BTW, all of my engineering friends and relatives (whowork for a private sector) are liberals. Way more more liberal than Iam...

you have a strange bunch of friends. Statistically most of us are not liberal.. in fact i would say among engineers i know ( and that even in a liberal mecca known as NYC ) probably less then 20% would consider themselves liberal.

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

Most of my coworkers and people with whom I associate with are liberal and a large % of them are software engineers. In addition
in my view the techs do much better under Democrats than Republicans. You can go back and see in the chart, using any statistical data. I consider myself progressive liberal.

you have a strange bunch of friends.
:-) I have a good friend and a neighbor who is very conservative -- and there is probably one guy in my wife's company who's conservative (in her building). There could be others.. :-)
Thing is, even my most conservative friends are willing to have a good discussion and not talk in slogans or call names... maybe there are not true conservatives? :-)

Thing is, even my most conservative friends are willing to have a good discussion and not talk in slogans
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excellent point! It takes closer conservative, who's extended family is collecting "welfare" to call names! I see this all the time. They bring their grand parents put them in subsidized housing, collecting social security etc.. But they become ultra conservative when time comes to pay taxes

Thing is, even my most conservative friends are willing to have a good discussion and not talk in slogans
I would say the same about my liberal friends .
Talking in slogans is mostly reserved for internet and tv

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

I don't have liberal friends at all :'( kinda by choice .. enough to have them as co-workers, makes life work interesting .. (ch)

political leanings of my friends don't affect our friendship.. although i only have 1 friend who voted for Obama and we do make fun of him on a regular basis..

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

The only thing I don't like about Obama is his stand on Iran and I don't like the changes in our relationship with Israel. Other than that I agree with most everything else and I didn't even vote for him!

political leanings of my friends don't affect our friendship.
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that shows intelligence!

political leanings of my friends don't affect our friendship..
it's not only about how people vote .. eventhough not always true, I find that people's mindset/values are often different .. I did have liberal friends from San Fran (they were my friends from the old country).. once they came over for a 10 day vacation to my house, it was the last time we spoke .. the attitude was the one shown in Berkley students - vacation is a right, thus should be paid for and serviced by the government hosts .. :-)
on topic - all the critique of the intellectuals is done by other intellectuals .. so it's not like ignorant people don't them, it's the people who are capable of analysis see how absurd and sometimes dangerous their many ideas have been ..