[skippy the wonder dog]

Yes, I am actually suggesting that his observing the trend of Canada electing Catholic, French-speaking Quebecers and suggesting (not "concocting") reasons for this does not function as an explanation of conservative defeats... you seem shocked by this for some reason. He is absolutely making no connection between party affiliations and religious affiliations... for you or anyone else to suggest otherwise is nonsense.

I quote:
"Being a Catholic means believing that a single source of authority, namely the Catholic Church led by the Pope, holds the key to the correct interpretation to God's word: Catholicism uses a transcendant moral order to legitimize centralized authority, the authority of the Catholic Church. When a Catholic society becomes secularized, the Catholics in that society may lose their obedience to the authority of the Church, but they often keep their longing for a strong -- and even spiritually fulfilling -- central authority, and more often than not the new authority that replaces the
Church in their hearts and minds is the State."

This completely unsupported bit of pop-psychology is used to explain why Catholics lean Liberal.

Either you're having trouble reading, or trouble telling the truth, or both. In any case, don't waste my time.

[VioletlightHeron]

Yes, I am actually suggesting that his observing the trend of Canada electing Catholic, French-speaking Quebecers and suggesting (not "concocting") reasons for this does not function as an explanation of conservative defeats... you seem shocked by this for some reason. He is absolutely making no connection between party affiliations and religious affiliations... for you or anyone else to suggest otherwise is nonsense.

I quote:
"Being a Catholic means believing that a single source of authority, namely the Catholic Church led by the Pope, holds the key to the correct interpretation to God's word: Catholicism uses a transcendant moral order to legitimize centralized authority, the authority of the Catholic Church. When a Catholic society becomes secularized, the Catholics in that society may lose their obedience to the authority of the Church, but they often keep their longing for a strong -- and even spiritually fulfilling -- central authority, and more often than not the new authority that replaces the
Church in their hearts and minds is the State."

This completely unsupported bit of pop-psychology is used to explain why Catholics lean Liberal.

Either you're having trouble reading, or trouble telling the truth, or both. In any case, don't waste my time.

It's not any different than the theory explaining why G.W. Bush won the past election and basing it on the 22 percent of voters questioned in exit polls who said their evangelical faith was their reason for supporting him. That bit of subjuctive information leads all sort of political theorists to presuppose the existence of a "Jesusland" for cripes sake. Get off your high horse, any political theory is subject to the interpreters biases and agendas.

[j-monster]

Yes, I am actually suggesting that his observing the trend of Canada electing Catholic, French-speaking Quebecers and suggesting (not "concocting") reasons for this does not function as an explanation of conservative defeats... you seem shocked by this for some reason. He is absolutely making no connection between party affiliations and religious affiliations... for you or anyone else to suggest otherwise is nonsense.

I quote:
"Being a Catholic means believing that a single source of authority, namely the Catholic Church led by the Pope, holds the key to the correct interpretation to God's word: Catholicism uses a transcendant moral order to legitimize centralized authority, the authority of the Catholic Church. When a Catholic society becomes secularized, the Catholics in that society may lose their obedience to the authority of the Church, but they often keep their longing for a strong -- and even spiritually fulfilling -- central authority, and more often than not the new authority that replaces the
Church in their hearts and minds is the State."

This completely unsupported bit of pop-psychology is used to explain why Catholics lean Liberal.

Either you're having trouble reading, or trouble telling the truth, or both. In any case, don't waste my time.

No... he uses this point to explain why Catholics lean to left or slightly left-of centre Catholic Prime Ministerial candidates. Doesn't necessarily mean they will vote Liberal... the election of Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney in that time period disproves your theory.

I would appreciate you not insulting my intelligence and integrity... I certainly do not have trouble reading or telling the truth. And if you don't want to waste your time, then don't respond to this post any more... simple as that.

Like I tried to say before (but unfortunately you chose to completely ignore it), let's agree to disagree on this.

[skippy the wonder dog]

It's not any different than the theory explaining why G.W. Bush won the past election and basing it on the 22 percent of voters questioned in exit polls who said their evangelical faith was their reason for supporting him.

Uh, not quite. That was based on data, so although it was wrong, at least it was based on a misinterpretation of real evidence. And it could clearly be understood as wrong, again based on the evidence.

What I quoted was wild supposition, based on the assumption that Catholic political leanings can be explained by Catholic doctrine. This premise is unproven and smells a lot like his conclusion, and it's why I say the blogger is begging the question.

