Monday, January 30, 2006

Academics Claim Republicans Are Racist. Who Knew?

The Washington Post today attempted to compete with the completely discredited New York Times by publishing an article claiming that exhaustive research proves Republicans are racists. The alleged "study" claims to have used brain scans to determine reactions of white voters to images of white and black people. Guess what? Self-proclaimed Republicans allegedly show clear bias against blacks.
That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.
Of course. Academics, particularly those involved in the social sciences, operate from a deep and inherent bias themselves. For this reason, their "studies" always find what they expected to find.

The professors heading up the "study," of course, hedged their bets for public consumption, asserting something that needs no proof, namely that voters on either side of the aisle are prone to believe the best of people they favor and the worst of everyone else. Quel surprise!

Here's the kicker, though, which occurs at the conclusion of the article, the usual MSM trick that leaves the summary thought, defensible or no, firmly in the reader's mind:
Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University, who independently assessed the studies, said it remains to be seen how significant the correlation is between racial bias and political affiliation.

For example, he said, the study could not tell whether racial bias was a better predictor of voting preference than, say, policy preferences on gun control or abortion. But while those issues would be addressed in subsequent studies -- Krosnick plans to get random groups of future voters to take the psychological tests and discuss their policy preferences -- he said the basic correlation was not in doubt.

"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting.... Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research."
Well, I guess that closes off that avenue of argument, kids. Who are we to question the perfect wisdom of the esteemed professor Krosnick? (He, and the Post article, conveniently side-step the percentage of self-proclaimed Democrats who are biased, even thought the Post article clearly implies that not all Democrats were free of bias.)

But, as Quick Draw McGraw used to say, "Now just a darn minute there!"

First of all, the study in question was conducted in California by social psychologists.

Flaw #1: Since we already possess ironclad proof that 92-95% of all academics are left of center; and since, within this already biased sample, we can further conclude that the possible existence of a conservative social psychologist is statistically insignificant, we can preliminarily conclude that those conducting the "study" were interested in biasing the "study" to obtain information they already "knew," mainly that white Republicans are therefore racists. Thus they can be expected to have assembled the "study" in such a way as to "prove" their foregone conclusion.

Secondly, we have no description of the content of the statements or the nature of the images involved, leading us to

Flaw #2: In this "study," "images" of anonymous individuals, black and white, were paired with various "statements" and the interviewees' reactions, positive or negative, were compiled in order to detect alleged racial bias. One wonders just what "images" were shown. If many of the black images in the study were of "gangstas," for example, might that not lead to a strong negative reaction from a white suburban Republican? Very possibly. So what did these images look like? No one says.

Of course, since the "study" is being conducted by academics with a near perfect probablility of hard left bias, we can easily suspect them of

Flaw #3: Gaming the system. The survey was conducted among "self-described" Republicans and Democrats. Misidentification is the oldest game in the Democratic playbook. So, too, is the "sampling" of the populace (allegedly nationwide) that was used in the "study." What was to prevent oversampling "David Duke Republicans" in Louisiana and radical leftists in Berkeley, CA? Nothing. I'd like to see just how this sample was assembled. Political polls of all kinds are notorious for their undersampling of Republicans. An intentional lower sampling of Repubs, put together with gerrymandered geographical locales, can easily produce the desired results for any study of this nature.

The credibility killer, though, is the finale of the article, where the good professor Krosnick terminates debate by flatly declaring anyone who questions the poll's results is "in denial." This is a typical leftist tactic meant to instantly silence anyone like HazZzmat who might question the study's methodology and results. When academics—indeed, when anyone—gets cocky like this, you can bet that they're interested in quashing all further debate and all queries regarding the methodology behind their phony "studies."

It is, in fact, demonstrably biased academics, particularly in the leftist wasteland of the social sciences, that need to demonstrate their lack of bias, not the other way 'round. Having transformed college campuses nationwide, over the past 30-40 years, into heavily guarded leftist ghettos, academic leftists have become accustomed to an atmosphere where no one dare question their received wisdom.

Well, sorry guys. Your "study" was almost certainly statistically loaded against the Repubs from the start. You have zero credibility with the general populace. And most of us know hate-mongering when we see it, even when it is hidden in what is alleged to have been a respectable "study." This socalled "study" is nothing more than another sham academic exercise, probably funded by the taxpayers, that was designed solely to further the Gramscian aim of redefining the culture by redefining its terminology and standards. If it had been truly scientific, the "study" would have spoken for itself, and would not have required insulting helpful commentary from professor Krosnick.

Which leads us to

Flaw #4: Although Krosnick's inflammatory and reductive gasbagging is not part of the "study," his assertion that he has 50 years of data supporting his conclusion of inherent Republican racial bias is laughable. The Gramscian reconstruction of our history fails to mention that it was the Republican Party that fought the Democratic Party throughout the late 1940s and the entirety of the 1950s on the issue of racial parity. The Democrats marginalized their own equality champions like Hubert Humphrey, and rolled over the Republican minority each and every time they tried to propose civil rights legislation. None other than that sainted hero of civil rights, Lyndon Johnson, controlled the U.S. Senate during much of this period. He saw to it that each and every Republican civil rights legislative initiative was roundly rammed back down their collective gullet. The easily-proved Republican championing of civil rights throughout this era, as well as their enthusiastic support for the 1965 Civil Rights Act entirely negates Krosnick's asinine assertion, and immediately uncloaks the deep bias of his own political agenda. The Gramscian left, aided by unprovable nonsense such as the above comments, has succeeding in writing these bold and lonely Republicans right out of the history books, allowing them to be remembered only for the aberrant behavior of Senator McCarthy, the leftists' Great Satan.

Don't believe us on the Republican crusade for civil rights? Check out the third volume of Robert Caro's masterful biography of Lyndon Johnson. Unlike this highly subjective and suspect "study," there is simply too much hard information in that volume to refute.

Trumpeted breathlessly in the Washington Post, the cited "study" is nothing more than a further attempt to bias the American public, particularly the African-American public, against Republicans by declaring them, in effect, genetic racists whose own brain waves betray their rottenness. Too bad it's not going to work this time. We have the blogosphere, now, gentlemen, and we're available 24/7 to deconstruct the dogmas of the left, whether they involve this sham "study" or Dan Rather's "fake but accurate" lies concerning W's military service.

Or are you in denial?

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