(Continued from "Write-ins," part two)
Personal
In 1987, our poll respondents' mean age was 40 years, 95% were male, and 100% were white. We're not quite as homogenous these days, and we're not quite as young.
What is your age?
The mean, median, and mode ages are (respectively) 55, 56, and 67 years.
Are you male or female?
In the first Liberty Poll, respondents were 95% male, and closer to 100% than 99% caucasian. The demographic data from the second Liberty Poll was not mentioned in its summary article. The data was gathered and totalled, and a significant change would have been notable, so it is fairly safe to assume that the demographic breakdown of respondents was similar.
What is your ethnicity?
Most of those who are listed as "other" were of mixed ethnicity, but six of them described themselves as "human." There are, of course, other ways to express dissatisfaction with the question; one can leave it blank (as several respondents did), or one can note that the question is offensive (or meaningless, or dangerous, etc.) — and our respondents were not, for the most part, hesitant to include comments. The decision to proclaim oneself "human" in this context seems, to me, sanctimonious. One other Liberty Poll question elicited a few responses that struck me as especially self-satisfied, so I looked for a correlation. The "humans" were almost ten times as likely as other respondents to report that the single individual who introduced them to libertarian thought was either "me" or "self."
Maybe the correlation is meaningless. On the other hand, it's the first (and only) one I looked for.
|
Patrick Quealy adds: Six respondents to our poll wrote "human" as their race rather than checking one of the provided boxes. I take this to be a statement that race ought to be irrelevant to appraisal of a person's worth, or that race is a meaningless social construction, both of which are worthy points of discussion. In any case, I wondered if anything interesting could be determined about them as a group.
After poring over the data for a few hours, I came to an important conclusion: I need a life. The humans don't appear appreciably different from the blacks, whites, Hispanics, or others.
If I wanted to stretch, however, I could note the average number of times the humans ran for office was 0.83. For all respondents who answered the question, the average was 0.23. Among Liberty readers, humans run for office considerably more often than non-humans.
|
What is your annual income?
What is the highest level of schooling you have completed?
According to U.S. Census data, less than 30% of adults over 25 years of age in the United States have a bachelor's or higher level degree. Slightly more than 80% of our respondents claim that level of education. Is there a causal relationship? If so, which is cause and which is effect?
What is your occupation? (Check as many as apply.)
How many years, if any, were you in the military? Were you enlisted or an officer?
Are you married?
The poll question, simply "Married?" is ambiguous, so the percentages may be skewed. The most natural interpretation of the question is "are you married?" — unless you are divorced. In that case, an equally natural interpretation is "have you ever been married?"
Married respondents were also asked whether their marriage was legal. Most (80%) married respondents answered, and most (91%) of their marriages are legal. The actual percentage whose marriages are legal could be as high as 93% or as low as 73%, depending on the status of the 20% of married respondents who did not answer this question.
How long have you been with your current partner? (In years, zeroes excluded from averages.)
| Min | Max | Mean | Median | Mode |
| 0.5 | 60 | 21.5 | 20.6 | 19 |
How many divorces have you had?
How many children do you have?
How many grandchildren do you have?
|
Patrick Quealy adds: It's commonly believed (especially by modern liberals, in my experience) that libertarians are merely libertine conservatives: sex-crazed, drug-addled, selfish people who don't like paying taxes or living near people who are different. But we know (and the poll suggests) that's not so.
True, the libertarians who answered our poll are like conservatives in their family values, when compared with the larger culture. The average married couple has been together for 21 years. One couple has been together more than twice as long as I have been alive. Of those poll takers who indicated whether they had children, three-fifths did. Of those respondents who described their sexual activity, 91% are monogamous or are not sexually involved with anyone. These are no libertines.
But if these people are like conservatives in some ways, their attitudes about marriage suggest they lack the irrational fear of all change that modern liberals believe to be conservatives' signature trait.
Had I been one of the editors who designed the poll 20 years ago, I would not have thought to ask married respondents to draw the distinction between marriage and being "legally married." Happily, persons more sensible to the nature of libertarians designed it, so we know that 7% of Liberty Poll respondents identify as married, but not legally so. That assumes the one-fifth of those who did not answer the question about legality are all "legally married"; the number could be higher.
The nature of their marriages suggests they've realized it doesn't matter whether their marriage is solemnized by a justice of the peace and certified by a $25 marriage license from city hall. What matters to them is whether it's solemnized in their hearts, or by their church, their God, or whatever institutions or deities matter to them.
