Stitch on 30/6/2006 at 15:20

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The thing is you handled Carl and didn't let it get to be an issue with us. We were basically united and he was bouncing around like some frustrated, vindictive imp but in the end it didn't matter as you and I had each other and we both knew that. We were on each other's team.

Briareos H on 30/6/2006 at 17:17

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NO U :mad:

TheGreatGodPan on 30/6/2006 at 21:23

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The Political Economy of Beliefs:
Why Do Fiscal and Social Conservatives/Liberals Come Hand-in-Hand?

Daniel L. Chen and Jo T. Lind

July 2005


Abstract

Religious intensity as social insurance may explain why fiscal and social conservatives and fiscal and social liberals come hand-in-hand. We find evidence that religious groups with greater within-group charitable giving are more against the welfare state and more socially conservative. The alliance reverses (social conservatives become fiscal liberals) for members of a state church and this reversal is unlikely to be driven by omitted environmental variables: increases in church-state separation precede increases in the alliance between fiscal and social conservatism. The theory provides a novel explanation for religious history: as elites gain access to alternative social in surance, they legislate increasing church-state separation to create a constituency for lower taxes. This holds if religious voters exceed non-religious voters, otherwise, elites prefer less church-state separation in order to curb the secular left, generating multiple equilibria where some countries sustain high church-state separation, high religiosity, and low welfare state, and vice versa. We use this framework to explain the chang ing nature of religious movements, from Social Gospel to the religious right, and why church-state separation arose in the US but not in many European countries.
From abolition to woman suffrage to civil rights, the leaders of America's most successful liberal crusades have turned to the Bible to justify their causes, but the history of the religious left seems to stop in 1968, the starting point of a decades long trend by which Democrats have become the secular party and the Republicans the religious party (Lizza 2005).

1 Introduction

Why do fiscal and social conservatives and fiscal and social liberals come hand-in-hand in the times and places that they do? Today, some argue that depending on the welfare state is the same as worshipping the government as if it were God. In the US, welfare support decreases and self-identified fundamentalism increases with religious attendance.

