Apparently celebrating July 4th makes you into a Republican

According to Harvard anyway.

So apparently Harvard is one of the top universities in the world, but all of the articles I've found about this story online has yet to tell me of how they conducted this research or even link to the original research, so I find this study dubious at best (Like all studies! Wee!). Do you guys think that research may have a legitimate result? Or perhaps that correlation is being confused with causation?

And if any of you guys actually find some information direct from Harvard (since I can't seem to), could you possibly post it?

EDIT: And typo in the title. Ain't that grand?

edited 30th Jun '11 3:32:34 PM by Usht

"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats."

That doesn't seem very far off.

What? The party that blames publicly America for everything and wants to mimic Europe openly is the less patriotic one?

Something tells me tax money came up with this...

Wow, fucking rocket science from Harvard. I never would have drawn a connection between Nationalism and Conservatism, and then used that to form the idea that people who are really into celebrating the 4th of July are right wing!

I voted Democrat last election and I fully plan to celebrate this 4th of July to the fullest. :P

Doesn't help that many liberals spend more time feeling guilty about things our country has done than ever actually appreciating it, while Republicans are guiltless and celebrate anything and everything as a victory.

This country would rock if we could just get rid of the people.

edited 30th Jun '11 3:38:20 PM by Barkey

Probably because Republicans have a tendency to be more traditional in how they do stuff anyway. However, that still does not say anything about whether or not causation and correlation are getting switched here, which is what I'm concerned about.

Deux, doesn't that seem a bit, erm, conspiracy theory-ish?

edited 30th Jun '11 3:41:19 PM by Usht

Republicans are more likely to pander to the lowest common denominator? What a shocker.

It's not a conspiracy, it's just bias.

But didn't you folks here? TEXAS cancelled Fireworks! The HOUSE RAN OUT on their jobs while the Republicans stayed home and the Senate went to work!

OMG!

I think this should have been more appropriate if the study was "Do conservatives place more value on nationalism?"

Instead of "LIBERALS HATE 4TH OF JULY!"

I... don't get why they would draw that conclusion.

Might as well say something like 'Being a patriot means you're a Republican', and I can't fathom why you couldn't be a die-hard Democrat and be a die-hard patriot at the same time, or something. I don't think the Republicans have the market cornered for a love for their country - it's just that they express it in different ways, or whatever.

Me? I'd rather save my money than blow it up on fireworks. Besides, I got a nice view of the public stuff from my house.

Because, you know, 20th century neoconservative economics is what the founding fathers meant when they declared independance.

And anyway, here in Europe the left is less patriotic. Mostly, because we on the left don't consider "nationalism" as a valid political solution to all/any pproblem. It's not the size of the flagpole that matters.

Celebrating the 4th of July doesn't make you the lowest common denominator.

Can we knock off the flame bait generalisations in here?

About both sides, I mean.

Seriously.

There are people who don't celebrate the 4th of July?

I only have the vaguest Eagleland-y idea of what anything in America might actually be like, but if it were my country, I'd have thought Independence Day would be a pretty big deal for everyone. Not something for parties to squabble over and claim for their own.

edited 30th Jun '11 3:49:48 PM by Jinren

...The conclusion they post really confuses me... Its entirely possible to criticize something and still love it, so I don't see how this means that republicans are instantly more patriotic or that patriotism makes republicans...

While republicans are more likely to think america is better than other nations, its entirely possible to love the nation and think its not the best...

@Jirren:

July 4th, or Independence Day was when the Declaration of Independence was signed. It originally served as a reminder to citizens of the United States that freedom and equality is not easily earned and must be constantly fought for on both the political and war front. Beyond that, can't say, haven't lived in the United States since I was wee little, so it's probably gained various new meanings to different people as they aged.

