|
Makers and Takers: How Conservatives Do All the Work While Liberals Whine and Complain | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Doubleday
Category: EBooks
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $7.96 (44%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 3782
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.50973
ASIN: B001AL664M
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In Makers and Takers you will discover why:
* Seventy-one percent of conservatives say you have an obligation to care for a seriously injured spouse or parent versus less than half (46 percent) of liberals.
* Conservatives have a better work ethic and are much less likely to call in sick than their liberal counterparts.
* Liberals are 2- times more likely to be resentful of others- success and 50 percent more likely to be jealous of other people-s good luck.
* Liberals are 2 times more likely to say it is okay to cheat the government out of welfare money you don-t deserve.
* Conservatives are more likely than liberals to hug their children and "significantly more likely" to display positive nurturing emotions.
* Liberals are less trusting of family members and much less likely to stay in touch with their parents.
* Do you get satisfaction from putting someone else's happiness ahead of your own? Fifty-five percent of conservatives said yes versus only 20 percent of liberals.
* Rush Limbaugh, Ronald Reagan, Bill O-Reilly and Dick Cheney have given large sums of money to people in need, while Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, and Al Gore have not.
* Those who are "very liberal" are 3 times more likely than conservatives to throw things when they get angry. The American left prides itself on being superior to conservatives: more generous, less materialistic, more tolerant, more intellectual, and more selfless. For years scholars have constructed-and the media has pushed-elaborate theories designed to demonstrate that conservatives suffer from a host of personality defects and character flaws. According to these supposedly unbiased studies, conservatives are mean-spirited, greedy, selfish malcontents with authoritarian tendencies. Far from the belief of a few cranks, prominent liberals from John Kenneth Galbraith to Hillary Clinton have succumbed to these prejudices. But what do the facts show?
Peter Schweizer has dug deep-through tax documents, scholarly data, primary opinion research surveys, and private records-and has discovered that these claims are a myth. Indeed, he shows that many of these claims actually apply more to liberals than conservatives. Much as he did in his bestseller Do as I Say (Not as I Do), he brings to light never-before-revealed facts that will upset conventional wisdom.
Conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Robert Bork have long argued that liberal policies promote social decay. Schweizer, using the latest data and research, exposes how, in general:
* Liberals are more self-centered than conservatives.
* Conservatives are more generous and charitable than liberals.
* Liberals are more envious and less hardworking than conservatives.
* Conservatives value truth more than liberals, and are less prone to cheating and lying.
* Liberals are more angry than conservatives.
* Conservatives are actually more knowledgeable than liberals.
* Liberals are more dissatisfied and unhappy than conservatives.
Schweizer argues that the failure lies in modern liberal ideas, which foster a self-centered, "if it feels good do it" attitude that leads liberals to outsource their responsibilities to the government and focus instead on themselves and their own desires.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Predictable for the Gullible November 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is mostly an ego stroke. It's factual studies are there merely to prove to you the title of the book - conservatives are better. Did you expect a different outcome? The author has devoted and entire book that will have you shaking your head in agreement. It's perfect right? Or is it just telling you what you presumed already? Now it is simply using studies to collaborate the point, as if you needed reassurance. No, this book really isn't worth the time. It dispels the "misconceptions" by creating a few of their own. This book has no positive or beneficial purpose. It works merely to divide people into labeled categories and provide better fodder for the constant bickering between the two. Nevermind that no two humans are alike, or that one person's view of being conservative is different than anothers. Nevermind the idea that we are all mosaics, not cookie-cutter zombies. The book might as well have been on eugenics, as it draws the best parallel. Skip this and find something better.
The Perfect Gift... October 6, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
...for that friend or family member that "was born on third base and acts like he hit a triple."
 Politically biased, but lots of great information October 3, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
There is no question that Peter Schweizer is a conservative. Likewise, this book is aimed at an audience of conservatives. Schweizer's main theme is that liberals are "completely wrapped up with the notion of self". Liberals, according to Schweizer, also delight in proclaiming themselves smarter than conservatives and invent "studies" to prove it.
Well, Schweizer has his own study to rely on and it isn't one he invented. It is the General Social Survey conducted by the University of Chicago and the National Opinion Research Center.
So armed, Schweizer begins his comparison of liberals and conservstives. It boils down to "[m]odern liberal ideas consistently encourage bad habits and destructive behavioral tendencies".
It's good stuff as Schweizer holds forth on why liberals are more self-centered, less generous, less honest, angrier and less knowledgable than conservatives.
Obviously, it is not a book that left-wingers will enjoy.
But conservatives, independents and the intellectually curious will find "Makers and Takers" reasonably informative and very entertaining.
Jerry
 I was expecting more August 12, 2008
1 out of 8 found this review helpful
Based on the jacket I thought this book would be like Millionaire Next Door but for politics. In Millionaire you find that the guy with the used car and jeans is a millionaire. In the book I was hoping for some defense of my positions. Like you'd find the guy with the short hair who votes Republican is actually the most generous and caring guy on the block. But that's not what this book is. It has moments when it is that. But, for the most part, it is just rehashing of some of the stupidest things said by people who, for the most part, aren't even in politics. For example, Al Franken tackling some college kid because he supports lower taxes, or whatever. Yeah, granted, Al Franken is outrageous. But what does that really say about the average Republican or Democrat? It says nothing. I suspect the truth is that the exact same percentage of caring and generous people exist on both sides of the aisle. They just have different ways of showing it.
 But are the surveys reliable? August 3, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The argument of Makers and Takers is that conservatives have it right, behaviorally, and liberals are deeply troubled. Thus, it will give heart to the right and dyspepsia to the left, though it is written in the spirit of bemused interest, not in that of an angry screed. The core of the argument is built upon survey research. If the survey research is accurate, this is a significant book, for it traces a large number of behaviors which, it is argued, characterize those of each broadly-conceived political persuasion. Schweizer argues that behavior and ideas are closely intertwined and proceeds, he believes, to demonstrate it here.
With all turning on the reliability of his evidence, there is a consistent attempt to correct for potential survey errors. For example, conservatives are more happy with their incomes than are liberals. That could be, of course, because they make more money. However, Schweizer is careful to point out, in this case, that the liberals skew toward the negative, while the conservatives skew toward the positive when, in fact, they each make the same amount of money. Conservatives are likely to see the book as successfully and scientifically confirming their intuitions, while liberals are likely to see it as little more than polemic and propaganda. It all comes down to the reliability of the survey instruments themselves. Schweizer certainly takes them seriously, but how broadly accepted are they by dispassionate social scientists? I believe that it is a shortcoming of the book that he does not go to great pains to assure his readers (with hard evidence) that these survey instruments are reliable. There is also a great deal of anecdotal evidence, but that is notoriously slippery, though it does make for an interesting read. Unfortunately, since the book is written for a popular audience it is unlikely to be reviewed by survey research experts and be validated or dismissed. That is too bad, since the subject is so important. On the other hand, a popular audience will find it to be an interesting and engaging use of statistical information (particularly those who are conservative).
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
