Do you believe wise (wisdom gained from experience), educated people mature towards conservatism?

Question

Please make an attempt at reading the following before you answer. Thanks!


It appears that most of the loud liberal/“progressives” are youths who view conservatives as authoritarian elders…

As we mature and as long as we live with our eyes wide open we gain life experience and are less likely to embrace the reckless ideological experimentation that is inherent to liberalism. We are more conservative or resolute in what we know is the most productive and stable form of governance and the most free type of economic system.

With a loss of history education or even worse, history revisionism that puts socialism in a good light the furtherance of what can only be described as Leftist socialist ideologies is enabled.


I have heard that Churchill, Voltaire or Limbaugh (some people claim Limbaugh made it up and attributes it to Churchill) said, "If a man is not a liberal at the age of twenty, he has no heart; if a man is not conservative by the age of forty, he has no brain”.

I can admit, I was a liberal in my youth. This has been the norm for most conservatives I have spoken with.

This is not an attempt at insulting or dividing, I am truly curious as to your views.

Answer 1

I agree to a point. While I am middle of the road and leaning liberal I am not nearly as liberal as I once was. It seems most people mellow with age and the radical right cools off and moves toward the center with age too.

Answer 2

>I have heard that Churchill, Voltaire or Limbaugh (some people claim Limbaugh made it up and attributes it to Churchill) said, "If a man is not a liberal at the age of twenty, he has no heart; if a man is not conservative by the age of forty, he has no brain”.

I've heard this quote too. Unfortunately, while eloquent, it doesn't match up very well with the real world. The truth is much more complicated, you get people who are conservative and liberal in different areas and to different extents. A more recent development has been the political compass, the two-dimensional graph with social libertarian/authoritarian and economic libertarian/authoritarian on different axes. Your standard conservative is usually an economic libertarian and a social authoritarian, while modern liberals tend to be social libertarians and economic authoritarians. And of course, even that is not entirely accurate, if you look deeper into the matter it turns out that the graph probably needs a lot more than two dimensions, as well as being non-euclidean, in order to come close to representing people's different views on different issues and how they correspond to social and economic control.

However, to get back to your original point, there HAVE been studies done on this. In fact, I know someone who was involved in a study on intelligence and opinion, and what they found was that stupid people are more likely to polarize to either liberalism or conservatism, while intelligent people are more likely to be libertarians. Which of course suggests that americans in general aren't very intelligent, but we all knew that anyway. Basically, liberalism and conservatism are two different paths to George Orwell's 1984, and libertarianism is what really makes sense.

Answer 3

I know people who have become more liberal as they aged, and they started out conservative. Course then there are others who started liberal, became more conservative and then went back to left of center too (mainly my silly father :) ).

"With a loss of history education or even worse, history revisionism that puts socialism in a good light the furtherance of what can only be described as Leftist socialist ideologies is enabled." This makes me think you have been out of school for a while. In k-12 there is almost no emphasis on post WWII world history, that means that socialism is barely addressed in a historical manner, let alone described in a good light.

I think the quote is not quite accurate, but it is something similar; I've heard it attributed to Churchill never Voltaire.

Answer 4

I can say that I was liberal when younger, but I think it's ignorant on your part to call it a reckless ideology.

Now I am in the middle, I will lean to the right or left depending on the issue at hand.

I believe who strictly adhere to one train of thought and are not open to other views, are the most closed minded individuals I have ever met. Which leads me to believe that both ways of thinking are incorrect. Both views have great ideas, but what is the point if you are not willing to open up to new ideas from the other side.

Don't get me wrong I don't consider all the people I know that are conservative or liberal to be closed minded.

Answer 5

I honestly was always a Republican, but I was always in the middle of the road, and still am, I vote for the best candidate, Republican, Democrat, Librarian, or Independent. I wouldn't say liberal or conservative because I'm in the middle.

I definitely watched the news and read up when I was 18. I was born in a Republican household, but my Mom was a Democrat, when she was younger. I decided when I started to vote to check out both parties so I knew for sure that I wanted to register as a Republican and I looked into it and realized that fit me the most.

