Why do unrelated issues correlate?

Without getting into how one feels about the issues, why do so many issues divide so evenly on the left or right? For example, here are some unrelated issues:

NOTE: "Yes" and "no" are in different colums to show left-right divide

Government Health care: No Yes
Gun Control Yes No
Keystone XL Pipeline No Yes
Increase Tax Rates Yes No
Gay Marrige Yes No
Abolish Electoral College Yes No
Restrictions on Abortion No Yes
Missile Defense No Yes

Now, these issues should be unrelated on the surface. But my guess is if you ask people to circle one or the other choice that most people would have one or the other column circled. Why do you think this is?

I just ask myself wwjd.
There are may more people between yes and no than you present.
The world is not always as binary as portrayed.

I THINK MAYBE 4 BIG REASONS

1. Many people accept talking points from their party because they are too lazy to find out a lot of the facts on their own
2. People enjoy being the devils advocate / opposing what the other guy says
3. Political parties promote a stance to pander to fringe voter blocks or organizations .... then table issue after the elections... eventually the issue becomes a "trait" of the party when the party has no earnest intention of following through on the issue.

Great topic. I'd throw in some other controversial stuff like death penalty, affirmative action, hate crime laws, abortion. I guess the list is endless. I really appreciate it when a politician goes out on a limb and embraces a position anathema to his party. (Sen Reid is a pro-lifer; Sarah Palin has criticized our drug laws; Chris Christie supports Muslim civil rights.)

The only reason the Electoral College is on that list is because of Bush v Gore in 2000. I'll bet if you had polled folks in 1999, their opinion on the Electoral College would not be so partisan.

Muslims civil rights ? you mean the Muslim civil rights groups who protest this NY subway ad to have it removed. Yet have radical Muslims preach extremists views.

" “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”"

Basically the answer is philosophical view of the world and ideal society.

Traditionally, the two major spectrums are personal freedom and economic freedom.

Liberals tend to be in favor of more personal freedoms and less freedoms for corporations and businesses. The extreme example of this is communism.

Conservatives tend to the opposite, more freedom for businesses and less for individuals. The extreme example of this is facism.

Libertarians like more freedoms on BOTH spectrums. The extreme example of this is anarchy.

Statists (which are rare) prefer less freedom on both spectrums.

How sweet to have everyone labeled so nicely on a site titled. Diversity Tomorrow. Sounds like you mean the century after tomorrow.

I've only got 2 yes votes on that list.

Quote: AZDuffman

Without getting into how one feels about the issues, why do so many issues divide so evenly on the left or right? For example, here are some unrelated issues:

That's interesting. Consider evironmental protection issues. While one group supports saving the animals from total destruction, another group promotes saving them to be able to shoot them each year.

We're basically all into saving the animals!

Quote: rxwine

That's interesting. Consider evironmental protection issues. While one group supports saving the animals from total destruction, another group promotes saving them to be able to shoot them each year.

We're basically all into saving the animals!

In Texas there is one of the most successful places on earth at saving endangered animals. It does so by allowing paid hunting.