In contrast to the Social Gospel movement of the early 1900s (Fogel 2000) or the Christian Democratic party in some European countries, contemporary religious groups tend to emphasize individual responsibility at the expense of the welfare state. No obvious theory explains why political alliances align along one diagonal in a matrix of fiscal and social attitudes. Religious intensity as social insurance provides a simple explanation. The religious right may be against welfare because it competes against their constituency.
This paper seeks to explain three puzzles. First, why fiscal and social conservatism align together in most countries is puzzling since the fiscal libertarianism espoused by the Republican party could be a good fit with an equally libertarian position on issues of personal choice such as abortion. Second, why fiscal and social conservatism did not align together in the past or in some countries today presents another puzzle. Fiscal separation between church and state is key: welfare is not competitive against the religious right when government funding can be targeted to state churches. Third, why some countries separated church and state but not others presents the final puzzle. Elites are incentivized to separate church and state when alternative social insurance become available and the relative weight of religious constituencies is large. Religious constituencies shift to fiscal conservatism, creating pressure for a smaller welfare state, which in turn increases religious constituencies and closes the model.
The hypothesis that the religious right may be against welfare because it competes against their constituency leads to several theoretical predictions. Religious groups with greater within-group charitable giving would be more against the welfare state and more socially conservative. However, were the government to be fundamentalist or church-state separation not exist as is the case in many developing and some developed countries, the alliance would reverse: social conservatives would be fiscal liberals. This will be particularly true for members of the state church. Without fiscal separation between church and state, the welfare state can directly assist state churches. Increasing fiscal separation between church and state should be correlated with increasing strength between fiscal and social conservatism.
We use this theory to provide a novel explanation of religious history. As credit markets develop, elites gain access to alternative social insurance and prefer to opt out of religious and government insurance. They increase church-state separation to turn previously pro-welfare religious groups against welfare, creating a constituency for lower taxes. But this incentive to increase church-state separation exists only if religious voters exceed non-religious voters, whose tax preferences shift in the opposite direction. If non-religious constituencies are large enough, elites prefer less church-state separation in order to curb the secular left.
We close the model with a simple observation. Countries with high religious weight increase church-state separation and shrink the welfare state, which induces marginal members seeking insurance to become more religious, creating a positive feedback. Multiple equilibria arise where some countries sustain high religiosity, high church-state separation, and low welfare state, and vice versa. At the other equilibrium, elites in countries with low religious weight prefer to decrease church-state separation to curb the demand for welfare by non-religious groups, but a smaller welfare state would induce marginal members seeking insurance to become more religious, creating a negative feedback. The negative feedback reduces the initial incentive to decrease church-state separation and stabilizes countries with low initial religious weight at low church-state separation, low religiosity, and high welfare state.
Interestingly, temporary shifts in any of these factors, credit availability or religious intensity, can cause countries to permanently shift from one steady state to another, important for understanding the dynamics of credit market access, theocracy, and fundamentalism in developing and reconstructing war-torn countries. For example, economic sanctions may increase theocratic tendencies in religious countries if elites are restricted from international capital markets and lose alternative social insurance. In this case, the story reverses: elites decrease church-state separation if religious voters exceed non-religious ones to increase the constituency for a high degree of government-cum-religious insurance.
Data from the US and across the world confirm these propositions. The US General Social Survey and World Values Survey show that fiscal and social conservatism and fiscal and social liberalism do tend to come hand-in-hand. Church attendance is strongly correlated with social conservatism as well as fiscal conservatism. The fraction of charitable giving contributed to religion is monotonically increasing in conservatism: Mormons (0.91), Evangelical Protestant (0.82), Mainline Protestant (0.62), Catholic (0.51), Other (0.50), Jewish (0.40), and None (0.40). Within-group giving is strongly correlated with fiscal conservatism as well as social conservatism. Across the world, church attendance strongly predicts decreasing support for government welfare as well as increasing social conservatism. The relationship between church attendance and fiscal conservatism is weaker in countries without church-state separation. Church attendance predicts increasing support for welfare if the individual is a member of the state church.
Data from Supreme Court decisions indicate increasing separation between church and state precede increases in the alliance between fiscal and social conservatism. Church attendance predicts Republican voting but the strength of this relationship was declining before 1980 and has sharply increased ever since. Changes in church-state separation are measured by the net number of Supreme Court decisions on prayer in public schools, religious meetings in public schools, and the like. (To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first data to quantify the degree of church-state separation within the US.) Monthly church attendance in the US was 57% in 1972 but has declined to 45% in 2000, dipping below 50% in 1992, consistent with the contemporaneous force to decrease church-state separation as measured
by judicial decisions and contemporary debate. European countries that never separated church and state do in fact have lower church attendance and larger welfare state.
Why did the Social Gospel movement become the religious right? More precisely, why is it that religious groups that once led the welfare movement around the world (e.g. Social Gospel in the US and Christian Democrats in Europe) have become or been replaced by the religious right in the US, where religious groups prefer to dismantle the welfare state? In the absence of church-state separation, religious insurance groups are incentivized to expand the welfare state as it allows them to attain greater participation by others, which expands their budget set. However, as credit markets expand, elites desire less social insurance. In countries with high religiosity like the US, elites increase church-state separation, thereby creating the religious right, who want less welfare. This creates a self-sustaining cycle of high religiosity, high church-state separation, and low welfare provision. Why did church-state separation arise in the US but not in many European countries? In many European countries with low initial religiosity, elites never increased church-state separation, to curb the appetite of the secular left. This creates a stable equilibrium with low religiosity, low church-state separation, and high welfare provision.

Kalit on 30/6/2006 at 22:30

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A local music forum, their was a thread about Wrestling, and I just figured out that almost all of them are in love with John Cena.. I fucking hate him.

SD on 1/7/2006 at 03:13

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Hatem Trabelsi (Arabic: حاتم الطرابلسي) (born January 25, 1977 in Ariana, Tunisia) is a Tunisian football player, who currently plays for Ajax Amsterdam.

Trabelsi was part of the Tunisian national team at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, as well as the 2004 African Nations Cup. He is widely considered to be one of the world's best right defenders, who is very offensive and directing his team's attacks. He is praised for his quickness and agility in particular. He can also play in the centre of defence, and reportedly Arsenal and Liverpool as well as many premiership clubs have shown interest in him.