Depending on your political persuasion and your views on booze, you may or may not like the results of a new study that finds folks in left-leaning states enjoy hard liquor more than those in conservatives states.
A new study from the Journal of Wine Economics shows that states that lean left tend to consume more spirits and beer than states with a more conservative bent.
Two economists from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh reviewed data from 1952 to 2010, comparing relative shipments of alcohol that arrived in each state with “citizen ideologies,” determined by factors such as vote results for congressional races. “Holding everything else constant, our findings suggest that when a state becomes more liberal politically, its population consumes more beer and spirits per capita,” the authors write. New Hampshire residents, for instance, swill far more hard liquor per capita than Americans making their homes in Utah and Arkansas…
I know what you’re thinking–Who cares if liberals drink more? It’s somewhat understandable, given the innumerable failures of the massive government programs they’ve placed all their hope in–the welfare state, the healthcare debacle, the NSA scandal.
On top of all that there’s the recent cancellation of Katie Couric’s talk show and you’ve got reason enough for any liberal to want to drown his sorrows in a bottle.
The truly alarming question that arises from this story is this: Can there really be such a thing as the “Journal of Wine Economics?”
If so, who reads it?
This may be the worst evidence yet of the problem of academic hyper-specialization.
Next, we will hear of the Journal of White Wine Economics, the Journal of Red Wine Economics–and one for Champagne too, if you please.
I don’t know about you, but I would rather talk to a tipsy liberal than a contributor to the Journal of Wine Economics.
It seems these days that there is an academic specialty for everything.
Eventually, there will be an academic journal and PhD program for every beverage on the planet. Journal of Kool-Aid, anyone?
It’s enough to drive a man to drink.
Nathan Harden is editor of The College Fix and author of the book SEX & GOD AT YALE: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad.
Follow Nathan on Twitter @NathanHarden
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