I have many posts in the queue but there is one thing I want to tackle but for I get back to my charts and graphs tomorrow morning.

Julian Sanchez summarizes many of my views

I pull up my feed reader in the morning and get the political news of the day as seen through the prism of two-party political conflict. These fall into two central categories. First, there are issues where Obama is only marginally more sane than Bush, but conservatives are outraged that lip service is being paid to sanity. Second, there are issues where Democrats are grinding along with some well-intentioned but probably harmful plan, and the Republican response is shrill, dishonest, offensive, and—if those fail—flat out psychotic.

and perhaps more importantly

There’s no a priori reason that someone’s position on the morality of abortion or the desirability of single-payer health care ought to correlate with their assessment of the threat of anthropogenic global warming—unless it’s that there’s a correct set of positions that the wise and good will converge on, while the stupid and wicked are either duped or malicious enough to get it uniformly wrong. (I shouldn’t caricature too much here: there are plenty of moderately prevalent views that you have to be a little dumb to hold, but they don’t necessarily track any partisan split.) Sooner or later, discrete issues blur into the territory of opposing teams.

However, I wonder to what extent there isn’t a fundamental correlation among some views. There seem to be three basic questions that inform many of the views that people take

  1. Is science or religion a better path to truth
  2. Are social problems primarily failures of the individual or society
  3. Is the “other” more naturally friend or foe

Indeed, only the first two of these questions are needed to answer explain Julian’s three issues.

Differing opinions on abortion and global warming are explained in part by differing answers to the first question. The dominant faith in the United States is Christianity and a plurality if not an outright majority judge the Christian faith judge it to be solidly opposed to abortion. The devoted, therefore, tend to oppose abortion.

The effects of global warming are not intuitive. Its consequences will only be seen in full measure long after we are dead. One must have a great deal of faith in science to accept the urgency of dealing with it. Those who put greater stock in science will on the average be more inclined to accept it.

Advocacy of a single-payer health care system is related to one’s answer to the second question. If the problem of the uninsured is a problem with the uninsured, then one is less likely to favor single payer. If the problem of rising health care costs is a problem with individual’s stewardship of their own health, then one is less likely to favor single payer. If these are social problems, then single payer makes more sense.

Why though do these three questions line up?

The first and second line up in part because the story of the dominant religions in the United States is a story of individual failure and for the most part individual salvation. A devout follower of the Abrahamic faiths must believe that the individual is capable of free choice and that poor choices bring poor consequences.

The third lines up with the first in part because the other often has a different religion and is thus to some extent naturally a threat to the religious order. The third lines up with the second because if we suffer primarily from social failings then some of those failings may be remedied by following the example laid out by other societies. If individuals are to blame then individuals from others societies cannot be trusted as they may bring failings to our own which have not been socialized out.

Now, there is certainly room for disagreement and it is by no means true that the two political sides are composed of monolithic wholes. But, it makes sense why a person holding liberal views might be more sensitive to other liberal views and why a person holding conservative views might be more sensitive to those holding other conservative views.

This also explains why economists and the economically inclined are such weirdoes. Economics is a science that traditionally lent support to the notion the wicked individuals acting on their own wickedness could achieve noble ends.

Such conclusions break the tie between the first and the second questions and casts doubt on the importance of the third.