is berkely all that liberal?

andrewtdx
Wed, 05 Jul 2006 04:02:53 +0000

Berkeley isn’t overly liberal. I’m probably one of the most politically incorrect people you’ll ever meet. That’s not to say I’m out and out racist, bigoted, or insensitive. I just think sometimes the ‘PC dialogue’ doesn’t get to the point and you need to attack probelms at the roots rather than look at the face value and there are heavy double standards in the world of political correctness. Sure, not being totally PC gets me in trouble sometimes, but my ideas are reasoned from experience, living in other countries, and seeing how other parts of the world work. And since there was about 2000 students polled in that, I’d say that’s about a little more than half to 2/3 of the Freshman class. Isn’t there like 3000-3500 freshman each year? There are a lot of factors that affect your political views too. Many of the kids come from secular, middle-class families, which tend to be more moderate and liberal.

Experiences also shape political views. I think they should take a poll and look at the outgoing seniors as a comparison. I wonder how many more liberals and conservatives you’ll find in that group, since the senior class is much larger. Many of my friends that have been at Cal a long time, or transfered from Community Colleges tend to lean a bit more to the right than the general freshman population, or so it seems. There is definitely a correlation between education level of the parents and the tendency towards Left or Right. Berkeley also probably attracts more students that identify themselves a liberal and moderate.

The problem with the poll is it only looks at the Freshman Class and not the general student body, so I don’t think it is really indicative of the leanings of the university’s student body. Agan, I’d be curious to see how many seniors identify as liberal, moderate and conservative, in comparison to the Freshmen.