You Don't Know What 'Libertarian' Means

[OnyxCollie]

9. Most people don't know what "Liberal" means, either.

The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics
http://ftp.voteview.com/The_Nature_of_Belief_Systems_in_Mass_Publics_Converse_1964.pdf

Converse: The nature of belief systems in mass publics
http://wikisum.com/w/Converse:_The_nature_of_belief_systems_in_mass_publics

A great majority of people neither adhere to a full, complete set of beliefs which produces a clear ideology nor do they have a clear grasp of what ideology is. This is measured by a lack of coherence in responses to open-ended questions. Ideology of elites is not mirrored by the masses and voter revolt to a political party does not reflect ideological shifts.

Converse analyzes open-ended interview questions to measure conceptualization of ideology. He concludes that the liberal-conservative continuum is a high level abstraction not typically used by the man in the street because of response instability and lack of connections made between answers. There is no underlying belief structure for most people, just a bunch of random opinions. Even on highly controversial, well-publicized issues, large portions of the electorate do not have coherent opinions. In fact, many simply answer survey questions as though they are flipping a coin.