Tom, I think the predominant cause of people moving towards conservatism in their later years is purely caused by a changing environment, not because of some increased knowledge.

Pure and simple it generally boils down to the fact that one's children are out of the house and on their own and the adults no longer have to worry about their well-being. No longer does public education matter to them since they're children won't be needing it. Maybe their grandchildren will but I think there's this tendency to believe that you've done your part and it's time for the next generation to take over.

The other factor is that generally with age, one moves up in wealth and possessions and there becomes this defensive and often greedy condition that makes these people start looking at everyone around them wanting too big a piece of it. It's a natural reaction as you accumulate more and more stuff. What some of these folks forget is that it's our social system that created the environment that allowed them to accumulate wealth in the first place and that in all fairness society can demand a part of that back to continue the cycle.

Another phenomena is the approach of death. As that looms closer and closer, people start grasping for straws and, in my opinion one of those straws is religion and a belief in the afterlife. I think many of the Christian churches are diabolical about this phenomena. Instead of stressing the giving part of Christianity that would lend itself well to continued liberalism, churches often go down the dark side, politicising their messages and trying to move their flock to the right and to break down the separation of church and state.

The last factor moving people to the right is the loss of sexuality. If you look at the physical makeup of elderly Republicans you see many of them used up physically. They are often obese and often chain smokers. The men frequently have lost their hair which can erode their sexual attractiveness. It's a natural human tendency to become a bit jealous when others around you are getting it and you're not. Enter the moral majority. If you're not having fun then nobody should be. Let's start putting yardsticks between lap dancers and their audience. Gays? Crap, they're obviously sexually active. Must be sinful and should be stopped. Abortion? Hell, we don't care about the fetus. We just want people having sex to be scared crapless about getting pregnant and having unwanted kids.

There are other factors too. The list goes on. All I can tell you is that the elderly people I truly like have not changed their political feelings just because their lives have changed. They don't seem old. They know that their responsibility towards American society goes beyond their own family dynamics and are proud to know their taxes are goind to help others.

Yeah Tom, the political dynamic generally moves to the right with age but it has nothing to do with intelligence only our own human shortcomings.

Art