“Blue” states tend to be in much worse financial straits than “red” ones. Centrally-planned economies tend to be less productive than free-market ones.
Coincidence?
No. We have lots and lots and lots of data to support those statements. Enough that using the phrase “tend to be” is an understatement.
I just did a Dogpile search of the phrase “depth of data”, then “data depth”, getting far fewer returns than expected. Which is amusingly ironic. Plus, the descriptions were for specialized fields. I wanted to link to the general concept.
You can’t throw even heavily-loaded dice once and know they’re a cheat. But you can’t throw them a hundred times and not know they’re loaded. And if you throw dice a million times, even faint biases are detectable.
We have data on nations and economies throughout history. We know that free economies are better than command economies. And yet we still let wannabe rulers make stupid excuses for seizing control of our lives. Why?
The depth of data on that phenomenon is why I chose this blog’s name. Social pressures trump rational arguments for almost everyone in almost everything. It’s why I had no hope, after Obama’s election, that America’s decline could be reversed. But he hastened that decline so much that millions noticed at the same time. Instant Tea Parties. This “W.O.R.M.” freely acknowledges being caught by surprise. And feeling a bit of hope.
Depth of data lets me know precisely what this conflict hinges on. It’s the social war. This isn’t a battle of reason. There is no rational war. The Tea Partiers are right and the Establishment is wrong.
Everyone knows it.
It’s why the left vomits insults and lies and hatred upon peaceful and patriotic Americans. That’s all it has. Social pressure. “Do what I want or I’ll call you names.” The Establishment is a ten-year old drama queen.
Its terror is that Tea Parties are socially self-sufficient. What does the spoiled little queen bee do when other kids don’t care what she says? She sulks and runs away.
If the Tea Parties are socially viable, government will be turned around. Because the left has no rational basis. It can only get more frantic, more desperate, more hateful. And even glittering, beautiful celebrites lose luster when screaming spittle-flecked obscenities in someone’s face.
If the Tea Parties are self-sufficient, they’ll eventually become more attractive than the frothing Establishment. That’s when they win.
World's Only Rational Man 
I have always held the belief that in a democracy, if you can’t make things better, you NEED to make them worse. As a sufficient quantity of rancid food will make you vomit it out, a lesser quantity will remain in your bowels until the infection is fatal.
We must always fight being put into the boiled frog syndrome. If we can’t turn the heat down, we need to turn it up! 🙂
Oh, and the vomit reaction to Obama came as no surprise to me. As long as a new version of Timothy McVeigh doesn’t come along, I think we may be rid of him in two more years or less.
Have you seen Mark Penn’s comments? He specifically said that Obama “needs” something like Oklahoma City.
I did. It has long been my opinion that Timothy McVeigh “Saved” Clinton. Clinton was toast until that @$$hole came along and unified the media and frightened the voting public with the bogey man of “right wing extremists.” The Media was shellshocked and dispirited after the elections of 94. McVeigh gave them their voices back.
Depth of data……this sounds a lot like sample size to me.
Yeah, I was too lazy to dust off the proper statistics terms.
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“Blue” states tend to be in much worse financial straits than “red” ones.
Perhaps. But since “red” states are more likely to be federal welfare states–that is, getting more from the feds than they give–red states are also going to suffer greatly if blue states go broke and therefore start giving less to the federal government: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html
Thank you for commenting! And that chart is very informative. Eighteen out of fifty states get back less than they put in. If the budget was balanced, the number should be around twenty-five. And the standard deviation would be a LOT smaller.
Yes, if we’re going to fix things Red Staters are going to have to make sacrifices. I believe Tea Partiers will be willing to make meaningful sacrifice.
They’re noticing what’s bugged me for decades: deficit spending means you’re putting children into debt. Children don’t get to vote. Ergo, taxation without representation. If the rebellion of the Founding Fathers was legitimate, then America’s children are equally justified in taking up arms against the U.S. government.
It would sure be nice to fix things before getting to that point.