If you think a lot of people are liberals when they are kids like the guy above said because of economics but when they realize they are going to be taxed more the switch the other way, they might also lean toward Republicans if they have a son or daughter or other relative in the Armed Services. There is a lot of false fact about Republicans that might lose them some of their voters especially minority and lower economic classes, don't realize that Republicans are going to help them as much, as other parties will

I guess it was easy for me because people I know that are Republicans are so extreme about it and I know I can disagree with views and still be in the party, like I believe in gay marriage, they can get married if they want, I have gay and lesbian friends some of them should be married, because they have great relationships with their partners.

Answer 6

I think that one generation's liberal is the next generations conservative. While no generation is comfortable with too much change, each generation is different from the last. Things that were socially and morally unacceptable in my grandmother's generation weren't such a big deal in mother's. Things that are socially and morally acceptable in my generation would have been outrageous in my grandmother's generation. Time brings change. Interracial marriage was barely tolerated (not at all in some places) when my grandmother was a child. That changed in my mother's generation. As I grew up, gay marriage was so out of the question, it was never even raised as an issue. My children, I believe, will grow up in an America that no longer shuns the homosexual community. If not, then my grandchildren will. Time brings change.

Answer 7

I'm a liberal, and I'd have to say that many people I know are conservatives, and I understand their reasoning for making the decisions they do, although liberal or conservative isnt about finding out whats best for society, or even whats is best for the economy. People should first reason to discover what is best for themselves without the thought of illegal or legal, what is right or wrong, simply live how you want to live and then conform to the ideological ways you see as the best, if people did this, I believe most would find that they should in fact be liberals.

Answer 8

You just quoted Limbaugh who's one of the biggest hypocrites of them all. He rails against drug users and is caught with his hand in the pill jar. It's hilarious to see all these people claiming to be intelligent conservatives when the best they can do is vote into office actors and ex-football players instead of scientists and engineers.

I was a project manager for DOE and U.S. Corp of Engineer projects and I ran into some of the dumbest people God ever put on the planet. Were they conservative? Yes. Were they smart, no.

You're one of those people that think we live in a democracy, when it fact we live in a republic. Conservatives think the way we do things is the best way therefore everyone else should follow suit. I say don't go around picking at splinters.

The Vietnam War claimed 2,000,000 Vietnamese and over 30,000 U.S. soldiers, to this day it is a socialist republic (communist) and the economy and the country is doing fine, no thanks to our involvement. You want to talk about a "free system"? How many laws and permits does one have to obtain before opening up a business in the U.S.? Over there, you just open up shop and pay your taxes.

Yes, conservatives are so smart, liberals are so stupid, that's why I'm getting my masters in mechanical engineering. That's why I know so many guys getting PhD's who don't agree with they way we do things.

Eloquence and intelligence obviously do not go hand in hand, because an intelligent person would realize different people have different points of views and that's just the way the world works. Conservatives in my opinion are often selfish people who don't realize there are other people who have to live on this planet. They believe the DEA and Homeland Security actually have a function other than to fill the pockets of political associates. They have no respect for other cultures and beliefs and are often stricken with the worst kind of xenophobia.

Answer 9

I have been mainly conservative since I was 21. I never believed in abortion or welfare of any of that kind of thing. I still dont. I think some people need the help welfare can give but I think it should only be given in extreme cases. I also have some liberal view points though. I am pro immigration reform that is comprehensive but I support closing the border. I am against the death penalty. It just depends on the issue for me but I lean towards more conservative.

Answer 10

I believe the quote is,"If you've sold out at twenty, you've got no heart. If you haven't sold out by forty, you've got no brains."

The older we get, the more we tend to worry about our security. Our universe tends to shrink. We concern ourselves more with our own financial security and less with other people's problems. "Not in my backyard" is the battle cry of such people.

I was very conservative as a youth. I am now much more concerned with individual rights. I would label myself a Liberitarian. Who knows what will happen? I may learn to trust conservatives, but I doubt it. I don't believe that ANY politician has MY interests at heart. The ones that aren't corrupt have smaller voices than the ones who sell out to big money and special interests.