Books : Makers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less ... Even Hug Their Children More Than Liberals
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Type of bind: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.50973
EAN num: 9781400157488
Format: Audiobook, CD, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
ISBN number: 140015748X
Label: Tantor Media
Manufacturer: Tantor Media
Quantity: 1
Printing Date: June 03, 2008
Publishing house: Tantor Media
Sale Popularity Level: 1090114
Studio: Tantor Media
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The author of the New York Times bestseller Do as I Say (Not as I Do) expands his critique of modern liberalism in this hard-hitting look at the decline in character, values, and moral principles of self-described do-gooders.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
The book had a lot of positive buzz about it when I origionally ordered it. I guess the best I can say is that it was an easy read and not too biased. I was hoping for a more scientifically based analysis of what drives the differences between conservatives and liberals. The book made an endeavor to move the discusion in this direction but too often fell back on simplistic insights to decribe liberals and generalizations to positively portray conservatives. In general a disappointment but not a complete waste of time.
Rated by buyers 
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I've re-analyzed the surveys that Schweizer reports (which are readily available online) using SPSS 15.0. Based on my replication, there are several interesting methodological "choices" that the author makes to draw such grandiose conclusions.
Even though the surveys measure political views using 'continuous' items (e.g., a response format that ranges from 1 ["Extremely Liberal"] to 7 ["Extremely Conservative"]), the author compares only the highest extreme (7) and the lowest extreme (1) throughout the book. From a statistical standpoint, this is problematic because it ignores trends in the middle and looks only at the relatively few people who place themselves at either political extreme (on the General Social Survey, this equals 4.7% of the sample, or 2,394 of 42,096 respondents; this number drops even lower when comparisons are made due to missing data in the comparison variables).
Here is a representative sample of the problems this causes: On page 20 Schweizer analyzes the General Social Survey and claims that 23% of liberals and only 14% of conservatives feel that Jews are especially violent. I re-ran this analysis (using Schweizer's exact methodology) and here are the results when you examine the whole political spectrum, going from 1 (Extremely Liberal) to 7 (Extremely Conservative):
1=22.7%; 2=12.2%; 3=9.1%; 4=10.8%; 5=14.6%; 6=11.8%; 7=14.1%
See any anomalies? Hmmm... That "Extremely Liberal" group looks funny, doesn't it? And it's nothing like groups 2 or 3--the folks who called themselves "Liberal" or "Slightly Liberal," respectively. The problem is that very few people identified themselves as Extremely Liberal. In this instance, that 22.7% is 17 of 75 respondents. So, on the basis of what 17 of 75 people said, Schweizer wants us to believe that Liberal ideas tend to make people anti-Semitic. You just have to ignore the fact that only 34 of 279 people (12.2%) who called themselves "Liberal" (group 2) agreed, which, by the way, is a lower percentage than that of people who called themselves "Extremely Conservative." But that's not worth mentioning, is it? Schweizer sure doesn't think so.
Are you getting a sense of the goofiness yet? Well, here's another example in case you still have blind faith in Mr. Schweizer:
On page 142 Schweizer uses the same survey (GSS) to show that Liberals use drugs and alcohol to cope with anger at "five times the rate" of Conservatives. Here we go again (Remember, 1 = Extremely Liberal and 7 = Extremely Conservative):
1=30.4%; 2=5.9%; 3=6.4%; 4=6.3%; 5=2.3%; 6=6.3%; 7=5.3%
Wow, that Extremely Liberal group is doped up, isn't it??? Well, that's because 7 of 23 "Extremely Liberal" people agreed that they drank or used drugs to cope with anger. That's right, SEVEN of TWENTY-THREE people. What about "Liberals"? Not so much. Only 8 of 135 agreed. Get the picture? Well, just in case, let's do one more:
On page 142 Schweizer uses the GSS to conclude that Liberals experience extreme rage more often than do conservatives (22% to 15%), based on their responses to a scale of rage that went from 1 (little rage) to 10 (extreme rage). Looking for those folks who rated their rage a 10 (the same way Schweizer does), here is the full political spectrum:
1=21.7%; 2=13.3%; 3=12.1%; 4=13.1%; 5=13.1%; 6=13.6%; 7=15.8%
Man, those "Extremely Liberal" folks are sociopaths, huh? Yup, all FIVE of them. That's right, 5 of 23 -- that's how Schweizer got 21.7%. And yes, Schweizer did wrongly round 15.8% down to 15% for the Extremely Conservative group for some reason. Perhaps 16% sounded too angry. (And again, let's just conveniently ignore the fact that smaller proportions of Liberals reported the same level of rage than did Conservatives or Extreme Conservatives.)
Schweizer says that the GSS is an authoritative survey and he's right. But when you chop up data any way you please, you can "prove" anything, even with the best survey data in the world. Trust me, using Schweizer's same goofy methodology and the same surveys, the "Extremely Conservative" folks look pretty bad on items related to attitudes toward Blacks, interracial marriages, segregated schools, whether whites have a "right" to live in all-white neighborhoods, and whether wives should have reproductive choices. But that's junk statistics, and it's not worth reporting, even here on Amazon for free. Unless, of course, the Hoover Institute wants to fund my new book project: "Acres of Fakers."
If you want to see if "liberalism" is related to how people behave socially, you should start by looking at how these various survey items CORRELATE with one another. At the very least, correlations would make use of all the data, and you can ask the question: Are people MORE angry the MORE liberal they claim to be? This seems to be the kind of question that Schweizer would ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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This books is eminently readable and exposes the deep hypocrisy between liberal's professed vision and what they actually practice. Each chapter is well researched and has a lot of statistics (which can sometimes get in the way of reading but are needed for factual backup).
I especially liked the sections on liberals & money, anger, entitlement, victimology - things which I have seen up close in friends and family. I gave it to some of them and they could not refute the facts either.
Highly recommend for your summer vacation read....
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