To save you the trouble of posting the same tiresome stuff about how religion informs our basic values, etc., let me explain why the premise is unproven. Religion, for the vast majority of the population, is inherited. But so are socioeconomic status, fundamental political ideology, and many other things. (A real analysis of how religion influences everyday behavior, incidentally, would be likely to conclude that religious doctrine has little real effect, but that's a whole separate discussion.) To assume that religious doctrine is driving political ideology is therefore obviously wrong; other factors need to be considered. Our blogger may be assuming that all other factors are equal (which is demonstrably incorrect), or he may be predisposed to seek ideological explanations. Regardless, his premise is unproven.

"Any political theory is open to biases and agendas" is not, and never has been, a defence for a circular argument.

[VioletlightHeron]

It's not any different than the theory explaining why G.W. Bush won the past election and basing it on the 22 percent of voters questioned in exit polls who said their evangelical faith was their reason for supporting him.

Uh, not quite. That was based on data, so although it was wrong, at least it was based on a misinterpretation of real evidence. And it could clearly be understood as wrong, again based on the evidence.

What I quoted was wild supposition, based on the assumption that Catholic political leanings can be explained by Catholic doctrine. This premise is unproven and smells a lot like his conclusion, and it's why I say the blogger is begging the question.

To save you the trouble of posting the same tiresome stuff about how religion informs our basic values, etc., let me explain why the premise is unproven. Religion, for the vast majority of the population, is inherited. But so are socioeconomic status, fundamental political ideology, and many other things. (A real analysis of how religion influences everyday behavior, incidentally, would be likely to conclude that religious doctrine has little real effect, but that's a whole separate discussion.) To assume that religious doctrine is driving political ideology is therefore obviously wrong; other factors need to be considered. Our blogger may be assuming that all other factors are equal (which is demonstrably incorrect), or he may be predisposed to seek ideological explanations. Regardless, his premise is unproven.

"Any political theory is open to biases and agendas" is not, and never has been, a defence for a circular argument.

Could you provide a link to data explaining this analysis? Again what I'm saying is the exit poll data allowed the left to posit the theory that their candidate lost because there was this block of voters who were influenced by their faith and unwilling to listen to the rationality of Kerry's position when the most likely explanation for his loss is his inability to come up with a coherent position that didn't smack of triangulation. Your religious doctrine theory is probably correct in explaining everyday behavior but what has that to do with voting behavior? That isnt an everyday behavior.

[skippy the wonder dog]

Data to support which analysis, specifically?

Re the exit polls, yes. But that's neither here nor there; at least the exit poll thing begins with exit polls and with incorrect interpretations of what they showed, so my point was that it's not equivalent to the blogger's attempt to build a connection between Catholic doctrine and left-liberalism based purely on ideological speculation.

In requesting data, you're making a fundamental error: you're misplacing the burden of proof. It's the blogger who's asserting that religion is a driving force here, and I'm simply pointing out that he hasn't isolated it from other related factors. It's not up to me to prove that the other factors matter; it's up to him (or his supporters) to demonstrate that they don't, which he doesn't do.

I'm not asserting that the trend has a single, specific cause. I'm suggesting that our blogger is ignoring a complex cause, and that he is making a circular argument.

Furthermore, let me suggest that the trend he observes may not be a trend at all. During the period he considers, there have been five Catholic prime ministerial candidates, and five Protestants (I am assuming that Robert Stanfield was a Protestant). This period was dominated by three highly successful politicians; Joe Clark, John Turner and Kim Campbell can more or less be ignored. These three successful politicians happened to be Catholic. Is that a trend, or is it an anomaly?

Could it be more significant that all three were from Quebec, and were members of Quebec ethnic groups (two French, one Irish) that made it more likely they would be Catholic? Is it more likely that political parties, with the aim of winning, would tend to select candidates from Quebec, and that with a strong wave of nationalism in Quebec, Quebec voters (who make up an important proportion of the electorate) would tend to select candidates from Quebec, making those candidates more likely to win? Is it their religion, or their francophonie, that makes them successful? What does Occam's razor do for you here, given that one of the candidates is conservative and therefore bucks the historical Catholic-Liberal trend?

Does it matter that the three men in question were also highly charismatic, each in his own way, and ran against non-charismatic opponents? The flamboyant Trudeau against Joe Clark, a human bobble-head doll? Mulroney, with his rich, sincere, gravelly voice, against the stiff, wooden John Turner? Chretien, with his appealing petit-gars persona, against Preston Manning, whose sincerity could never overcome his geekiness?

One group demonstrably aligns its religion with politics: the conservative, religious right. This is because their religious values on issues such as abortion align with party politics. But do we make an error of composition when we assume that other groups are driven by religious values?

There are many potential problems with our blogger's notion that Catholicism is a driving force behind his supposed trend, and he doesn't address any of them.