[quickthrowman]

I would characterize myself as left of center.

> 2004 election results,

GWB beat John Kerry in a fair election.

> efficacy of plastic recycling

Collecting plastic to recycle is almost certainly not worth the fuel and labor it takes, it gets landfilled more often than not. We’d be better off collecting only separated PET and HDPE and landfilling the rest.

> or dangers associated with nuclear power

Nuclear power is the safest method of power generation that uses steam or gas to spin a turbine.

[glenstein]

I'm also left to center and I agree with you on all three! I think left-wing examples are subtler and hard to identify. Even among among Democrats left of center types and liberals, the examples I cited are minority opinions, but likely to be systematically found on the left, a phenomenon which won't be negated by the self-report of one person correctly tracking the facts (and to be clear, I think you are correctly tracking the facts on each of these!).

[quickthrowman]

Agreed, I know a fair amount of left leaning people who think everything they put in a recycling bin is dutifully recycled down the line and that nuclear power is more dangerous than it actually is. People on the left (including myself!) can let their emotions outweigh factual evidence as easily as people on the right. I also agree that just because you and I are left leaning and understand the factual position on the examples you mentioned doesn’t mean much, we’ve both met plenty of counter examples to ourselves.

I suspect the left wing examples of believing an emotional argument instead of a factual one are more subtle because they aren’t as focused on negative emotions as right wing examples.