American value shifts? Gone are the days when liberals or conservatives would advocate that the government stay out of…well, anything. A new poll suggests that maybe this political impulse is rooted in a deeper values shift. Only 58 percent of those surveyed said tolerance for others is a very important value, down from 80 percent who said as much four years ago.
The latest Wall Street Journal-NORC poll found other shifts in public opinion as well. For instance, just 38 percent of respondents said patriotism was very important to them and just 39 percent said the same about religion, down from 70 percent and 62 percent in 1998, when the question was first asked. "The share of Americans who say that having children, involvement in their community and hard work are very important values has also fallen," the Journal reports.