"Legally" is open to interpretation. Its opposites could include cohabitating people who choose not to be civilly married for ideological reasons, or because they're of the same sex and can't be legally married, or because the state won't recognize their nontraditional relationship structure. Whatever the reason, the number is pretty cool.
|
How many siblings do you have?
| Min | Max | Mean | Median | Mode |
| 0 | 12 | 2.2 | 2 | 1 |
Are you first born in your family, second born, third born, or later?
Poll respondents were firstborn half again as often as chance would predict; the respondents to the first Liberty Poll were firstborn almost twice as often as chance would predict. The combination of small (and overlapping) samples and the observed regression towards the mean suggest that there's no significant correlation, let alone a causal relationship. Still, the discrepancy is enough to warrant a look.
Which of the following best describes your religious training as a child?
Respondents to our first poll were more likely to have been raised as Roman Catholic (33%) or Jewish (10%) than respondents today. They were less likely to have been raised as Mainline Protestant (30%) or "other" (7%), and about equally likely to have been raised as Fundamentalist Protestant.
The change in proportion of Roman Catholics and Mainline Protestant is not particularly surprising — in the last 20 years, the number of non-Catholic Christians in the United States has increased by more than the number of Roman Catholics in the United States. The 40% decrease in the number of libertarians raised as Jewish is surprising. Given the disproportionate accomplishment of Jewish individuals in almost every field of intellectual endeavor, the decrease is also somewhat troubling.
Do you consider yourself religious today?
Of the respondents who consider themselves religious today, 41% practice a religion other than the one they were raised under.
Incidentally, although it is of course possible to believe in God without considering oneself religious — and certainly possible to believe without following an organized religion — the percentage of respondents who consider themselves religious is almost identical to the percentage who agree with the statement "There is a God."
Almost 23% of the respondents who consider themselves religious today did not agree with the statement "There is a God." These individuals were all either Unitarians, Buddhists, Scientologists, or Jewish.
How long ago did you most recently attend a church or other form of worship?
What is your sexual orientation?
What is your typical form of sexual activity?
Most respondents answered the questions regarding their sexual orientation (98%) and activity (92% or 93%, depending on whether you count "you've got to be kidding" and similar comments as answers). The individuals who described their sexual activity as "other" did not explain what "other" might entail.
What are the political beliefs of your current partner?
Do you give money to libertarian organizations? Humanitarian organizations? Cultural organizations? Religious organizations?
Less than 40% of those respondents who donate to religious organizations consider themselves religious. This supports my belief that libertarians are, on the whole, more concerned than the Left or the Right with the consequences of an action (as opposed to its appearance or its backers' intentions); the donations to religious organizations demonstrate that respondents have separated the action from the actor. The evidence for my supposition is usually found in the legislative arena, where Left and Right each support policies inimical to their goals.
Of course, it might mean only that respondents tossed a nickel into a Salvation Army bucket, for appearance's sake.
Do you talk to your acquaintances about libertarianism?
What percentage (if any) respond favorably?
| Min | Max | Mean | Median | Mode |
| 0% | 95% | 37.2% | 30% | 50% |
Do you speak in public about libertarian ideas?
How many conferences, seminars, and conventions did you attend in the last year?
I think this question was too ambiguous to provide any solid data (even were our sample representative). Some respondents appeared to take it at face value, and included things like continuing education conferences. Other respondents appeared to assume that only events relevant to libertarianism, e.g.,
the 2008 Liberty Editors Conference, should be counted.
Both interpretations are natural; the question is simply not well phrased.
Are you a registered voter?
Are you a member of a political party? Which one?
Have you ever run for political office?
The commentary to the first Liberty Poll included some speculation as to its statistical validity as a tool for assessing the background and the views of the libertarian populace. It had none. As a tool for assessing readers of Liberty, it had almost none. The sample size was small, and (worse) not at all representative, unless by chance.
This, the third Liberty Poll, is no more valid than the first. We received more responses, but we have no reason to assume the respondents are typical Liberty readers. Quite the opposite — the mere fact that they filled out and mailed the survey sets them apart.
The responses to the three Liberty Polls have been fairly consistent in content. If we assume only that the subgroup of libertarians who respond to Liberty Polls has moved in the same direction as libertarian thought as a whole, the poll takes on some meaning. Alas, we have no justification for even that small assumption.
The questions are thought provoking, the responses sometimes more so. And the responses are entertaining. That should be enough.
|
|
