basskisser wrote:

It had the whiff of parody. Psychologists dissecting the conservative
brain?

A press release from UC Berkeley

Here's a REAL objective piece. Right from the heart of the bastion of
liberalism.


announced that researchers, culling
50 years of data, had identified psychological patterns common to the
minds of right-wingers. Their findings, published in the American
Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin, listed these
predictors of conservatism: fear, aggression, dogmatism,
authoritarianism, tolerance of inequality, intolerance of ambiguity,
resistance to change and Hardly a flattering portrait.

Let's assume for a second, that this is correct. And when taken against the
apparent liberal slant, which would then conversely imply that liberals are the
opposite of conservatives, and let's look at these elements:

Fear. No, not fear, respect. Respect is something that liberals know little of.
Indeed many long standing traditions and institutions are all comoing under
criticism by liberals, who do not understand the need for honoring traditions.
Liberals seemingly have forgotten the lessons of history, for which many of these
traditions have emerged, and instead are hell bent on reliving these lessons again.

Aggression. Hmmm. There's nothing more aggressive than a "liberal with a cause", even
if they cannot tell you the specifics of why they are protesting, or offer up any
counterpoints or alternative solutions.

Dogmatism. It's helpful to once again point out that since liberals do not respect
time honored institutions such as religion, they consider those who do, and their faith,
as "dogmatic". Indeed, religion has been the source of many wars and massacres throughout
history, but it has also been the foundation for a code of morality, and behavior, by
which a civilized society needs to function cohesively.

Authoritarianism. This boils down to the basics of human nature. Liberals believe that
people are all basically good, and if given the right opportunities, they will do the
right thing. Conservatives believe that there are truly "evil" people in the world who,
if given the opportunity, will rob you blind, or worse. Hence the need for an "authority"
to keep those who would cause harm to others, in a place where this cannot happen. The
opposite to authority is anarchy, which seems to be where liberals want to be, although
I honestly don't think that they have thouroughly analyzed the scope of that mindset, or
the implications.

Tolerance of Inequality. Wake up! While we are all human beings, that's about as far as
our equality goes. If you give people the freedom to make their own life choices, you
will have some who will go on to achieve great things. You will also have those who will
achieve little more than the creation of another generation of dependants. What liberals
call "equality", is artificial. A government mandated "leveler" which takes away from
those who achieve, to prop up those who don't. While this may make a bleeding heart feel
good, the results are empty, as the people they helped are no more motivated, and in fact
are more likely to become even more dependant on their "help". You have sentanced those
people to a life of depandance, and medicocrity. Sometimes a proverbial "kick in the pants"
is ultimately more helpful than throwing money. Call it "tough love".


Intolerance of Ambiguity. It's hard to make clear and decisive policies when the issues
are clouded by ambiguities. The idea of deliberate ambiguity defies logic. But logic is
the bane of the liberal mind. There is no place for ambiguities when you are doing such
things as balancing budgets, or passing laws which affect many people.
Most issues can be boiled down to concrete elements, which can be dealt with effectively.
Liberals, on the other hand, prefer to muddle down issues, with vagueness and ambiguity,
as they tend to distrust anything traditional, and ideas which are based on fact. It's hard
to argue with logic and facts. Since liberals are often motivated by emotional "needs"
rather than rational logic, this tendancy toward ambiguity, tends to become a sort of
defense mechanism for them.

Resistance to change. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes change isn't. There are extremes
on both sides. Generally speaking, things which are new, are not necessarily better, and
change for change sake, is not a rational justification for doing so. Once again, liberals
rally around this ideal as yet another attack on the foundations of tradition, which they
abhor on many levels. They're like the kid who can't cope with the rules of the game of
baseball, so they want to change them, rather than learning why the rules are there, and
the wisdom of those who created them.

Lack of "integrative complexity" in thought and speech. This is purely subjective. On the
one hand, I could counter that the deliberate introduction of "integrative complexity", is
the liberal term for intellectual snobbery. The deliberate "talking down" to constituents,
(the so-called "Al Gore Syndrome"). On the other hand, taking this newsgroup as a
representative sample of the two political ideologies, I see little distinctive
difference in the relative "complexity" in the arguments presented. Guys like Chuck, Mark,
and a few others, attempt to make good solid points, in defense of their "side". Then there
are guys like Harry, jps, and the latest incarnation of JimDandy, who offer up little
more than adhominem barbs, and the cut and pasted tripe from other equally clueless writers.
The same goes for the conservative side. There are those who look at the simple sound
byte issue, and those who look at the "bigger" picture.


The release pushed further, noting that "disparate conservatives" such
as Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh each preached a
return to an idealized past and condoned inequality.

Funny thing about the past, while there were members of special interest
groups, who may have felt disadvantaged, by and large, the rest of the
population did a whole lot better.

Dave