Older People Become More Conservative
Stop. Think for a minute. Who is the most conservative person you know? If you pay attention you will realize that older people tend to be more conservative than younger ones. Grandma and Grandpa tend to follow the straight and narrow path more so than their children and grandchildren. Is this because the old folks have just forgotten how to have fun? Nope. I don’t think so.
I think it is because of the wisdom they have learned over their lifetimes. Many of the gentle older senior citizens of today were once the rebellious and careless individuals you see among today’s youth. They got into trouble for doing things that they weren’t supposed to be doing. They weren’t all little saints. Nope, far from it.
It is just that over their lives they have learned some good hard lessons. Those lessons are what have made them into the more conservative people they are now. They have learned what really matters in life. They have learned through firsthand experience that the best path to a great society is one where people are grounded in morality. Some may become religious as they grow older. I think that the vast majority of them are just realizing that if you live by a set of morals, regardless of whether or not they are based in religion, you will probably live a far happier and more rewarding life.
We will all, Nancy Pelosi accepted, eventually come to realize that this way of life far surpasses the immoral life in terms of overall self worth and happiness. We were born moral human beings as children. We learn to become immoral by watching and repeating the actions of selfish adults and by subscribing to life philosophies that are out of synch with our true nature. By choosing to get back to our natural moral existence, we find more peace and serenity out of life. Isn’t this what everyone really wants?
You don’t need to be religious to be a conservative. That is one of America’s great misconceptions. Moral people just tend to gravitate toward religion because they are seeking answers and truth. If you seek the truth and persist in finding it, you too will probably eventually find yourself belonging to one religion or another. It is just the nature of things. You will start to see that there is in fact truth in religion. You will come to believe in it just because it really makes the most logical sense. This is a reality that many Americans resist. They resist it because they haven’t sought out the truth for themselves just yet. When they finally decide to start looking, they will become increasingly more conservative each day.
So, you parents and grandparents out there need to help pass on your wisdom to your children and grandchildren. In doing so, you will speed up their learning process so that they can avoid some of the mistakes you made along the way. Teach them your wisdom. Share your knowledge about people and life. Encourage them to seek the truth. Doing so will make a better world for all of us.
Lets not deify them like some do Reagan, I agree. They lynched and segregated and are flawed human beings. Their morality was impressive…but would you really want to wind back the clock to < 1950s warts and all? Would most (even conservative women) want this?
America was not a democracy until 1968 lets not forget it
What utter and complete nonsense. Here is the difference between liberals and conservatives- conservatives like you blindly accepted received knowledge without ever bothering to ask if its true. Only a conservative would write such an article without even bothering to do a modicum of research to see if there predetermined beliefs have any hard evidence to back them up.
Guess what- people don’t become more conservative as they age:
http://www.livescience.com/health/080310-liberal-seniors.html
I’m interested in becoming a Republican but I’m a black atheist and I’m dating a Jew- can I still be in the Conservative club?
Harold,
Agreed, we have improved in many ways since then.
Todd,
This is called common sense republican for a reason. If you had any common sense at all, you would realize that people do in fact become more conservative as they grow older. It is called wisdom.
Sarah,
Thanks for the laugh and yes you can.
I think they are just tighter with their money because they are on a fixed income. That’s why they are more conservative.
Did you even read the article Todd posted? Sounds like you decided to skip it — perhaps because it directly contradicts your views and because it is based on actual research, not assumption. What is so “common sense” about refusing to read it?
Rachel,
Yes, I did in fact read the article.
The article states very clearly:
“the surveys did not provide data for the same individuals at different stages”
If you do not test the same individual at different periods over their lifetime, how else could you possibly measure these results accurately? This study was not conducted under true scientific standards. Had it been done that way it most certainly would have proven my point.
Let’s think of it another way. Assuming young voters are more liberal and people became more liberal as they got older, why wouldn’t the liberals have control over the House, the Senate and the Presidency all the time?
The fact that they are not in control every year also helps support the theory that people become more conservative.
For my theory not to be true, you would have to assume one of these two things:
1) that young voters are more conservative (which is BS if you look at any College campus or ask young people who skipped college who they support)
2) that nearly equal numbers of voters become more conservative as ones who become more liberal and vice versa
It is also possible to see flaws in the test unless samples are taken frequently and well controlled over an entire lifetime. Many people’s political opinions sway one way or the other over their lifetime.
Therefore, depending on current events, a person may claim to be more conservative or more liberal.
Had you asked people this question in October or November 2001, they would have said they were more conservative. Remember how the country felt? Maybe you aren’t old enough. If you asked them the same question near the end of George Bush 43′s Presidency, they would have claimed to be more liberal.
Oh wait, that study was published in 2007…….Hmmmmmm…….
Don’t be so naive as to think that these kinds of studies aren’t produced and manipulated for one political persuasion or the other. Studies are not proof of anything in many cases. They are just one person’s opinion based on their own research. You probably think that everything you hear on NPR radio is unbiased also.
Let me conduct my own study right now…….
Mom… Are you more conservative than you were when you were younger?…. Yes son.
Dad… Are you more conservative than you were when you were younger?…. Yes son.
Are you guys really telling me the truth?………Yes son.
There you have it. Definitive proof from a controlled study that 100% of people in this study agreed that people do in fact become more conservative as they get older.
Thanks for clearing that up. I feel better knowing that my theory has now been definitively proven.
You obviously lack the wisdom to understand the point I made. When you get older, (aka grow up) you will realize “Hey, that guy was right”
It is in fact common sense and common knowledge that people get more conservative as they get older. You probably think a pot of cold water comes to a boil faster than a pot of hot water too. Genius.
I think what you are omitting is how, as a nation, we are gradually becoming more liberal. Yes, the tides of liberal vs. conservative do ebb and flow, but the overall trajectory is towards a more liberal society. There is no evidence that the US may shift back to a society that does not allow women to vote, for example. Movement towards a freer, fairer society may be difficult for people who dislike change, but most eventually accept it and some even come to think of it as good.
An older person may think they have become more conservative, but they are in fact comparing how conservative they currently are to how conservative everyone else is at that moment. They are not comparing how conservative they are now to how conservative they were 20, 30, 40 years earlier. People are terrible at remembering such things, because we see ourselves through the lens of who we are now, in the context of the society we live in now.
As an aside, saying that I lack the wisdom to understand your point is pretty insulting, and doesn’t make your argument any more valid. In fact, you said several insulting things. Why?