Comments on: Interesting Demographic Data on the Army

By: fdafdas

fdafdas — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 05:30:45 +0000

This poll was done by the Heritage Foundation... that's really all you need to know.

By: Max Lybbert

Max Lybbert — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 18:08:56 +0000

You’re right, that’s not what I meant, but it is an interesting point.

I was simply remembering something I read in “Lies My Teacher Told Me” where Americans were told the overall support/lack of support for Viet Nam in one year, and asked to break down the support in the broad “rich” and “poor” categories. They were also told that if one of those categories had more support for the war than the average, then the other category would need to have less support.

And, of course, most respondents assumed the poor supported Viet Nam, and the rich did not. Why? Because today we think that not supporting the war was “right,” and we assume the rich would make that choice. When we learn that the rich supported Viet Nam, we can figure out why (i.e., opposition to communism), but it’s kinda strange.

Same book referred to a “study” some students did that involved driving around town in a cheap car and a luxury car, and not moving when the light turned green until somebody honked. People routinely waited five seconds longer to honk at the luxury car. Hmm.

I’m not saying that the rich are smart, although it does seem that smarter people have a better chance of becoming rich (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=129). I’m saying that people tend to assume that the rich are smarter.

By: Alina Adams

Alina Adams — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 13:32:48 +0000

A friend of the family, born, raised and still living in Harlem is also in the Army Reserve and often does recruiting, and he says they don’t even bother recruiting in Harlem anymore, because they’re not getting the education (note to potential flamers, I said “education” not “intelligence” level) that today’s Army needs.

By: Jody

Jody — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 04:52:58 +0000

Playing off Max’s comment in a way that he perhaps did not intend, assuming a correlation between income and intelligence (which I do assume), the army’s increased intelligence standards for volunteers should have the effect of selecting for greater income.

By: Max Lybbert

Max Lybbert — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 19:29:23 +0000

I think there's an underlying belief that rich people are smarter than poor folks, and as such only poor people would actually volunteer for the army.

Just like many people are surprised to learn that rich people overwhelmingly supported the Viet Nam war. Over the years, supporting Viet Nam has become the "wrong position," and it surprises people to learn that *rich* people supported that.