Educated liberal bias

Throughout my college career, at various universities both in Hawaii and on the U.S. mainland, I have noticed that most of my professors identified themselves as political liberals. By “liberal,” I mean that they tend to adhere to the left-wing political ideology and the Democratic party. In fact, even a business professor once admitted that he voted–twice–for Bill Clinton, the inveterate adulterer and consummate prevaricator.

This zealous political liberalism can be found among many of America’s college students as well. It can be found in various student organizations and campus programs: in gay and lesbian student unions, in mandatory diversity and sensitivity training sessions, in the wild embrace of affirmative action, in multicultural trends, and in a whole host of other non-traditional, non-conservative, causes and activities on campuses throughout the country.

Tenets of liberalism can be found throughout the academic disciplines as well: in psychology, in economics, in history, in geography, in speech communications, in philosophy, and, most especially, in political science itself.

Now the question is, Why are so many educated people leftists? Why are they so committed to socialism and the expansion of government “services” and the welfare state? Indeed, why are most of them liberal, tax-and-spend Democrats?

This is an assumption that must first be proved. In such an investigation, we must first establish that most educated people are in fact political liberals. This can be readily accomplished by defining what it means to be educated, as well as by comparing levels of education–e.g., comparing the high school dropouta to Ph.D. candidates.

To establish political liberalism, a simple survey could be administered to educated and non-educated people alike. For example, questions such as “Will you vote for Ralph Nader?” might offer solid ideological indications one way or the other. An affirmative answer to this Ralph Nader question would of course confirm an extremely high liberal bias, as would a “yes” vote to Albert Gore, though to a slightly lesser extent than Mr. Nader.

Affirmative votes for Steve Forbes (Republican) and Harry Browne (Libertarian), by sharp contrast, would tend to register strong support for the non-leftist view, which we would then hope to identify with “non-educated” individuals, consistent with the hypothesis that more education generally leads to more pronounced socialistic beliefs.

Other survey questions may include the following: “Do you support a higher minimum wage? Do you oppose tax cuts? Do you support government prescription drug benefits for senior citizens? Do you support Social Security privatization?”

Once we have conclusively established that most educated subjects hold left-wing political beliefs, we then come to the problem of theorizing. Does education cause political liberalism? What causes most educated people to be politically liberal?

We might cite public education as a possible cause. We might suggest that the public education establishment, which wishes to perpetuate its monolithic state bureaucracy, deliberately indoctrinates its unsuspecting pupils with a love of expansive and intrusive Big Government.

Perhaps another cause is the presumption of the scholarly elite, which arrogantly assumes that it can direct resources in a centralized fashion–better than the free market can on its own.

In any case, send your kid to college and expect to get a Democrat four years later–eight times out of ten.