Conservatism Is A Disease

Hey, it has all been explained. The good folks in academia have figured out that "being conservative" is really just a personality defect tied to "hard times". I'm thinking that would mean that they would be inclined to not hold it against folks with an "R" next to their name because maybe us poor folks were just "born that way" like homosexuals, pedophile or  murderers. All of those folks have "no control", so what they do shouldn't have any "judgment" applied to their acts.

Conservatives though, as we see below are authoritarian, dogmatic, can't tolerate ambiguity, need a lot of control, are anxious over death, not open to new experience, risk averse, fraidy cats, etc. I guess the problem is that conservatives are just "bad to the bone" and probably "not fixable". It is clear that when it comes down to i liberal standards are quite high!

Say a nice pedophile though that rapes 8-10 little kids and kills them in some horrible way. Obviously, they are more "open, willing to tolerate ambiguity, not prone to any fixed standards, not worried about any sort of dying or certainly not judgment" ... basically good liberal folks that anyone would be proud to know. Sure, molesting and killing kids could be seen as a "mistake" (at least by the "rigid and close-minded"), BUT, since the liberal mind is so adaptable and willing to change, a short conversation with say a therapist, and anybody but someone that has that irredeemably horrible "R" next to their name would say "good to go"!

Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure,regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification). A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r .50); system stability (.47); dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (–.32); uncertainty tolerance (–.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (–.20); fear of threat and loss (.18); and self-esteem (–.09). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification
of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat.

We regard political conservatism as an ideological belief system
that is significantly (but not completely) related to motivational
concerns having to do with the psychological management of
uncertainty and fear. Specifically, the avoidance of uncertainty
(and the striving for certainty) may be particularly tied to one core
dimension of conservative thought, resistance to change (Wilson,
1973c). Similarly, concerns with fear and threat may be linked to
the second core dimension of conservatism, endorsement of inequality
(Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Although resistance to change
and support for inequality are conceptually distinguishable, we
have argued that they are psychologically interrelated, in part
because motives pertaining to uncertainty and threat are interrelated
(e.g., Dechesne et al., 2000; McGregor et al., 2001; van den
Bos & Miedema, 2000).

I'm not going to give up hope though. I'm thinking if those brilliant liberals can do this kind of research, then a cure has got to be just around the corner! If we could ALL just be flexible, risk taking, open minded, non-judgmental, easy to get along with, able to handle complexity, etc, then things would be GRAND! Actually, I'm pretty sure that they already have it, they may have just forgot for some strange reason. Something around 6-10oz of Scotch over a fairly short period, and I think almost anyone can think EXACTLY like a liberal!