New Mere O friend John Schroeder of Blogotional is worried that I'm spending too much time in the ivory tower. Apparently, he thinks that I've spent so much time up there that he needs to point out when he's making jokes. Sadly, I do not spend nearly as much time in the cold academic tower as John thinks--would that I spent more time there!
He also points out this Taranto piece on the "Roe Effect." In essence, the "Roe Effect" claims that abortion will actually make the country more conservative, simply because conservative people are having the babies. I am interested in two key stats: (1) Are conservatives having more babies, and (2) do conservative children actually retain (on average) the conservativism of their parents. My hunch is that statistically, those children from conservative parents who attend college do not end conservative. I'm not much of a web researcher, but if anyone has seen numbers on where ages 18-22 fall politically, that might help determine whether Taranto's thesis has merit.