Gay Conservative

In another case of liberal elitism, former Colorado Rep. Pat Schroeder, has determined that I (and all my ilk) are backwards and uneducated.  Her source?  An AP-Ipsos poll showing that self-identified liberals and Dems read more books than their Republican-Conservative counterparts.

“The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: ‘No, don’t raise my taxes, no new taxes,’” Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. “It’s pretty hard to write a book saying, ‘No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes’ on every page.”

Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress’ most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.

She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who “can’t say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion.”

Evidently, that means we are dumb.  I will tell you now that I read maybe 5-6 books a year.  Most of those are for enjoyment.  I read relatively few educational books because I get most of my reading done online.  I would, however,  point you to the book by former Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) called “National Party No More:  The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat.”  That was one I read with enthusiasm.  I’m sure that was on Pat’s reading list.  If not, it should be (yours too).

One interesting finding of the poll was -

Among those who had read at least one book, liberals typically read nine books in the year, with half reading more than that and half less. Conservatives typically read eight, moderates five.

So I guess Schroeder’s reasoning would be as follows:  She would conclude that I, Philip, am a moderate since I didn’t read 8 books.  And moderates are dumber than both conservatives and libs because they didn’t read as many books as the other two groups.  What specious reasoning. And the independents in this nation should be a little perturbed.

I’m not going to go nuts over this.  The fallacies and Schroeder’s condescension speak for themselves.  Just suffice it to say that the GOP and conservatives, in particular, will always be subject to the scorn of self-obsessed libs who are out to convince the American people that our ideology is intellectually inferior.  Nice try, Pat.