Sociologist favor Socialism

NYTimes Magazine this Sunday had a piece by some psychology professors that has some really 'interesting' (and by interesting I mean off their rocker nuts) inferences from various 'studies' (and by studies I mean, silly exercises intended to confirm their own established biases and suppositions).

(and they are social psychologist, so I use the term sociologists loosely just to make the title fit. They never actually come out in favor of socialism, but the alternatives to all this awful choice we are faced with would be a benign governmental influence choosing the best possible choices for the confused populace)

You say I see statists everywhere and fools everywhere, well read this paragraph and tell me that this isn't a load of whatever colorful metaphor you wish to use to describe a heaping mound of excrement:

We also analyzed how freedom and choice are presented in one of our most pervasive and influential cultural products: popular songs. In every region, Americans with higher education and higher incomes typically prefer rock music over country. We found that rock lyrics had a lot more talk of choice, control and self-expression, as in the Rolling Stones' refrain, "'Cause I'm free to do what I want any old time." But when we analyzed country music, preferred over rock by less-educated Americans in every region, we heard more mentions of self-protection and defense, as in Darryl Worley's observation, "We didn't get to keep [our freedom] by backin' down." When choice was mentioned, it was often as a prelude or coda to tragedy, as in George Jones's lament "Now I'm living and dying with the choices I've made."

At this blog they attack the piece for purely linguistic reasons (though they suspect the editors are at fault, but when you read the content of the piece, I think the writers themselves are likely to have made the error).

And I'm hoping Virginia Postrel will be moved to read this and rip all of these fools new ones.

One last thing, maybe they listened to a lot of Devo back in the day.

a victim of collision on the open sea
nobody ever said that life was free
sank, swam, go down with the ship
but use your freedom of choice

i'll say it again in the land of the free
use your freedom of choice
your freedom of choice

in ancient rome there was a poem
about a dog who found two bones
he picked at one
he licked the other
he went in circles
he dropped dead

freedom of choice
is what you got
freedom of choice!

then if you got it you don't want it
seems to be the rule of thumb
don't be tricked by what you see
you got two ways to go

i'll say it again in the land of the free
use your freedom of choice
freedom of choice

freedom of choice
is what you got
freedom of choice!

in ancient rome
there was a poem
about a dog
who found two bones
he picked at one
he licked the other
he went in circles
he dropped dead

freedom of choice
is what you got
freedom from choice
is what you want
(repeat)