I always wondered why so many seniors vote Republican when there economic interests including the Stock Market profits are better served by voting for Democrats. Look at the records. Just about all the stock market and economic downturns are due to Republicans increasing the profits of the rich at the expense of the rest of us.
The Nov/Dec 2010 issue of www.sciam.com/mind has an interesting article titled “When Character Crumbles” By Ingfei Chen about Frontal-Temporal Dementia, Not memory loss as in Alzheimer's Disease or Age related Dementia both related to very low density lipoproteins. Genetic Alzheimer's disease early onset is due their inability to metabolize this fat. It is quite possible that this same fat produced in the liver when we consume high amounts of fructose sugar from corn could be responsible for the correlation being obesity and dementia.
The writer covers only the worse cases, but like autism, the degree of severity may vary. I have noticed this among by old relatives over the years where they switch from being social to being a lot more cantankerous.
Perhaps their voting patterns reflect a high degree of selfishness and antisocial attitude. They also seem to be very susceptible to fear. I previously attributed this to a fear of death, but perhaps it is a disease.
Republicans tend to make good or even great warriors because survival requires instinctive immediate response to danger. Those who think too much die.
This character crumbling disease is a dementia that erodes the prefrontal cortex, the executive branch of the brain. It controls our emotions so we generally behave better. We saw the behavior of many Republicans in the so-called independent tea parties where emotional control was lacking.
Highly religious individuals also lack a strong prefrontal cortical control as we see so many Priests and Evangelicals fall prey to their inappropriate sexual instincts. A much higher rate of adultery, unmarried pregnancies, and divorce occur in the Evangelical south than in the more liberal northeast.
Perhaps we should strongly consider a test before seniors are allowed to vote in the same way we use age to not permit those under eighteen to vote because they are not mature enough. Perhaps many seniors are too mature with dementia.
Jim Kawakami, Nov 18, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2010
Wikipedia: The 2010 United States House of Representatives elections were held on November 2, 2010, halfway through President Barack Obama's first term in office. Elections were held for all 435 seats, representing the 50 U.S. states.
Republicans made a net gain of 64 seats from Democrats and retook control of the chamber which they lost in the 2006 midterm elections. This number is the highest of any House victory for a single party since 1948, and the highest of any midterm election since 1938.[4][5] While the party controlling the White House usually loses seats in a midterm election, losses for the Democratic Party were above average and were attributed to high unemployment (which averaged close to 10% for the year) caused by the Financial crisis of 2007–2010, the passage of the controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,[6] low Republican exposure (they had lost a total of 55 seats to the Democrats in the previous two elections) and higher than usual voter turnout of older and more conservative voters (25% of all electorate in this cycle were 65 and older).[7] Overall turnout was over 3% higher than in the last midterm elections.
The winners of this election cycle will serve in the 112th United States Congress. This is expected to be the last congressional election using congressional districts apportioned based on the 2000 United States Census. …
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