Q. What do you call a liberal who can do math?

A. An ex-liberal.

This old saw is still true for some very basic reasons: if the country pulls in x revenue, and spends 2x on programs, pretty soon you wind up with no x at all. Conservatives tend to understand how math works because they use it to run their businesses, develop new technologies, and basically produce the revenue the other side loves to spend on shit like websites that don’t work.

Liberals, let us be clear, either fail to understand math or fail to understand liberalism. Otherwise they would see that time and money are running out, and we have never seen one of their beliefs pay off in a meaningful way.

Well, isn’t this nice, then, that both Mandarin and Dr. J. let us know about a story that demonstrated a lot of what drives the Czar nuts about liberal reporting.

Behold a story in Politico about a scientist who reviewed liberals, conservatives, and Tea Partiers and discovered that Tea Partiers know more about science and technology than other conservatives.

Note the wording: the scientist doesn’t claim that Tea Partiers know more about STEM than liberals. In fact, he avoided addressing that at all.

But he admits in his big, scientific heart that Tea Partiers, at least, know a lot about science, technology, engineering, and math.

So why should we suspect his findings? Well, the Czar would want to know what his precise methodology was. You can ask a seemingly scientific question that is riddled with bias. For example, the Czar could easily design a test that was 100% scientific but would give liberals an edge…simply by asking questions that angled toward liberal viewpoints. Did the test offer questions on taxation, healthcare, economics, business law, or information science—all STEM topics that would have resonance with conservatives? Or were they questions on climate change, humanism, political science, sociology, and pop psychology?

But why would the designer of the test exhibit a liberal bias? Good question, but check out the following direct quotes from the designer:

I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising….I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension.

But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party. All my impressions come from watching cable tv — & I don’t watch Fox News very often — and reading the “paper” (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused internet sites like Huffington Post & Politico).

I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.

Of course, I still subscribe to my various political and moral assessments–all very negative– of what I understand the “Tea Party movement” to stand for. I just no longer assume that the people who happen to hold those values are less likely than people who share my political outlooks to have acquired the sorts of knowledge and dispositions that a decent science comprehension scale measures.

Got that? He was surprised to discover that Tea Party conservatives aren’t nearly as stupid as he predicted, but then again he lives in a liberal bubble and really never met any anyway. But don’t worry—math or not, he still thinks Tea Party folks are stupid assholes.

Look, we can agree that it is nice for a liberal to admit he is wrong. But quite frankly, this entire finding was just negated by the ad hominem views of the designer.

Thanks but no thanks. And sorry that you were embarrassed by your ignorance of conservatives. We didn’t mean to make you look stupid, and we certainly didn’t want you to look ugly, as well. See how easy it is?

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.