Tempus Fugit

U.S. Soldiers are Democrat?

Don Myers makes an asinine (more so than usual) statement about the military:

Republicans start wars, but Democrats fight them

CaptainNormal: “The bluer the state, the more dead soldiers.”

His “proof” is a map of the US with the locations of soldiers who have died fighting in Iraq marked with dots. Surprise, surprise, there are huge clusters around L.A., Chicago, and New York City… states that leaned Democrat in the last election.

Where do you even start with such a dishonest claim? First, blue states aren’t comprised totally of Democrat voters. New York leaned to Kerry with 59%, California to Kerry with 54%, and Illinois to Kerry with 55%. You can’t assume that someone coming from one of those states is a Democrat. Second, there is a reason that so many soldiers are coming from those areas… tens of millions of people live there! The population density in those areas is way higher than it is in Kansas or North Dakota.

Of course, there are polls to gauge the political makeup of the army that you can go look at if you’d be willing to pause your game of “pin the tail on the blue/red map” for a minute or two. Here’s one. For the enlisted: Republican: 49% Democrat: 16%. Even higher for officers. Here’s another: Troops in Survey back Bush 4-to-1 over Kerry.

The polls vary quite a bit, but they generally show that the military favors Republicans between 1.5 and 5 times as much as Democrats.

Sometimes it’s good to question your marching orders.

Update: MaxManX writes in with a link to a casualty map done with Google Maps.