In retrospect, I've got to agree with Thorn, the research just probably shows Republicans are more likely to celebrate the 4th of July.

edited 30th Jun '11 3:58:51 PM by Usht

When I was in the States, I celebrated the fourth of July, and I was an America-hating socialist commie teenager brat. And Brit. That was before the age of fourteen, when I started to see what was so great about the place. Then I spent two years celebrating the fourth of July despite being just a left-wing socialist commie teenager brat!

4

I don't celebrate it. Or any other holiday. I don't care about any of them.

If we wanted to talk about LCD, I'd mention:

A fetish-like love for NASCAR, worship of Dale Earnhardt, people who still think wrestling is real, people who buy their "individuality" out of a store and other trend-humping fashion lemmings, flag-slathered morans (spelling error intentional), people who fly a miniature American flag from their car until it looks like total stale butt-crack, people who only by Real American(TM) things, despite a lot of those things being made in Mexico and not bothering to check, and people who will only buy Chevy, Ford or Dodge because "we don't want any of that foreign crap on the roads".

I could go on for a while, but I'll leave it at that.

I'm a liberal shit (from a conservative military family) and I damn sure will be celebrating July 4th. I would be celebrating it with shit tons of fireworks, booze, and all the necessaries of such a glorious American celebration, but sadly I cannot buy booze at my age and fireworks are ILLEGAL out here. But we'll do the best we can dammit. THERE WILL BE MANY FLAGS AND MUCH FOOD AND MUCH SHOUTING OF AWESOME THINGS.

And there isn't going to be a fireworks show in the mountains funded by the city because we lack the funds to do that and have our fancy ass concert or whatever else we do.

I am sad about that...

No explosions...

;_;

edited 30th Jun '11 4:08:12 PM by Aondeug

Not even public stuff? Sucks. The public big-booms are the best.

Well, there's always the illegal stuff (anything that leaves the ground), but they've really been cracking down on that here.

Hey, question for those native to the United States, does Fourth of July have any particular meaning to you guys?

edited 30th Jun '11 4:11:43 PM by Usht

Yeah it's lame...

Like the only good thing about living in Adelanto was that you could buy and set off fireworks by yourself legally. We'd spend what we could to buy a shit ton of things. The neighbors too. We'd get together and set off all our stuff and get drunk and eat and it is glorious.

Some big displays happen too.

Usht: Other than "This is a very special day to the country that I was born in, grew up in, and has helped make me what I am" not really. The Fourth is the only day I get even remotely patriotic and WHOO feeling about America. Usually I just sort of go on with life and don't care too much.

It's a lot like many other holidays to me. The general people doing shit together thing is more important to me than the actual day's purpose. Which isn't to say that that isn't a thing for me, again it's the only day where I really give a shit about PATRIOTISM, but mostly it's just "PEOPLE GET TOGETHER AND HAVE FUN".

edited 30th Jun '11 4:15:41 PM by Aondeug

Hmm, okay. I figured if I had stuck around in the United States, I'd be celebrating it out of appreciation for whatever that country has given me (which is to say, probably education, freedom, and such), or you know, the same reason for why I like the country I'm currently living in. Which in turn is why I think Republicans have a tendency to celebrate July 4th more, because they value such things more, a more traditional sort of view and adherence. And since children can be Republican or Democratic at a young age, I'm pretty sure these attitudes carry over.

Plus that two percent mentioned in the article strikes me as very within the realms of error, but again, I have not viewed the original research.

edited 30th Jun '11 4:27:48 PM by Usht

I'm about as loyal to America as I am to Japan and Britain, which is to say, based off the media they provide me. If everything that I liked had actually been made in Canada, I'd like Canada.

4th of July, to me, is a chance to eat multicolored-berry popsicles and watch really awesome fireworks with my friends.

I honestly don't care either way. The only thing I celebrate about Independence Day is that I have a reason for sleeping in. I do like those poppers though.

And my dad is basically one of those NASCAR watching, buy American, hating foreign cars type of people. He almost had a fit when he found out my car (a Chevy, no less) had a Suzuki motor.