Conservatives simply work harder

MAKERS AND TAKERS

By Peter Schweizer

Doubleday, $27.95, 258 pages

REVIEWED BY LARRY THORNBERRY

Liberals and conservatives are different, and it’s not just about different policies. The mythology of

mean, greedy conservatives versus generous, altruistic liberals, a mythology retailed by liberals, has no basis in fact. The evidence shows almost the exact reverse to be true more often than not. Peter Schweizer gives us that evidence in detail in “Makers and Takers.”

Mr. Schweizer’s conclusions - that conservatives on average work harder, are happier, lead closer family lives, are more honest, give more to charity, are more open-minded, less self-centered, less prone to anger and rage and whine a good deal less than liberals - are not what you’ve been hearing on television, reading in your daily newspaper or what your kids have been hearing from their professor in class.

It has been the claim of liberals for decades that not only are they (liberals) sensitive, selfless, intelligent and all around superior human beings with only the best interests of the world and its inhabitants foremost in mind, but that conservatives are materialistic meanies who care only for themselves and are not very bright into the bargain.

These claims, which are consistent with the world view of most in the mainstream media, as well as in academe and among the literati, have gotten a lot of play. There have been faux studies hatched at some of our tonier universities - Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, et al - claiming to demonstrate that conservatives are emotionally limited people, intellectually stunted and uncurious, rigid, prone to violence and afraid of change. Some have even tried to claim that conservatism is a form of mental illness.

Most everyone reading this review has heard or read these claims. Most have seen the Hollywood movies portraying grasping, dysfunctional conservatives and brilliant, well-adjusted liberals who are so good it almost gives you a sugar high to watch them (See Robert Redford in almost anything after Sundance).

Liberals, from the side that hams it up the most about “the politics of personal destruction,” are in fact masters of this form.

“It’s not simply conservative policies that are wrong,” Mr. Schweizer writes of the liberal catechism. “The problem is that conservatives suffer from a deficient moral code, and concomitant character flaws. Conservatives are backward, ignorant, and selfish. Liberals on the other hand are enlightened, just, fair, emotionally mature, stable, and calm.”

Mr. Schweizer’s message is don’t believe a word of it. It ain’t so. None of it.

Fortunately for conservatives and for the truth, there are many studies published in refereed journals and surveys, such as the General Social Survey conducted by the University of Chicago and the National Opinion Research Center, which regularly asks thousands of Americans their attitudes on a range of issues, that are done with more scientific rigor than ideological fervor. They provide a more accurate and balanced picture. Mr. Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution in California, catalogues the studies and gives readers a brief rundown of the findings, findings that have gotten almost no play in our overwhelmingly liberal media.

In aggregate, the studies show that those who identify themselves as liberals are:

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