When you think, you go left

[ochazuke]

Conservatives have been complaining that so many Supreme Court Justices let more liberal after being appointed. It's been happening since at least Eisenhower. None of the Nixon-Ford-Regan-Bush appointees became more conservative.

Conservatives complain about how liberal academia is, too. An overwhelming majority of college professors identify themselves as liberal. And conservatives think this is unfair or unbalanced.

The common thread here? When you are FREE TO THINK, you will become more liberal in your thinking. It is the natural and inevitable course of intellectual history.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I do believe you are right

I had posted on another board about my hopes that whoever gets appointed would be like Earl Warren, but hadn't stopped to wonder why that Chief Justice turned out to be far more liberal than anticipated. You have supplied the reason. Thank you.

[Mythsaje]

2. The more information you have

the more comparisons you can make. It's easy for the ignorant to be conservative--they have no way to contrast their worldview with someone else's.

The informed and educated can see the thread of history, of interrelationships of culture and society, and understand that nothing is as simple as it appears on the surface.

Educated conservatives are a different breed entirely...they're conservative because they're selfish, not because they're ignorant.

[Mr_Spock]

3. Yes, they say they are for education, but actually they HAVE to be against

it. Ignorant people are their base. The more educated a person becomes, the more liberal they become - it's not only a fact, but it defines the term liberal in many way as we are people who think before we act (not mindless reptile brained conservatives). Our founding fathers were thinkers and it's why we have a working liberal democracy today...

[ochazuke]

4. I think you hit on something with the reptile brain.

When you get tenure or a lifetime appointment with no possibility of futher advancement, the R-brain can retire.

[unblock]

5. this is a good observation, but there is a complicating factor

namely that there are some very strong thinkers on the rightwing side. mostly they work behind the scenes, because they understand that this is an anti-intellectual country, particularly when it comes to politics. by and large we prefer our politicians to be ethical rather than smart, and for some bizarre reason, people think that less smart people aren't devious enough to pull off something unethical.

anyway, what the right wing does is set up intellectual traps for the strong thinkers. they give them an internally consistent framework for understanding the world in a right-wing favorable sense, and let them employ their grey cells within the framework. a true genius would recognize the bogus assumptions in these frameworks, but once you accept the premises, you're struck.

ayn rand's objectivism (charity weakens people, etc.) is one such framework; the traditional, conservative microeconomic analysis (fully informed, rational people exerting supply and demand forces set market-clearing prices, therefore whatever happens in the marketplace is best) is another.

i've personally known some fairly towering intellectuals who were stuck in that place.

[whatever4]

6. Also in all this mix

Is the fact that there are social issues with conservative or liberal views and also economic issues with corresponding conservative and liberal views, but they're not always the same people. As a libertarian (boo hiss, I know, but I'm here nonetheless), I'd say I'm a social liberal, but a economic conservative. It always seems to put me in an awkward position. I don't know how many others might feel the same.

Nowadays, I just say I'm a liberal. Because...it just doesn't matter what the differences are between my economic positions and the traditional liberal ones. Current politics in this nation seem to render all the differences meaningless. Either a person believes in the current admin and their goals, or, you don't. If you don't believe, if you don't share their faith, they've certainly lumped YOU into one big group of "others". And so, AS a member of others, it only makes sense to recognize and SUPPORT all the "others".

I'll be honest, government regulation and control are some of the major differences between our political philosophies, in my understanding. You dems typically want MORE government regulation and controls, more oversight, and goodness yes, of course, more social programs. Libertarians typically take a dim view of those priorities, because we dont' trust government, any government. We always want more freedom, some all the way into anarchy. Small government.

In our nation now, neither group trusts this government, or it's regulations, oversights, and controls. The neocons do nothing but gut social programs, programs which ANYONE could see hardly drain our revenues compared to what is being spent in so many other ways. I don't believe there are any libertarians that would say we spend too much on social programs. Hardly.

So really, we don't even disagree, when we stand together and face these neocon monsters. We agree this is a large, inaccountable government that is not representing us. We realize that, between us we might have disagreement over areas like gun control, but we recognize that between us, we have DIALOG. There is interest in mutual agreement, the basis of democracy. The neocons have none of that, and both democrats and libertarians agree it's wrong.

I think both camps must be solidly social liberals, and it makes me agree with "when you think, you go left".