm his observations.


"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the book, The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

"A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."

"When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious."


Obviously hammering liberals with facts, and trying to hold them accountable to logic and historical evidence is pointless. They simply cannot understand economic reality because the very neurosis that makes them liberal makes it impossible for them to comprehend the results of their actions. A prime current example is the talk of another Stimulus Package from the government in the wake of the demonstrable failure of both TARP, from liberal Republican G.W. Bush’s administration, and the Economic Stimulus Package, by the Obama Administration.


To all my liberal friends and associates, whose sensibilities and feelings I’ve hurt, I’m sorry, I didn’t accept the facts of your condition when they were presented to me. I now understand that it is beyond your ability to discern the normal responsibilities of adulthood, and accept individual responsibility and liberty.